Creating Freycinet Experience Walk
‘It was a beautiful thing to guide people on that trip.’ – Reuben Wells, former Freycinet Experience Walk guide
The first Freycinet Experience Walk guests set their boots to the track in the summer of 1992. In the early days, family and friends were recruited as ‘guinea pigs’ on the four-day guided walk – a beautifully curated experience that combined Freycinet’s beaches, forests, and mountains with an immersive experience of art, conversation, food, and nature at Friendly Beaches Lodge.
The choice of the words ‘Freycinet Experience’ reflected Joan’s ethos that her guests were embarking on much more than a walking trip. She was pioneering a new kind of tourism; one that offered a deeper connection with Tasmania’s unique and precious values.
Guests walking down Quartzite Ridge to Wineglass Bay
‘Joan wanted people to have a rich experience,’ says Margie Jenkin, Environmental Philanthropy Manager, Nature, at the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network (AEGN), and an early Lodge host, tour coordinator and guide with Freycinet Experience. ‘She enabled that by providing good company, great guides, and premium Tasmanian food in this beautiful place. Beyond that, she wanted people to reflect on their own values and to feel enlivened by their experience, because I think Friendly Beaches really enlivened her.’
The early trips were a journey around the Freycinet Peninsula. Guests were taken on board the Naturaliste from Coles Bay into the national park, to embark on their first guided walk to Bryan's Beach before spending the night at the Cooks Beach standing camp. The second day offered a choice of walking routes – along the coast or over Mt Graham. The group would reunite at the end of the trail and travel by bus to Bluestone Bay for the second night’s camp. The next morning, guests walked together from Bluestone Bay to South Friendly Beach, and on to their final night at Friendly Beaches Lodge.
The Lodge offered a stunning conclusion to the experience. Inside Joan’s simple, elegantly crafted interior guests were welcomed by their Lodge hosts and nurtured with delicious food, art, books, warm fires, and conversation. The Lodge itself extended a feeling of being embraced by nature, with boardwalks through the forest connecting the buildings. Glass doors opened wide onto timber decks, allowing sunlight, birdsong, and the sound of the sea to drift inside. A vast communal dining table could be moved onto the deck on fine days, for lingering al fresco meals.
Joan had a knack for finding exceptional people to join Freycinet Experience Walk as guides and Lodge hosts. She sought out ‘Friendly Beaches people’ who shared her values of integrity, a genuine empathy for the Tasmanian landscape, an affinity for the natural world, and a love of good conversation. She was also committed to recruiting and developing young Tasmanians, particularly her guides.
The effect of the walk on guests was often profound.
‘It was a beautiful thing to guide people on that trip,’ says former guide, Reuben Wells. ‘For some people, it was transformative to be in that environment and experience something that they otherwise wouldn't be able to access.
‘You saw people change over the four days of that journey – an internal unwinding would happen. By changing pace and focus and learning how to look at what was around them, they would find themselves opening up to the place emotionally. You’d see people walking along the beach on the final day of their walk, literally in tears, and they wouldn’t even know why.’
Reuben believes that the human brain has evolved to process the world at walking speed.
‘That's how we've travelled for a very, very long time, and we don't often do that in our normal day-to-day lives.’
Over its first five years, Freycinet Experience Walk developed a reputation as one of Australia’s finest ecotourism experiences. Joan and Ken co-managed the business alongside Cradle Huts and between them, fostered a new era for tourism and placed Tasmania squarely on the map as a world-class ecotourism destination.
In 1997, Ken and Joan decided to end their partnership, with Ken retaining Cradle Huts, and Joan taking custodianship of Freycinet Experience Walk and Friendly Beaches Lodge. A new era of Freycinet Experience Walk began, with Joan Masterman wholeheartedly at the helm.
