Captain Bligh, Bruny highs, some grumpy locals and Prince William

 

View from Cape Bruny Lighthouse

A week ago, we headed back to Hobart for a change in vehicle, after some beautiful days in St Helens .We had planned 10 days in the motor home, and that's what we did. Whilst we are a  happy family, we knew we didn't want to test relationships by sleeping in a bedroom you drive around in, any longer than that, at least not for our first venture into Campervan world. While I had a ball in the Van, enjoying singing my rendition of "On the Road Again" on and on again to my adoring audience, as a first time camper, I wasn't crying when we returned it. I would definitely do it again, and I enjoyed driving it for a while during our travels because it made me sing louder,  I was pretty happy with the prospect of a decent sized bed a shower and 5 minutes of private thinking time. I'd do it again, maybe for 14 days next time. For me the Campervan was a good learning curve, the main one being that I have been packing too much luggage for about 95 percent of any travelling I have done in my lifetime. We packed really light for this trip, because we had to due to limited space, and actually, it made no difference at all. I found the whole process more relaxing and less drama. You really can wear clothing many times before it stinks. In fact I held the family record for wearing a shirt three days in a row. I would have gone four, but suddenly, no one wanted to sit next to me at dinner.

We traded the Van for an SUV and spent the night in Hobart in a hotel, the Quest on Elizabeth, and got the top floor suite due to a husband who travels a lot and they were quiet. The next day, Steve went out early to "stock up on essentials" for our next chapter, Bruny Island. I popped out to buy a couple of books for the little kids of a good friend we were catching up with later in our trip. The Hobart Bookshop at Salamanca Square is fantastic and I made the comment to the lady who served me, that I was really glad I didn't live close to it, because the constant temptation would be too much.

To get to Bruny Island you need to take a ferry from Kettering, a sailing town 30 mins drive from Hobart. On the way there you pass road signs that display Tasmania's colourful town names. We passed through the town of "Snug", what weary traveller wouldn't want to stop and spend a night there? For the gardeners, there's the town of "Flowerpot" and for the Campervanners, there's the  bay of "Mouldy Hole".

The car ferry took us across to Bruny Island in 15 minutes. It's a scenic ride, so it's worth getting out of the car for a bit to take it in. It was the first time our kids had been on a car ferry and for them, that was the highlight of the day so far. That's one of the best things about childhood, the higher likelihood of discovering something you never knew existed.
It took us 30 minutes to drive to The Pier House in the south of the Island, the house we had booked to stay in for three nights. The house is a two bedroom wooden cottage, mostly hidden from the road by bush. The interior has the feel of a log cabin, with exposed timber interiors and a fireplace. It has an expansive deck with spectacular views across Little Taylor's Bay and has its own pier. We enjoyed walking down the drive to the pier several times a day, to scan the shores of the Bay with binoculars. We also hoped we might be lucky with a visit from a fur seal that is occasionally spotted around the Pier House. Unfortunately we never met the seal but we still enjoyed looking at the clear waters of the Bay, seeing the movement of kelp forests and small fish, and watching eagles sitting in the tops of trees, keeping watch over the Bay. Over the few days we were there, our kids liked spotting wildlife that would appear in the bushes late in the day, wild rabbits and wallabies and the most exquisite Blue Wrens. One night we had a visiting wallaby at our front door. The house is really well equipped and comfortable. The house was so good, and so well located, leaving it to go and look at the Island itself was a bit of a struggle. It turned out Steve's "essential supplies" were the food and alcohol he'd bought for three days in the house. He is a great cooked and cooked us the most fabulous meals in the well equipped kitchen, including a whole Tasmanian salmon. 

The pier at The Pier House

Bruny Island is a preserved wilderness area. It provides a natural and protected habitat for wildlife and birds. It also has beautiful beaches and clear waters, and when we were there, it was relatively quiet, well at least the bush and beach areas. My husband and son had a swim in Adventure Bay and the beach was delightfully desolate, with only a few locals walking their dogs, laughing at the tourists in the extremely chilly surf, it is at the bottom of Tassie after all - next stop Antartica.

Bruny's natural environmental attractions are without question, worth a look, but its other "attractions" didn't impress us that much. If you feel you've seen enough scenery elsewhere in Tasmania, and you are short on time, you could probably skip Bruny. We are really glad we didn't skip it, because we stayed in a property where we could experience its natural beauty and calm, but the other "top things to do in Bruny" were underwhelming, because of their blatant commercialism. Blatant commercialism is fine, if you do it properly and in a way that offers value, but if its done in a way that feels like you are being milked for your tourist dollar, it leaves a bad taste. One thing we did find in Bruny was the first unfriendly Tasmanians we had come across. The reception we got at the Post Office, pharmacy and a few shops were cold and unwelcoming and in one case, just rude. There were a few exceptions, like the family who run the IGA type store at Adventure Bay who were warm and welcoming, and a few others I'll mention later, but generally, we got the impression, Bruny Islanders don't care much for visitors at the moment, and this frostiness seemed to coincide with borders opening. If you're a COVID fraidy cat though, don't advertise your business hoping to pick up some tourist revenue, then treat those tourists like germ ridden infiltrators, snapping at people to put their masks on before they are even in your door. Okay, I know anyone who deals with the public has had their share of a-holes this year, and if you're afraid of that, don't open your doors in such a way that you are likely to meet a few. 

Through the whole pandemic, we, like most people, have followed the rules, out of respect for other people mainly. We've both led lives that at times have pushed the edges in the past, so we don't worry too much about the virus, if it gets us it gets us, but we take that attitude after having taken every precaution recommended to us. So for the default treatment of travellers on a small Island to be one of suspicion and an assumption we are there to spread our virus around, is frustrating, particularly when some of these businesses were packed with people and the owners were jumping on you, impolitely, to put your mask on whilst still in the car park. In my head I was saying, "Of course, if you can just ask half your customers to leave so you can ensure your business is encouraging social distancing", but I was on holiday and even rude people wouldn't ruin my day. Uncharacteristically, I kept that thought to myself.

One of Bruny's advertised attractions is its "food safaris", either self guided or, if you are happy to pay an exorbitant fee, on a mini bus. By "food safari", either with a guide or self guided, as we did , expect a trail of food shops, that's all they are, purporting to sell produce of local origins. Some do sell products of local origin, whereas others? Well you should look very closely at how such a big range of products bearing the "Bruny Island" sticker can come out of a tiny back-of-house "production premises" you don't get to tour. If you believe the marketing, well good on you. I'm on holiday, so I also kept that thought to myself. Who am I to point out who I think's legit and who isn't? If you think you're buying a piece of the dream, well that might be enough for you. Some places we skipped because in typical first-world manner, we just don't like queuing for food, or the privilege of having someone give us the impression we were lucky they served us, and then charge us a stupid amount in the process.

There were a few exceptions on the food front, one was The Honey Pot, where a delightful lady served us who is part of the beekeeping family that runs the store and the apiaries. When I asked her a question about something I had read on her website, her face lit up and she was happy to explain to me their process for moving their hives around Tasmania, something they do routinely, to create more complex honey flavours and also to assist with pollination of smaller crops in remote parts of Tasmania. The store stocks a wide range of honey and honey and bee related products and is beautifully presented and reasonably priced, this is the place we were happy to spend our money. We also would have been happy to spend our money at Bruny Island Wines, where we paid to do a wine tasting, assuming we could order a few cases at the end of it to be shipped home, something we have done at every other cellar door we have visited around Australia. Steve and I really enjoyed a few of their wines and ciders and so asked for an order form. Initially, there was confusion from the bar staff about why we would need shipping. When we explained we were flying home to Queensland and couldn't carry two cases home, the young wine pourer went to get the manager working that day. She handed us a card with a half hearted smile and said if we wanted to order something, we should send an email to the address on the card and ask how we go about it. We were never doing that, we are on holiday and that's too hard. The moment where we were under the influence of tasted wines had passed, and instead we bought one bottle to drink at dinner that night . Maybe freighting on a 15 minute ferry ride is awkward, I'm not sure, I don't run a shiny business, with a bar you might see in Sydney, on Bruny Island. Thinking about why shipping was hard was too hard, I'm on holiday.

We did have a wonderful meal and friendly service at the unassuming Hotel Bruny, so we did get to try some more local wine and a cider. I'm not sure if Hotel Bruny is a cousin of Bruny Island Wines and Bruny Island Cheese and Craft Beer and Bruny Island Chocolate, or not. If it is, it's the friendlier part of the family, offering a great product, pleasant service and it was easy to order and pay for our meal, unlike cousin Vineyard.

We didn't see the elusive White Wallabies on Bruny Island, but the locals who were prepared to speak to us told us they are around if we looked hard enough and stayed about a year. In fairness, they are probably intelligently hiding away on the remote, inland regions of the 50km round trip Island, which we didn't access. The Island is also known for its Penquin Rookery, a stretch of the Island at "The Neck", the  land joining South and North Bruny. They only appear at dawn and dusk, and with daylight saving, that meant a late night for our kids if we wanted to try and see them. The sightings, we were told, weren't plentiful and you need a red light to spot them, which we didn't have to hand and there are no wildlife tours currently operating on the Island, something we were secretly happy about. There was a wind blowing strongly on Bruny for two of our days there so we skipped the late night-early morning stake out, having neither the right equipment, or the right clothes for the early and late chills. The walk to the lookout at  "The Neck" is 219 steps to the cliff top, up steady wooden stairs. On a windy day, like the day we went up, it was blustery , but well worth the climb for the spectacular view and to get a sense of the Island's geography. 

Another quirky and interesting stop is The Bligh Museum, run by a really friendly and informative local, Robert  Someone. To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to his recounting of some of what Captain Bligh got up to in and around Bruny, but his small museum is impressive. It's really a curation of artefacts and research that are the result of Robert's clear obsession with Captain Bligh and Bruny Island. While I was interested in what he had pieced together, I was even more interested in the collection of old Australian women's magazines he was selling individually for 50c and $1. The kids and I flicked through them without asking why they were there, we got a sense that story was too long, but they did seem to be Royal Family focussed. New Ideas with Princess Diana's famous early haircut on the cover, Woman's Day featuring the infant Prince William and a "Souvenir Royal Family Christmas" edition of The Women's Weekly from 1978. Why those piles of mags were on sale at Robert's Bligh Museum is anyone's guess. Perhaps examples of easy reading while you're managing your way around a mutiny.

We loved our time on Bruny because our priority is seeing scenery rather than shops, so after a few disappointing experiences with the food sellers, we were happy to give that side a miss and enjoy the gorgeous Pier House where we were staying.

Cape Bruny Lighthouse

On our way to the ferry the morning of our departure we stopped at the Cape Bruny Lighthouse, where we had booked a tour. A tour is the only way to get to the top of the Lighthouse. It is Australia's second oldest lighthouse and was the fourth lighthouse in Australia when it first became operational in 1838. Remarkably, it was still operated manually up until 1993.  Bruny was a major port island in the early days of Tasmania, with heavy whaling and logging industry sea traffic. The Lighthouse is flanked by two lighthouse keeper's cottages that were built at the same time as the Lighthouse. You need a Tasmanian National Parks pass to access the Lighthouse reserve and the drive into the Lighthouse is a little rough, even in an SUV, with a few kilometres of gravel road. There's a very steep hike to the base of the Lighthouse itself, where we had to meet our tour guide. Our guide's name was Matt and he was excellent. He was engaging and informative and I had many questions. For four years, while  living in Sydney in the 1990s,  I lived across the road from a lighthouse and some nights, the light would shoot through windows with no closed blinds. There is a myth of romance and adventure associated with lighthouses. The reality for lighthouse keepers was that it was  isolating, solitary and tough work, yet many stayed in the job for decades.

Things Matt told us that we found very interesting:
The Cape Bruny Lighthouse was built by 12 convicts under the direction of the architect. The project was running behind schedule and these convicts were offered the incentive of "tickets of leave", (their freedom), if they were able to complete the Lighthouse ahead of schedule. Given its remote location the fact they were successful, and completed it in 15 months, and it is still completely intact. is remarkable.
The crystal panels that make up the actual lights, are French crystal and were shipped to Australia in "kits" the builders had to assemble on site - like early IKEA but probably with easier instructions.

Every lighthouse has its own remote light sequences that tell navigators where they are. Like a unique fingerprint.
The legends of lighthouse keepers as being "crazy" was not due to the isolation, but probably due to mercury poisoning from the mercury they used as a lubricant to keep the mechanisms turning in the lighthouse.

Once we were inside the Lighthouse, the walk up the spiral staircase was pretty easy, even though the top is 114m above ground. Nothing could have prepared us for how spectacular the view was from Cape Bruny Lighthouse. When we walked out on to the external platform, we were stunned. We were fortunate with the day, the sun was shining and there was no wind, unlike the two previous days which Matt said had made standing on the platform really uncomfortable. All we could hear was the ocean crashing against the cliffs below us. We could see clearly for  kilometres. Matt pointed out land features and gave us a sense of where we were in relation to the rest of the Island. I have overused superlatives whilst blogging about Tasmania, they are all deserved, this view however is not served by those superlatives. It really did leave us open mouthed in wonder when we stepped on that platform. As you look across the ocean the realisation hits you that from there, the next stop south is Antarctica.

The experience at The Bruny Lighthouse, and our interesting and friendly tour guide was the full stop we needed to our Bruny experience. For the things Bruny didn't deliver, our stay at The Pier House and  getting the opportunity to get to the top of the Lighthouse and see that view, more than made up for any small irritations. We would have loved to have arrived home to Queensland to some Bruny Island wine on our door, but it wasn't to be, it's too hard to ship apparently. The memories though, we will truly enjoy, and the great honey.