Our Story

A walking experience founded on a passion for sustainability and a love of the Freycinet Peninsula.

Our Freycinet Experience Walk is the passion project of Joan Masterman, a former town planner and lover and protector of Tasmania’s vulnerable wild places.

Joan established the experience in 1992, alongside architect, Ken Latona. Ken and Joan were an environmentally conscientious team and had previously worked together to establish Tasmania’s first hut-based guided walk along the renowned Overland Track (Cradle Mountain), known as the Cradle Huts Walk. In 1992, five years after the pair’s initial foray into eco-tourism, Joan and Ken established their second multi-day walking experience; a four-day coastal experience based out of a sustainably designed and award-winning eco-lodge hidden within the Freycinet National Park. This experience was primarily focused on working with the creatures, conditions and contours of the Friendly Beaches coastline and became the Freycinet Experience Walk that we share today. To this end, in 2019 we were overjoyed to celebrate with Joan when she was awarded an Order of Australia in recognition of her ‘significant contribution to Tourism in Tasmania and to conservation and the environment’.

At the time of construction, Ken and Joan’s design of Friendly Beaches Lodge was at the forefront of holistically sustainable architecture. The eco-lodge was built solely on previously disturbed land (to prevent degradation + reduce environmental impact), is minimalist in its design, following the contours of the coastal landscape and blending into its environment with its timber exterior, and is completely off-grid in its operation. Tucked away in a forest of kunzea and sheoak, the lodge is but 100 paces from the coastline, yet completely invisible from the beach. The pair’s intention was, and remains, to offer walkers an understated but comfortable place of rest where they can experience a closeness to nature with minimal interventions to the site’s ecology.

In the years following its conception, Joan became the sole owner and operator of the Freycinet Experience Walk and the Friendly Beaches Lodge, and she has worked to keep the experience a family affair ever since.

In 2016, Joan was delighted to include her grandson, Isaac, in her team of nature guiding experts! Joan’s focus on family is evident throughout the project and is reflected in the closeness of the team with the lodge, the business’ ethos, and, with each other. A true testament to the genuine love for place and experience, is the regular references to feelings of family and home and our team’s warmth and passion noted in the feedback offered by our guests. Continuing Joan’s commitment to working gently with our natural spaces, the Freycinet Experience Team offer a mindful, sustainable, advanced eco-certified and low waste walking experience. We limit departures to twice weekly, group sizes to ten, and do most of our exploring by foot. Our team practice leave no trace principles and take time to care for the land they move through (ask about our collection of marine debris and conservation work completed at neighbouring Saltwater Lagoon!).

To this day, Joan’s love of the Friendly Beaches and Freycinet Peninsula continues. Whenever Joan visits the lodge, she cannot resist a dip in the exhilarating waters of Friendly Beaches! Joan is thrilled to welcome walkers to the wilderness experiences curated by her team, the aim of which will always be ‘to share Friendly Beaches’ beauty with others and help ensure it remains as is for generations to come’.

Finally, hear from Joan has she recounts her thoughts on subjects such as the walk, Friendly Beaches, the native wildlife and the lodge’s library.