Stephanie's Words: BOUNTIFUL BRUNY ISLAND

Mysterious Tunnels To The Other Side

We had planned on taking the van across on the ferry to Bruny Island but somewhere along the way we changed our minds and decided to take the Adventure Tour to Bruny and then at a slightly later date, take the Cruiser across on the ferry and simply do a ‘drive around’. We have yet to do the drive around, but we have done the Bruny Island Adventure Tour. Despite the fairly high cost of around $190 per head we thoroughly enjoyed our day and would happily recommend it to anyone visiting Tasmania.

Leaving the Hobart Wharf Early in the Morn

We caught the bus to Hobart early in the morning. Very early in fact, we boarded the bus at 6.50am on a cold and frosty New Norfolk morning. These buses have been an absolute revelation. The drivers are wonderfully old fashioned, polite, helpful and full of good advice. Something sadly you just don’t see enough of at home anymore. One of these days I will do a blog, just about Tassie and Tasmanians in general, in brief and just for now though, suffice to say ‘old fashioned values’ still apply down here and people are generally very friendly. So..............we caught the bus, and then listened delightedly as everyone on the bus proceeded to talk to everyone else, including us. Very country! Very pleasant! Due to the fact that the trip in to Hobart is a fairly long one, the commuter buses are more like coaches and quite comfy. We arrived in a still sleepy Hobart just before 8 and took ourselves down to the waterfront to sign in for our cruise.

Giant Kelp Forrests alongside Dark Tunnels and Underwater Caves

The first thing they did was hand us a fairly scary piece of paper where we pretty much had to sign our lives away. Frankly, we thought they should do this when they sell you the ticket, not just before you board the boat. Basically the papers declared that we had no major medical defects and that we would not hold them responsible if we died or became mortally injured during the day’s adventures. Great!!! Nothing like signing that sort of thing just before boarding a boat – doesn’t exactly imbue you with confidence. Of course, all these companies are doing this these days in order to try to avoid any litigation in the event of misadventure. Personally, I rather doubt these papers would hold water in a court of law. Perhaps their true purpose is to act as deterrents to some potential and or ‘professional’ litigants.

The second thing they did was to hand out a great big raincoat to everyone. Not just any raincoat, but these were more like big rainproof wet- weather great-coats. Most had seen better days, but they were warm and pretty weather proof. This was a fair indication that they expected us to get wet before the day was out.

Magnificent and Ancient Rocky Cliffs

The first stage of our adventure was a sedate 45 minute cruise on the Derwent Estuary and D’Entrecasteau to Bruny Island in one of Tasmania’s wonderful big catamarans. We have since been told that these cats are built on the Derwent just north of Hobart and sell for around $1m per metre. We have seen them before at Strahan and sitting at the dock in Hobart ready for cruising up the Derwent to MONA. It would appear that their main market is Tasmania’s own tourist industry! The cruise to Bruny was pleasant albeit a little too cold and windy to get outdoors to take photos. DD, being the intrepid bloke that he is, did go out to the stern and take a couple of shots of Hobart Harbour disappearing in our wake, but even he didn’t brave the cold conditions for long. I made the mistake of heading out to the bow to take a shot or two from there, but was very quickly blown back inside the well appointed dry and warm interior of the cat.

Crossing the Narrow Spit

We arrived promptly at Bruny and were bundled onto a couple of small coaches for a brief bus tour of part of the island. We drove through fairly dry farm land, over the narrow spit that joins the north to the south of the island and into heavily forested hilly country. The north island has minimal annual rain fall, while the south part of the island has one of the wettest climates in Tasmania – odd, considering their very close proximity to each other! Just by the by Bruny is close on 100 kilometres long – making it a substantial island indeed. One the way we stopped and picked up some fresh oysters to go with our lunch, and again to pick up some local cheeses to add to our repast. Eventually we pulled up alongside a small jetty where a very natty vessel awaited us. It is described in the literature as a ‘state of the art coastal expedition vessel’. We were told by the doting skipper about the horsepower of the engines and all the sort of stuff that you blokes would find interesting. Oh hang on, DD is telling me it had no less than 4 V8 outboards. Suffice to say, it had big engines and was, due to its design, able to get in very close to the rocky and dangerous shore-line. The rear of the vessel was under cover whilst the front half was open to the elements. This was the ‘adventure’ part of the deal.

Close in to the Rocks

The ‘adventure’ boat was a reasonable size and accommodated us all quite well. We were technically supposed to strap ourselves in, but this didn’t seem to last for very long as we constantly stopped to take photos of the amazing coastline. We were fairly blessed as although we did have some rain (which arrived like small ice bullets), the swell that day was only around one and a half metres. This meant a reasonably smooth ride, or so we were told. I guess all these things are relative, and I suppose, relative to say a 6 metre swell, the ride was smooth. For those of us unused to such experiences tho’, smooth was perhaps a slightly off-beat way to describe the journey. It was a lot of fun tho’ and not so rough as to be scary or to make folk sea-sick. It was just very hard to stand and take a decent photo without lurching into the back or lap of some unsuspecting passenger. We did lose quite a few hats and caps with the strong winds that blew up while we were at sea. The weather whilst not bad, was considerably worse than they had forecast.

Sensational Formations

We spent around 2 and a half hours out in the adventure boat and in that time saw some stunning rocky coastal formations and cliffs. Ancient rock formations formed formidable cliffs and sheer rock walls along the primitive coastline. Many times we were presented with rocky arches through which we could see the restive ocean on the other side. At one place we stopped to see the ocean ‘breathing’ – this is a spectacular phenomenon where underwater caves capture the surging waves and spew out vast quantities of froth and foam high into the salty air. Many sea-birds graced the skies around us, including spectacular albatross. We also were up close and personal with a colony of beautiful fur seals and some rare flying penguins. We had quite good commentary for both cruises and the young fella conducting the commentary vowed that they were flying penguins so who am I to dispute his obviously greater knowledge. Hmmmm.

Colony of 'Flying Penguins'

Finally we were taken back to the jetty to disembark, cold but happy after our adventure. From there, back in the coaches to our luncheon destination, where we had a very acceptable lunch of cold frittata, damper, salad and samples of fresh Bruny oysters, local cheeses and local fudge. Not too shabby at all; from there, back on the coaches, back to the cat and a pleasant and warmer cruise back into Hobart.

About as Far South as Australia Goes

If we had any criticism at all of the day it was one we would make of many of these cruises/tours. Once they have you on the homeward track, they tend to forget about you. The young fellow who was doing the commentary became engrossed in conversation with his mate and didn’t even bid his passengers good-bye or thank us for our attendance – this in turn made it difficult for us to thank him as he was not available. It just felt unfinished and a little un-professional. I have to say that when you are spending pretty much $400 for the day, you do expect a reasonably high level of service – they let themselves down at the end. Even on the adventure boat, our guide was more interested in talking to the skipper than to his guests. The lunch also could have been done better as we guests were pretty much left to our own devices and the service etc was basic. The trip was good and was worth doing, but lacked a bit of polish – certainly just re-reading the brochure just now, I was amused at the difference between the amazing events and food described therein compared with the very enjoyable but not quite so glamorous day we experienced.

Mates Just Lazing Around

When we disembarked at around 3.40 we were able to stroll up to our bus stop in good time for the bus home. It was a longish day and due to the nature of the adventure boat we were not able to get our usual quality of photos, but it was good nevertheless. We are looking forward to our ‘drive around’ Bruny in Zed when we will definitely reacquaint ourselves with those delectable Bruny oysters. We have been told we can pick them up for around $8 per dozen and trust me, they are worth it. Until our next adventure stay centred and enjoy clear sailing! Stephanie.