Monday 26th February
It was a beautiful sunny morning for our last day in Hobart and we managed to fit in a harbour-front walk before our departure to catch the ferry to Bruny Island. Our plan for the day was to check out of our apartment in Hobart and head to the ferry terminal at Kettering, a 30 minute drive south of Hobart, to catch the ferry across to Bruny Island. The ferry trip takes about 20 minutes and they run almost every 20 minutes.
Our accommodation on the island for the one night was the Bruny Boathouse that you can book directly or on Airbnb but that I had reserved on Booking.com. We didn’t have a lot of time to spend exploring but we planned to do the 1 hr 4 km Grass Point walk. There aren’t a whole lot of dining options on Bruny Island so we had reserved a table for dinner at the Hotel Bruny.
We caught the ferry just after 11 am and were on Bruny Island just before midday. Mark was keen to get a coffee before we went across to our accommodation, but, therein was our first challenge; there are very few places on the island where you can get a coffee. We did find one place down at Adventure Bay, on the eastern side of South Bruny Island, and this was an unusual combination of being a cafe, selling just coffee, and absolutely nothing else other than curries. Yes, you read that correctly. They did not sell biscuits, pastries or anything to accompany a coffee other than curry meals. It was the most unusual retail combination I think I’ve ever seen, but, we did both enjoy their coffee.
Our Bruny check wasn’t until 2 pm so we thought we’d head over to the western side of the South Island, Alonnah, where our accommodation was based and try to find somewhere to have lunch. Therein was the next challenge. The only place where you could grab a bite to eat was the Hotel Bruny, where we were actually booked to have dinner, but with no other option we ended up having lunch there. The General Store, beside the hotel, had tumbleweeds rolling past so there was no option to purchase any food supplies there. Google maps thought there was a cafe just near our cottage but that ended up being a simple shed. Coffee symbols were also located on other parts of Bruny according to Google maps but these were all dead ends too. We were a bit surprised how undeveloped the island was but, given the population is only 600, we probably shouldn’t have been. I had been expecting to find some cute, touristy shops and places similar to what we saw up on the north west part of Tasmania, along the way through Penguin and Stanley, but it is much less developed down here compared to those areas. I should have twigged when the lady who hosts the accommodation where we were staying for the night kept asking me if I wanted extra food hampers, which I had politely declined, but I now know why: there are very options to find food and food supplies on Bruny Island.
We ended up checking into our accommodation at 2 pm and found Bruny Boathouse to be an absolutely delightful cottage. It had the most spectacular water view from the main living area, master bedroom and rear deck that we decided, there and then, to cancel our dinner booking at the pub and eat at the cottage instead. Our host had left us a breakfast hamper but we could easily turn that into a dinner hamper.
We didn’t dwell for too long at the Cottage though because we wanted to get out and make the most of what little afternoon we had remaining. We headed back to Adventure Bay, where the cafe and curry shop was located, and took a walk along the Grass Point Track. This was a lovely walk along the coastline, on a fairly level track, through long grasses and it took us about an hour (30 minutes out and 30 minutes back). I was glad that I had worn long activewear pants because the grass was quite spiky.
There were still some daylight hours left after our walk so we decided to head down to the Cape Bruny Lighthouse. This involved a 35 minute drive followed by a 10 minute walk from the car park up to the Lighthouse. About 20 of the 30 minute drive was on an unsealed road so keep this in mind if you ever thinking of taking this trip. The views along the way, and from the lighthouse, were just spectacular. In fact, there are great views from almost every point along the roadway when travelling around the island.
It was just after 6 pm by the time we got home and it looked like we were going to be able to enjoy a beautiful sunset from our back deck. Our host had kindly gifted us a gin and tonic and so we retired to the back deck to enjoy these. Mark rustled up a dinner meal from our breakfast hamper and we enjoyed a lovely home cooked meal whilst enjoying the most spectacular sunset. We had certainly made the most of our short time on Bruny Island.
Tuesday 27th February
It was another glorious morning with not a cloud in the sky for our last day in Tasmania. We had a spectacular view out our bedroom from our bed, looking out over the water as the sun rose, and the moon was setting.
There was a short 3 km coastal walk, the Sheepwash Track, that started just near our cottage so we explored that before breakfast. It was then time to pack up to head to the ferry terminal for the trip back to back to the mainland. We made one final stop at the neck, the narrow peninsula between north, and south Burny islands, where we climbed the 300 steps up to the Truganini Neck Lookout.
We were back on the mainland by around 11:30 am, so it was too early to hit the airport so we went back to Kingston Beach where we did a bit of a walk and had lunch. After that it was onto the airport for our journey home.
We had enjoyed our short visit to Bruny Island and absolutely loved the accommodation. We noted there was another rental right next door, The Roundhouse, which was about half the price so consider this option as well if you’re ever looking for Bruny accommodation. We’re not sure we’d say this a must-do place to include on any Tasmanian itinerary as it is quite expensive; there are plenty of day trips you can take to visit the island.
This marks the end of my blogs for our Tasmania journey and I hope you have enjoyed reading them. Mark and I both think that we would have liked a bit more time up on the north west coast of Tassie, probably 3 nights. Then probably 2 nights at St Helen’s and give Bicheno a miss for staying overnight; a day visit would suffice. We would have liked at least 3 nights at Freycinet Lodge and then 2 in Hobart would probably suffice, but we’d also consider staying out near Kingston Beach, just 30 min out of Hobart.
