Recently I had the joy of a three day, two night Schouten Island trip, camping on the beach in the summer with close friends. This place was a little slice of paradise, and I think it’s one of Tasmania’s best kept secrets. Here are some details about how to organise a trip so you too can enjoy camping on Schouten Island!
Getting There
We got the water taxi over to Schouten on a Friday around 10am after driving up from Hobart that morning. The water taxi is operated by Freycinet Adventures and is $105pp for the return trip. The taxi to Schouten Island is a 30 minute journey one way and usually departs twice daily, dependent on weather and demand. It also requires pre-booking as it only has a capacity of approximately 10 people with camping gear.
Camping on the beach
The campsites at Schouten Island are basic, cleared areas under she-oaks along Crockett’s Beach where the water taxi drops you off. This beach is the only place on Schouten Island where camping is allowed and this is enforced by volunteer rangers who patrol the island. I don’t really see why anyone would want to camp anywhere else, as the campsite location is beautiful.
As you don’t have to walk far (maybe between 50 and 100m) from the water taxi drop off point to your campsite, you can bring a decent amount of camping gear and have a well set up camp. We brought a camping table and camping chairs and snorkelling gear, as well as our tents and personal gear. The group next to us had loads of gear and it seemed like they had packed a whole camp kitchen! You don’t have to pack light.
You’ll also need to bring all of your own water, as there is no readily available fresh water on Schouten Island. We budgeted 1 10L bladder per person and that was enough for us for two nights and three days in summer. As it’s part of Freycinet National Park, you technically need a Parks Pass to be on Schouten Island (although we didn’t have anyone check) and campfires are strictly not allowed.
There are two drop toilets located up bush tracks close to the beach. These are well maintained by volunteer rangers based on the island. The beach also has mobile reception with most mobile networks. Mobile reception is usually the last thing I look for in a campsite (especially when there are rangers nearby), but I understand it may be useful for some people’s situations!
A hot tip is to camp on the northern end of the beach to make sure your campsite gets the longest amount of afternoon / evening sun and has the best view of the sunset.
Swimming, snorkelling and rock hopping
When we arrived at Schouten Island, the water was so calm and inviting that I stripped down into my bathers and dove into the water before we had even begun to set up the tents. It was also warm by Tasmanian standards, as we visited in late summer.
Crockett’s Beach is prone to changing breezes, and yachts that moor in the region are famous for doing the ‘Schouten shuffle’ between Schouten Island and a nearby beach on the Freycinet Peninsula depending on which beach has the on-shore breeze. Due to this, at times, the beach got a little choppy. However, it was always startingly clear and warm enough that I ended up swimming six times on our three day visit, including once in my clothes because it just looked so good and felt so nice on my toes that I walked straight in for a swim, even though I was fully dressed at the time!
On our trip, conditions were also suitable (but not fantastic) for me to go snorkelling around the rocks on the northern end of Crockett’s Beach. Even though it was February, I still appreciated my wetsuit when staying in the water that long. I saw quite a wide range of fish amongst seaweedy rocks, including parrot fish, flounder, rock cod and leather jackets. The conditions were very safe and kid friendly for snorkelling and the water was fairly shallow with a clear sandy bottom in most places.
The shoreline in the same section of the beach was great for rock hopping and had rounded granite boulders iced with sunset coloured lichen as is typical of East Coast Tasmania. I took a tin mug of spiced rum with me on our rock hopping romp and had a great time channeling my inner pirate.
Bear Hill walk
Close to the creek that runs onto the beach is a signposted track to Bear Hill. The walk up to Bear Hill takes approximately 40 minutes one way and provides wonderful views over all of Schouten Island and back over the Freycinet Peninsula. It’s a similar walk to Mt. Amos in regard to geology and scenery, but on an easier and shorter scale. It’s the must do walk on Schouten Island. Be prepared for wind at the top as it’s very exposed. Along the walk we saw lots of wildflowers in bloom, including large duck orchids.
Two other mountain hikes can be done on Schouten Island that are much longer. These are both poorly marked and not well maintained, so we did not attempt them on our trip.
Visit to Morey’s Hut
On our second day on Schouten Island, we set out to explore more of the island. We headed over the track from Crockett’s Beach to Morey’s Beach (which is only a few minutes long) and visited Morey’s Hut, roughly half way down Morey’s Beach.
Volunteer rangers maintain the hut which has been converted into an information centre. I highly recommend stopping in here to learn more about Schouten Island when you visit and to have a chat to the rangers.
The volunteer rangers were lovely when we visited and highly recommended the volunteer program (you can volunteer to be stationed on Schouten Island for a minimum of two weeks at a time with one other person). They even showed us their private accommodation, which consisted of fixed standing room tents with stretcher beds on a clearing in the bush close to Morey’s Hut. They were able to access fresh water via a water tank (not for tourists, just for volunteers) by the hut and use the cooking facilities inside the hut to store and prepare their food.
The volunteers gave us directions for heading onwards up Chinese Creek to the nearby waterfall via a mine shaft. They also told us that Schouten Island has some resident stingrays that like to play in the waves close to shore at dusk along Morey’s beach.
Sure enough, later that day as we walked along the beach back towards our camp, we could see them moving like shadows through the water.
Visit to a waterfall and a natural infinity pool with an ocean view
From Morey’s Hut we made our way to the historic mine shaft in an old paddock on the island, from when it used to be inhabited by farmers. It wasn’t much to see and just looked like a large hole in the ground. Then we made our way further along the track into the bush and walked along the side of the hill until the path veered in two – uphill and downhill. We took the lower track first, which sent us walking up along the creek bed to the base of the waterfall.
From here, the top of the waterfall could not be accessed but it was nice to see it from the bottom as well, although the flow was very low when we visited. We then retraced our steps back to the fork in the path and made our way up the track to the top of the waterfall. The view from up here was fantastic and we had the spot all to ourselves to sunbake on the rocks and cool off in the rock pools. I don’t think there are many spots in Tasmania quite like this one.
Seal and sea eagle spotting
On the Sunday, we got the morning water taxi back to Coles Bay. As the water was smoother than on our trip to Schouten Island, our boat captain kindly included some detours for us to see local sea eagles, their nests and some local seal hangouts with very chill seals along the way. It was a really nice free perk of the trip back and a great way to finish our trip to beautiful Schouten Island.
