Tasmania's East Coast Reveals Pink Granite and Turquoise Waters

Tasmania's east coast, stretching from the Freycinet Peninsula in the south to the Bay of Fires in the north, provides a coastal landscape of extraordinary visual quality whose combination of the pink dolerite and pink granite geology, the turquoise water of sheltered bays, and the white sand beaches creates a colour palette that photographers and landscape artists have returned to repeatedly as one of the most photogenic coastlines in the world. The geology's rose-pink and ochre colouring, distinctive of the dolerite and granite that underlie the eastern coast, creates the visual character that distinguishes the Tasmanian east coast from comparable Australian coastal landscapes.

Freycinet National Park, protecting the Freycinet Peninsula and Schouten Island to the south, provides the accessible wilderness experience that the Wineglass Bay lookout and the walk down to the bay have made one of Tasmania's most visited nature destinations. The lookout's elevation above the perfect crescent of Wineglass Bay provides the view that consistently tops the Australian landscape photography rankings and that has made the bay image synonymous with Tasmanian coastal beauty in the international tourism marketing.

The Bay of Fires, the coastline of lichen-stained orange and red granite boulders, turquoise sea, and white shell sand beaches that extends north from Binalong Bay to Eddystone Point, provides the wild coastal environment that the Bay of Fires Walk delivers to the small group of walkers who traverse it on the guided four-day experience that has been one of Australia's most celebrated adventure tourism products since its establishment. The walk's combination of the coast's extraordinary beauty, the quality of the accommodation and food that the wilderness camp and the Mt William homestead provide, and the small group format that allows personal engagement with the guides and the landscape creates the premium nature tourism experience that Tasmania's landscapes can sustain.

The Binalong Bay community, the coastal village at the Bay of Fires' southern access point, has been transformed by the bay's tourism success into one of Tasmania's most sought-after coastal real estate markets, with the holiday homes and permanent residents who have established in the village competing for the limited building lots that the national park boundaries and coastal hazard protections restrict. The village's character, a small fishing and holiday community that has been discovered by mainland buyers attracted by the Bay of Fires name, is managing the development of its visitor economy while maintaining the qualities that made it attractive.