Take a day trip and experience Bruny Island’s natural beauty, rare wildlife, and award-winning local delicacies. Photo / Robert King Visuals
Take a day trip and experience Bruny Island’s natural beauty, rare wildlife, and award-winning local delicacies. Photo / Robert King Visuals
Located at the southern tip of Tasmania, a day trip to Bruny Island serves up a beautiful bounty of fresh produce and natural splendour, without the crowds. Perfect for holidaymakers seeking peace, writes Cath Johnsen
Words like “untouched paradise” are often slung around carelessly, but if eating freshly shucked oysters on a deserted beach, even in the height of summer, is your kind of utopia, it seems an apt description for Tasmania’s Bruny Island.
Spanning north and south land masses joined by an isthmus, Bruny Island is almost three-quarters the size of Singapore, and yet it has only 700 permanent residents, compared to Singapore’s six million.
Dotted around its more than 300km of largely unpopulated coastline are rustic holiday shacks, caravan parks, tiny homes and even a luxe retreat to house a swell of tourists over the warmer months.
But I’m just here for the day to soak up the island’s tranquil environs and savour its good food with Tassie Tours, led by our local guide and former chef, Andrew. He has spent many a summer on Bruny, camped out with relatives in the backyard of his family’s holiday cottage, gorging themselves on feasts of fish, abalone, mussels and oysters that he and his family hand-caught and harvested.
The island’s 300 km coastline is dotted with white sand beaches, cliffs, and tranquil coves. Photo / Jess Bonde
But right now, Andrew is at the wheel of our mini-van and he points out several beehives around the island as he leads us to Bruny Island Honey. The island’s busy bees mostly produce leatherwood honey, but also manuka, prickly box, summer blossom and other botanical infusions. I walk away with a tub of the golden goodness, and I’m not surprised to find the local honey has also made its way into the handmade chocolate, fudge and honeycomb that fill the nearby shopfront of Bruny Island Chocolate. I leave with a paper bag stuffed full of Turkish delight, rocky road, chocolate-coated liquorice and chewy nougat.
Andrew continues to follow his nose and fill our stomachs with more culinary stops around the isle, including a tasty lunch at the waterfront Bruny Island Hotel: their home-brewed cider made from local cherries was a flavourful accompaniment to my seafood chowder.
Cape Bruny Lighthouse is one of the most remote lighthouses in Australia, built in 1838. Photo / Mauricio E. Mozo
We somehow find room to sample the award-winning artisan cheeses at Bruny Island Cheese, which includes a boutique brewery nestled among the native blue gums. The bar also serves wine if you prefer to pair a glass with your fromage. A quick history lesson from Andrew reminds us that we could have been speaking Francais, given that Bruny is named after French naval officer and explorer, de Bruni D’Entrecasteaux, who mapped parts of the island’s coastline and waterways in the late 1700s.
Shortly afterwards, a visit to Get Shucked Oyster Bar has most of the bus passengers excited and several dozen oysters are collectively devoured. But that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated three million oysters that are growing in the surrounding pristine waters.
The island is named after French explorer Bruni D’Entrecasteaux, who mapped parts of Tasmania. Photo / Tourism Australia
As we line up to purchase oysters harvested that morning and opened to order, Andrew points out the drive-through window option. It’s perfect for those in cars who plan to take their oysters away and enjoy during a blazing sunset at one of Bruny’s spectacular locations.
One such vantage point is The Neck, which frequently shows up in Instagram feeds thanks to its stunning 360-degree viewing platform, 300 steps high, which looks over fairy penguin families nestled into the banks of white sandy beaches.
The Neck lookout offers a 360-degree view of Bruny Island’s stunning isthmus. Photo / Jess Bonde
Delightfully, it’s the penguins who have right of way on this rugged, wild sanctuary when they come ashore at night to return to their burrows. But humans can respectfully observe them going about their adorable daily routines.
There’s plenty of other wildlife to look out for too, including albino wallabies, only found on Bruny Island. There are about 200 of these snow-white marsupials, often spotted placidly nibbling on grass in suburban backyards alongside their coloured counterparts. Locals tell us that sometimes a grey joey will peek its head out of a white pouch, and other times, a grey wallaby will be seen nursing an albino joey.
We encounter more endemic wildlife at Cape Bruny Lighthouse, like ambling fluffy echidnas, superb fairy wrens and the ever-darting, “turbo chooks” (white bantams) busily foraging for food.
Bruny Island grows about three million oysters annually in its pristine waters. Photo / Adam Gibson
But it’s hard to take our eyes off the spectacular scenery that surrounds the historic convict-built lighthouse – towering dolerite cliffs rise out of a surging ocean. Built in 1838 on the southern tip of the island - the next stop is Antarctica - it is one of the most remote lighthouses in the country. And yet, one lighthouse keeper, Captain William Hawkins, lived and worked in this isolated locale for 37 years, ensuring the safety of countless seafarers and contributing to the island’s fascinating maritime heritage.
I can see why Hawkins would have been enticed to stay so long – Bruny’s natural beauty knows no bounds. Andrew continues to proudly show it off to us: from the rain-drop-sparkling fern canopy at Mavista Nature Walk with pademelons lapping from freshwater streams to the azure waters of Cloudy Bay Lagoon that beg to be swum in, despite the frigid ocean temperatures.
Fairy penguins nest on Bruny Island’s beaches, and visitors can watch them waddle ashore at dusk. Photo / Tourism Tasmania & Scott Sporleder, Matador
It would take weeks to explore every corner of Bruny Island, but in just one day, I’ve experienced enough to satisfy both my appetite and my spirit.
A 30-minute bus or car ride from Hobart brings holidaymakers and day-trippers to the Sealink Ferry terminal. After a 15-minute glide across the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, Bruny’s blend of unspoilt nature and fertile food bowl beckons.
