Description

Formerly known as Waubs Boat Harbour, Bicheno was established as a whaling centre in 1803. The town was named after James Ebenezer Bicheno and expanded in 1854 with the discovery of coal in the Denison River.

Tasmania is a large island that lies off south east Australia. While Tasmania's south and west coasts are exposed to winds and swells that build up over thousands of kilometres in the Southern and Indian Oceans, Bicheno is located on the east coast, which is much more sheltered and faces onto an extension of the Pacific called the Tasman Sea.

Bicheno is a small holiday and fishing town on the east coast of Tasmania, roughly halfway between Hobart and Launceston. This part of Tasmanias coastline, known as the Sun Coast, boasts the warmest climate and the most sunshine in Tasmania. The area around Bicheno has uncrowded sandy beaches, spectacular granite headlands and numerous rocky islands washed by the Tasman Sea.

Bicheno has mild weather, with an average maximum of 21 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit) in January and 14.5 degrees Celsius (48 degrees Fahrenheit) in June. You definitely need a good 7mm wetsuit, with attached hood, to dive these waters comfortably, and drysuits are becoming popular for winter diving.

Bicheno has many fully protected marine areas so the marine creatures like southern rock lobster (crayfish) are often huge and very tame. Rocky reef areas in shallow water are almost always covered by kelp and other types of algae.

Tasmania has a very diverse range of underwater plants, and in places you can swim through spectacular underwater forests of the giant kelp.

Deeper reef areas are home to a multitude of sponges and other colourful invertebrates. Between autumn and spring the waters around Bicheno are frequently visited by Australian fur seals, humpback whales,  whales, orcas, southern right whales and pods of bottlenose dolphins.

At depths greater than about 25 metres in the Governor Marine Reserve, rocky reef areas become covered by sponges, anemones and other colourful invertebrates. The water seems to be filled with fish and the visibility is rarely less than 15 metres and often greater than 25 metres. During winter visibility greater than 30 metres is not uncommon. In shallower water, there are a few small caves, which have a living wallpaper of colourful sponges and other animals. While there are some reasonable shore dives, the better dives and the marine reserve itself are best accessed by boat.

But you cannot leave Bichenos without diving  - dive between 25 to 40m - the most famous dive sites The Golden Bommies. These two 10 m-tall pinnacles, found in 40m of water are fully covered in sea whips, sponges, ascidians, bryozoan, and masses of yellow zoanthids. These sites are so amizing that you could spend hours photographing the invertebrate species sea stars, nudibranchs, basket stars, shrimp, crabs, sea spiders, molluscs and cuttlefish.

WDR.