Bruny Island, TAS

Bruny Island is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Tasmania, and so we took a few days off work and went to stay on the island for three nights. The island is only accessible by ferry, but it’s a short twenty minute crossing. It’s also not that far from Hobart, which makes it a prime tour bus and day trip destination. We set off from Kingston after breakfast and were on the island by around 9:30am.

Our first impressions were that it was far too busy. After disembarking and buying some cherries, we stopped at the Bruny Island Cheese Company where we decided it was too busy to do anything other than buy a coffee! Our next stop was the lookout point at ‘the neck’ – the narrow isthmus that joins the north and south parts of Bruny Island. It was so busy that there weren’t even any parking spaces left and we had to circle around and wait for somebody to leave…

By the time we checked in to our holiday cottage – which was in a fairly peaceful location away from the main busy areas, things felt a bit calmer. We worked out that there were certain spots which were always very crowded, but that there were also a fair few nice peaceful places on the island as well.

We had good weather for the whole time that we were there, and ended up really enjoying our stay – doing walks at Fluted Cape, the Labillardiere Peninsula Walk, and Cape Queen Elizabeth walk. We also managed to visit Adventure Bay quite a few times to walk on the long beaches and look for the famous albino wallabies of Bruny Island, as well as a quick trip to Cape Bruny Lighthouse after one of the walks.

Near where we stayed was the famous ‘bread fridge’ where you can buy freshly baked bread via an honesty box system, and on the day that we left we managed a stop at Inala Botanical Gardens for a bit of birdwatching.