Getting shucked on Bruny

We’ve been on Bruny Island for a few days, and are loving this wonderful island, which has so many different faces.

It’s only a 15-minute vehicular ferry ride from Kettering, so after we arrived we explored the northern part, which is fairly rural, with great little communities on some of the bays. Right at the north, Dennes Point, is a village with a wonderful new community centre/providore/café/gallery.


The boxes of takeaway shucked oysters that we've been
devouring.

 We came south, stopping to buy oysters at the appropriately named Get Shucked, then crossed the narrow isthmus named The Neck to South Bruny. We are at the caravan park at Adventure Bay, which on the day we arrived, looked positively tropical, with clear turquoise water.

It was only after we rounded the point to the east in a wildlife adventure cruise we’d booked for the next day, that we knew we were really in the Tasman Sea.

Admittedly, it was a gusty, rainy day, and we were all equipped with almost ankle-length storm coats. Part of the 48-seat craft was enclosed, but the rain and spray penetrated well into the rest.

We spent two hours exploring the eastern coast of South Bruny, marvelling at its wild beauty, with 200m cliffs and wonderful little sea caves eaten away by the ocean. The skipper found a relatively sheltered cove in which to lower the submarine camera, so we could watch on screen what was happening in the ocean below.

As we went further south the wind got stronger and stronger until the skipper estimated it at 50 knots . . . and we could really feel it as the boat with its four huge outboard motors thumped its way along.



The boys at ease on the Friars rocks off South Bruny.

 A highlight was the southernmost point, where we really knew we were in the Southern Ocean, when we spent some time around the great rock islands on which fur seal males spend most of their year. They migrate north to the mouth of the Tamar to meet their girlfriends once a year, then trot off south again, leaving the girls to bring up the pups.

They were draped over the rocks, barking and snarling, or just snoozing, and the smell was pretty appalling. The younger males were cavorting in the water but the big old fellows just posed on the rocks, probably being pretty used to the daily boats coming their way full of goggle-eyed tourists.

The crew assured us our rough trip was really pretty good, as though we’d had rain and wind, we hadn’t had big swells.

And so back to dry land, where we explored some of the mountainous areas of Bruny Island, and bought some more oysters. The cherries we bought a few days ago are almost gone so we’ll have to restock. There are cherries grown on the island, a cheesery, and what is claimed to be Australia’s southernmost winery.



One of the Bruny Island swans doing a spot of yoga.



Today we headed to the west coast and south to Cape Bruny. This was once again, a really wild part of Tasmania, and only a few kms away from settlements around the pristine beaches. The wind was howling and rain was threatening . . . but we just went a little way further north from the lighthouse (built by convicts in 1836), and all was serene beside one of the many inlets the island coast offers. When we returned to Adventure Bay we explored the Bligh Museum, a fantastic collection of stuff about the major explorers who'd laid anchor in the bay since the 1770s. Bligh even planted fruit trees here and was delighted on a return visit to find one of the apple trees had survived.

Reluctantly tomorrow we’ll make the return ferry crossing, continuing to explore the southern parts of Tasmania.