Heading towards Bruny Island on the ferry from Kettering, the island seemed so long that I wasn’t sure if it was a real island. And what is ‘mainland’ to Bruny when Tasmania calls the other big bit of Australia ‘the mainland’?
We land at Roberts Point on North Bruny, the closest to the other side.
Unlike the rest of the disembarking cars and vans, I head as far north as I can go, to Dennes Point.
Dennes Point is a shock, as even after driving about half an hour on corrugated dirt road, I find a suburb. I am told that what were once all ‘shacks’ are now mainlanders’ million-dollar holiday homes.
It is only as I drive down though the heart of this place that I begin to understand how big it is – the size of Singapore, but with only 700 permanent residents. I can’t begin to guess how the tourists swell that number daily. The ferries run non-stop…
I go to Adventure Bay, where people are swimming in that beautifully clear water. I checked; it’s not cold.
Right at the bottom of South Bruny is the now-decommissioned Cape Bruny Lighthouse. The views from up there are spectacular on all sides.
Here I confess that somehow I managed to delete all but these two of those pics! Trust me, the cliffs are steep and rugged.
I camped at Jetty Beach. where the thousands of tiny crabs kept me from walking into the clear shallow water. There was no jetty, by the way.
Nor was there much peace, thanks to a yobbo who played loud music from his ute.
I left early before he could start up again.
Bruny has such a convoluted coastline that many places are close to water; there are hundreds of great views.
The island is so big that it has an internal landscape like the NE Tablelands, big forests of big trees, plains, beaches and coves.
No wonder that Truganini’s tribe, the Nuenonne, numbering around 160 before whites invaded, could live well here. She was born here.
The two halves of Bruny are joined by a narrow strip of land, appropriately called The Neck.
Here there is a monument to Truganini, who in the end was not the last of the Tasmanian aboriigines… their culture continues today.
It is also a Fairy Penguin rookery and I could see many Short-tailed Shearwater (Mutton Bird) burrows.
A fitting end to my taste of Bruny. I needed to go there to better understand its story.
Like all the beauties of Tasmania, a pity about all us tourists…
Hi Sharyn, what a wonderful adventure! I had a trip to Tasmania a long time ago and I loved it. The way you are doing it is great.Love, Monica.
Wow! A fair way to row!
Lovely and educative, as I’ve always wanted to know about that particular island. Fir a long while we had friends living there: they would row between island and Hobart where he worked.