Maria Island

Another ferry ride to an island, but this time as a passenger only. I am heading to Maria Island for the day so I can get an idea of why people talk about it so much. I was unsure if I would, as it is basically the ruins of a convict probation station (1842).

I was convinced by learning that there is no shop at all there … for anything, food, drink, souvenirs… and no vehicles allowed for visitors except bikes.

This young wombat was right by the road, setting my day off to a good start.

The road passes through an avenue of enormous and relatively ancient (almost 200 years) fir trees … the kind of settler legacy I have to be impressed by, as they are so very big.

A mature wombat ambles up the bank and across the road, ignoring me.

The windswept nature of the island was symbolised by this lone and humble little cottage, once Ruby Hunt’s, and its attendant struggling trees.

Not being a cyclist, I am only doing the shorter walks, like along Hopground Beach to the Painted Cliffs, where I learn that access is restricted due to geological issues.

We have been warned to leave any middens alone. The Puthikwilayti people of the Oyster Bay tribe visited this island over 40,000 years, until the whalers and sealers came in the 1800s. 

The British set up their penal probation colony in 1825. It wasn’t very successful, as prisoners could escape, and kept doing it… unlike from Sarah Island.

The scooped and scalloped layers are beautiful, although I cannot see the reason for ‘painted’. But likely they are further around, currently inaccessible; photos show quite stunning colours and patterns.

My walk takes me past the Oasthouse, where the remains of two round hop drying kilns demonstrate the bricklaying skills of the past. I am most interested in the patterns of the bricklaying.

As always, the higher and less fertile parts were less cleared, and the eucalypt forests, regrowth or not, are encouraging and calming.

I am struck by these teeny plants on the side of the track, looking like pale starfish, or daisy chain crochet stitches.

Buildings that were for grander purposes than Ruby’s home are still in fair or good condition. Many are used as basic accommodation; you can book to stay.

But for me the ones that attract are more for the patterns their ruins make than for the  elegance that the ruling classes enjoyed.

I want to walk to the Fossil Cliffs, but a gander from the island’s large population of Cape Barren Geese had other ideas, hissing and honking at me. Once the second rarest goose in the world, they were introduced to Maria in the 1970s and thrive here, helping the marsupials keep the native grass mown and fertilised.

I grew up with domestic geese, so I know to be wary…

After a picnic lunch in front of the convict barn, geese gone, I visit the desolate cemetery. Only one convict, a Maori, was buried here; the rest only got timber crosses elsewhere.

A small group of Forester Kangaroos, also introduced here in the ‘70s, are resting as I pass. I learn they are actually Eastern Greys, which I do know.

The Fossil Cliffs are wild and spectacular, and the part I can access was once a quarry.

It is hard to believe that such rich geological treasure was treated as a mere source of rocks. You cannot see a section that is not almost totally made of shellfish fossils. I know little about fossils, but as links to our distant pasts they have to be respected.

As our ferry leaves Maria Island, I am glad I came, so that I now have a concept of its mountains and cliffs, its bays and rolling slopes, but also feel the sadness that always follows such evidence of displacement, of colonisation and invasion, of clearing, of failed undertakings…

But I am glad it’s been a national park since 1972, and that it’s not been ‘developed’ as a tourism attraction in the way that Bruny Island has. Its natural beauty and its past seem enough to attract visitors.