Day 300: Oyster Farm
Day 300. November 1st. Two months left.
Just, wow.
More data: 67 flights, 26 countries and 87 places we’ve stayed overnight.
And still going strong!
I’ve been marking places of interest along the way on Google Maps — hotels, restaurants, sites, etc. Here’s the zoomed out view.
Day 300 was a ton of fun.
After our memorable and bizzaro Nats World Series Victory Halloween in suburban Launceston we didn’t arrive here in Freycinet until around 10:30pm last night. (Btw, Freycinet is pronounced Fray-snay. Could have used a pronunciation guide of town names in Tassie. Got em all wrong.)
I got up and took a little hike around the area, checked out Honeymoon Beach and Richardson Beach.
We did breakfast in the big, modern sorta off-brand lobby / restaurant area. James and I went back to our cabin for school while Willa and Margaret stayed in the lobby lounge.
We grabbed a quick lunch at Geographe Cafe in nearby Coles Bay then headed to Freycinet Marine Farm for our 1pm Oyster Bay Tour.
Declan was our guide: likable, great energy, excited about his job and the oyster farm. Seems to genuinely love the craft of farming oysters but surprisingly doesn’t like to eat them. He’s a fan of mussels.
We were joined by Mari and Richie — two honeymooners, just married on Saturday. They’re from Sydney but recently relocated to Melbourne.
We all put on our waders and headed out to the farm.
We originally thought one grownup would have to stay on the beach but we were only going about 100 yards out so we both went and left the kids playing on the beach by themselves. There was no issue at all — they had a blast.
Declan walked us through the whole process of farming oysters: they buy the babies, then every few months they grow at different speeds so they have to separate out small, medium and large groups. Some slow growers are brought out further into the ocean for a final stage.
The oysters they far are only sold at their little family owned restaurant on the premiers. But they apparently kill it — sometimes selling up to 300 dozen in a day. Supposedly they do really great business with tourists in from Hong Kong. Big groups that love their oysters.
Declan expertly shucked one for each of us out there in the water. Soooo delicious.
Back on land we headed over to a few barrels set up as standing tables. We were given a shucking lesson, then got 12 oysters per couple with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
Willa has eaten oysters before and she had one. The shocker of the day was James taking down two with a complete poker face. Who is this kid?
When the oysters were done, Declan brought out the steamed mussels. These were similarly amazing.
We could have stayed there for another dozen (and bottle!) or two.
This was one of several Tasmania Highlights. We’re already thinking about finding another experience like this in New Zealand, ideally on the South Island when Margaret’s oyster loving dad can join us.
Back home we all showered up and headed down to the Lodge restaurant for dinner and sundowners out on the deck.
This was a great end to a fun day… until Willa and James had a disruptive scuffle and I grabbed an exhausted and delusional James by the arm to keep him from running around the lobby, which upset both him and Willa. They both melted down on the way back to the cabin. They were super tired, but this was my fault — I definitely overreacted. But soon we were in bed, I apologized for getting too frustrated and we cuddled up to read Ramona Quimby.
MISC:
We had some fun chats with our oyster tour buddies Declan, Mari and Richie. We were talking about Australian slang. They told us to check out the Simpsons episode when they go to Australia and the “Mate” YouTube Series.
Other slang we’ve learned:
Shmik (swanky)
Mystery bag (sausage)
Chockers (busy)
