Tasmania 6 – Bruny Island

Blue: the roads we covered, green: the boat/ferry trips and a tiny but beautiful part of Tasmania red: our hikes

We started early and had breakfast at the Steamhouse Café in Kettering, the town from where the ferry leaves. Excellent coffee and toasted sandwiches! By 9am we already drove off the ferry onto Bruny Island!

We headed straight down the bottom of the island and secured a nice camp spot at Jetty Beach. Recommend being early for camp spots in Tasmania as they are free or only $15 a night and fill up quick, especially in holiday season.

From the camp you can do the Labillardiere Peninsula Circuit – it says 16km but its more like 18km. I recommend to do the walk clockwise – starting at the carpark and finishing at the beach because the first half takes you along an old 4WD track with no view of the ocean and the 2^nd half is very rewarding with the views.

On the first half we spotted an Echidna which made it interesting. They look quite different to the mainland Echidnas in colour and size. (This is a link to my youtube channel Ma Lu’s Adventures – it didn’t let me upload the video to the blog…).

You walk up a steep hill (Mount Bleak) before you reach the halfway point at Butlers Beach – the tip of the Peninsula. After a rest and snack under some trees we tackled the way nicer half of the hike. It’s incredibly beautiful with some sections along the beach and some through the forest, you can see the water all the time. With the monocular we made out a seal chilling on the floating fish farm and we encountered another Echidna and the usual Tiger snake of course.

Back at camp we went for a freezing but very refreshing swim. While cooking dinner we met another fellow camper. We caught up with him and his friend at their campfire after dinner. When we were ready to retire to bed after a fantastic first day on Bruny our neighbours – a friendly bunch of backpackers who just finished the cherry harvest – were still going strong with music and fire twirling. We decided to join them instead of being annoyed by the noise. It was a fun night and rather late when we finally hit the mattress.

In the morning while making coffee I heard an animal rustling in the bush. First I thought it was just one of the birds digging for insects but then I got curious and not only saw the Antechinus, I even managed to get a half decent shot with the phone! They are very elusive, and I am so happy I got to see one.

Then we walked up to the lighthouse which provides a great view over the south coast which is not accessible apart from Cloudy Bay.

In Adventure Bay we had an amazing curry at the café. After that we explored the bay and went to the Penguin House – expecting it to be a penguin sanctuary. It turned out to be the start point of the Bruny Island Cruises! We enquired about the tour and scored a seat on the last boat of the day which was leaving just minutes later. A very spontaneous and random thing to do but it was so worth it!

A great crew was guiding us along the whole southwest coast – where you can’t get to by car or foot – all the way to the Friars.

The views were amazing and the crew shared a lot of interesting information about the area. The most baffling was the information about the Kelp which we apparently consume daily in foods, shampoos and even beer!!

At the Friars there is a seal colony. It was good fun seeing them fighting, jumping in the water and having a curious look at us. The weather had changed by then and it was rainy and choppy waters but we had them warm ponchos they provided and they kept us warm and dry.

After the magnificent boat cruise the sky cleared up and we went for a rather freezing dip at the beach before heading back to camp.

On the way we saw a very distressed woman in a driveway. We stopped and learned that there had been an accident with a Tasmanian Native Hen and a passing car. The turbo chook – as locals call it – was injured and we called the local Wildlife Help line. We waited for help to arrive with a cardboard box so it could be safely transported to a vet.

We cooked the remaining oysters a la Kilpatrick on the BBQ before we strolled along the beach to the lookout on the Neck from where you can see the Fairy Penguins waddling ashore after a long day fishing. We waited patiently on the crowded platform but gave up a couple hours after sunset. To avoid disturbing any penguins – if there were any – we walked back along the road.

Several days later on our travels we found out why we didn’t see any Little Blue Penguins – in January a tour operator from Bicheno had cancelled all tours due to a rapid decline of penguins along the East Coast. To their knowledge the decline is directly related to a rise in the ocean temperature and depletion of food supply.

On our last day on Bruny Island, we explored the northern part of the island. We stopped at the Plant Quarantine station and read some of the history about the place.

It used to be a human quarantine facility until the end of WWII. Every returning soldier had to quarantine for one week before being allowed to go home. The Influenza Pandemic in 1919 was the busiest period with 9000 troops quarantined at the station which was equipped for 300 people!

In 1950 it was turned into a plant quarantine station. Plants brought in from the mainland or overseas had to go through this station to ensure they didn’t carry any bugs or diseases that could spread in Tasmania. To ensure that seeds were grown at the station and released to the importer after they had been declared disease free.

From there we headed south again and walked the Cape Queen Elizabeth Track. We decided to walk it clockwise which was better with the hill climb. If we’d have walked it anticlockwise though we would have noticed that the tide was in and the beach track not passable. We managed to get back along the beach anyway. Half of the track we climbed along and up the cliff until my partner found a cave with an opening to the other side so we could continue on. It was adventurous and fun.

Back at camp we had a new experience of a different kind…

Some backpackers arrived and seemed a bit undecided where to park. We offered to move the ute so they could get past us to another clearing. They declined and said ‘we are probably gone earlier than you in the morning’. A couple hours later more and more backpackers arrived and started to park everywhere, including behind us. We wondered how we will get out in the morning, but thought, they said ‘they will be gone before us’.

Well, we weren’t exceptionally early when we left, but they were all still there. We packed up and no one made an attempt to make space for us. In the end I had to ask a few to move and / or shut doors in order for us to squeeze out past them.

No worries, just different.

We had another coffee at the ferry terminal while we waited for the next ferry.

And back on mainland Tasmania we were, heading to the Eastcoast and hopefully warmer and dryer weather 😉

Explored Feb ’25, written March ’25