Bruny Island

Posted on May 7, 2023 by Discovery Down Under

Just 20-minutes by ferry from the Tasmanian mainland, Bruny Island is a wild and remote place with white sand beaches, turquoise water, magnificent sea cliffs and abundant wildlife. The island is marketed as a foodies paradise – so where’s the food?

Artisans

We had been greatly looking forward to our visit here following numerous TV travel and food shows highlighting the artisan cheese makers, bread bakers, wine makers, beer brewers, the artists, the writers and, of course, the unspoilt natural landscape. That list, however, didn’t include the tarmac road builders – much of the island’s roads are dirt roads, dusty when dry and muddy when wet.

The Neck

The island is split into two – the North and South Islands are linked by a very narrow isthmus known as the Bruny Island Neck. The majority of accommodation and activities are located on the South Island, which includes our caravan site at Adventure Bay.

Truganini Lookout

Giving views of both the north and south islands as well the Tasmanian mainland, Truganini Lookout sits above the middle of Bruny Island Neck. Reached by 279 timber steps, the lookout is named after the Aboriginal woman Truganini (1812-1876) reportedly the last full-blooded aboriginal person to die in Tasmania. Believing she was the last of her pure race, she once declared, ‘I know that when I die the Museum wants my body’.

Prior to her death in Hobart, Truganini pleaded to the authorities for a respectful burial and asked that her ashes be scattered in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, a region of great significance to her people, fearing that her body would be mutilated for scientific purposes just as her late husband had been.

Contrary to her request she was buried at the old female penitentiary. Her remains were later exhumed by the Royal Society of Tasmania, which was authorised by the government to take possession of her skeleton. However, it was on condition that her remains were not to be exposed to public view but ‘decently deposited in a secure resting place accessible by special permission to scientific men for scientific purposes’.

Despite Truganini’s wishes and in violation of the government’s conditions, her remains were displayed in the Museum of Tasmania from 1904 to 1947. It wasn’t until 1974 that her wishes were finally honoured and her cremated remains were scattered in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel.

Her story is a sad one and highlights just how appallingly the Europeans treated the Aboriginal people of lunawanna-alonnah (Bruny Island). In memory of Truganini and the Nuenonne speaking people of the southeast, a cast bronze memorial was placed at the top of the lookout with a 360-degree view of what was rightfully their land.

Adventure Bay

To the east and south of the Neck is the sweeping Adventure Bay. It has more than a few connections with the famous early explorers and first off is Abel Tasman who first sighted the bay in 1642 and tried to make land in his ship the Heemskerck. Abel’s ship was driven back by an offshore storm but in memory of his attempted landing, Abel named the bay ‘Storm Bay’. In 1773 Captain Tobias Furneaux anchored in the bay for five days and took the opportunity to rename the bay ‘Adventure Bay’ after the name of his ship HMS Adventure. Furneaux had been sailing alongside Captain Cook’s ship, HMS Resolution on Cook’s second voyage in search of The Great Southern Land – Australia, when he became separated from Cook. Furneaux noted the bay was ideal for resupplying ships with fresh water, fish and timber from the giant gum trees.

In 1777 Cook, in his ship Resolution, stopped to take on fresh water and eleven years later the infamous Captain Bligh* moored in the bay to resupply HMS Bounty. Having survived the famed mutiny on the Bounty, Bligh once again stopped in 1792 to resupply his latest ship HMS Providence. And in 1798 Matthew Flinders tried without success to enter the bay in his ship ‘Norfolk’.

Taking advantage of the largely sheltered bay, Europeans soon began to arrive and setup several whaling stations and sawmills forming a fledgling timber industry.

Two Tree Point, which sits within Adventure bay, is still a source of fresh water and was used by Cook, Bligh and Furneaux to replenish their water supplies. Using the name of Cook’s ship, Bligh named the water source ‘Resolution Creek’. It is believed the two large eucalyptus trees that can be seen today are the same trees sighted in the late 1700’s and in a painting by Bligh’s 1792 Expedition’s Principal Artist, Lieutenant George Tobin.

Today Adventure Bay is a quiet tourist destination with access to several walks within South Bruny National Park, a well stocked general store, the Bligh Museum detailing Bligh’s association with the bay and Mary Bruny Cafe for a good coffee and great food.

Cheese and Beer

One of the few foodie retailers and artisans can be found at the Bruny Island Cheese Co. and Bruny Island Beer Co. both located at Great Bay. We tried the cheese tasting plate with three cheeses served with fresh crusty sourdough bread baked on-site and a delicious relish. Each cheese is hand made in the traditional way from the milk of their own cows in Huonville.

O.D.O. – a simple curd cheese that is just One Day Old
1792 – a pungent washed rind aged on Huon pine – strong and smoky
SAINT – a mild white mould cheese, our favourite

We didn’t try the beer tasting plate – it was tempting but we were still driving.

Bruny Island Chocolate Co.

Hidden behind a dense line of trees on Main Road at Alonnah, Bruny Island Chocolate Co. is a curious place. Hand made chocolates and fudge apparently made on-site but with no sign of any manufacturing, no tasting options and a clear preference to upsell by putting chocolates in decorated metal boxes and lining nearly every available shelf. By all appearances it is just a shop. We did buy a few covered bars and later discovered none of them were labeled.

And there’s More

There is a winery, a whisky distillery and the restaurant called Get Shucked on Bruny Island for those with a taste for Oysters. But we were expecting more for somewhere classed as a ‘foodies paradise’.

* The HMS Bounty was categorised by the Admiralty as a ‘Cutter’, the smallest form of warship, and as such it did not require the full rank of a post-Captain. Instead the ship and her crew were commanded by a Lieutenant, the only commissioned officer onboard, which meant Bligh was not the Captain of the Bounty as is often quoted. His conspirator and leader of the mutiny was acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian.

The ‘Cutter’ class of warship also did not require the usual attachment of Royal Marines whose role was to maintain order, a fact that Mr Christian clearly took advantage of.

Tahune Adventures AirWalk

Posted on May 2, 2023 by Discovery Down Under

Imagine walking among some of the tallest trees on earth, not at ground level but in the lower canopy high above the forest floor – and still straining to see the top of the trees. That is exactly what you can do at Tahune Adventure’s AirWalk deep in the Southern Tasmanian Wilderness.

Among the Ancient Giants

Tahune Adventures is surrounded by the southern hemisphere’s tallest forests and one of the few places where the famous ancient Huon pines and giant Mountain Ash trees grow together. Unlike the Mountain Ash the Huon Pine requires a permanent source of water and is more usually found near rivers as is the case here, and, appropriately, it is the Huon River.

Walking the Walk

The AirWalk is a 600-metre elevated walkway 30-metres above the mosses and bracken of the forest floor and high among the trees giving close-up views of Myrtle and Leatherwood and the trunks of the giant Mountain Ash. The AirWalk culminates in a cantilevered platform 50-metres above the Huon River.

Far more sturdy than you would expect, the walkway gives excellent views of the confluence of the Huon and Picton rivers as well as the number of ancient trees gathered along the river banks swept downstream during successive flood events.

Forest Fire

Something unfortunate, however, makes this place quite unique and that is the effect of a major fire that took place in 2019. Much of the ground cover was destroyed through to the Huon River and a number of the giants seriously damaged, some later felled for safety. This means the view of the trees and surrounds are far less obscured and new growth, in all shades of green, can be clearly seen.

The AirWalk received some damage during the fire and, along with several of the walks around the area, access was restricted for many months while safety inspections took place. The only sign of damage now visible is the charred bark of many of the trees contrasting with the recently replanted landscaping around the visitor centre and the 104-steps leading to the start of the AirWalk.

In addition to the AirWalk two additional walks allow exploration of the forest. The Huon Pine Walk gives the opportunity to see, touch and smell these ancient trees along the short 20-minute loop. The 3km Swinging Bridges Walk offers more of a challenge. Rope bridges here provide a safe but swinging crossing of both the Huon and Picton rivers. Far less stable than the AirWalk platform it is only a few metres above each of the rivers.

And there’s more

There are two additional activities here; River Rafting and the Eagle Hang Gliding experience that glides 400-metres from the treetops across the Huon river. No experience is required – the hang glider is suspended by wire similar to a flying fox ride.

Drive with care

Being in the wilderness it is not too surprising that this location is quite remote. Access is via a sealed but winding road and a 30-minute drive from Geeveston, the nearest town. This is a logging road and great care should be taken when logging trucks are active.

For more information including booking details check the Tahune Adventures website.

The Taroona Shot Tower

Posted on April 30, 2023 by Discovery Down Under

An unusually tall stone tower, built in 1870, sits beside the Channel Highway at Taroona 12km south of Hobart. It’s purpose is not obvious. Is it a smoke stack for some Victorian industrial scale boiler, a fire watch tower, perhaps, or an old lighthouse watching over ships entering Hobart Harbour?

It’s a Machine

It’s actually a Shot Tower, a machine of sorts, built to produce the lead shot fired from muskets. By any imagination the tower is not the first thing you would think of as being a machine of any design but innovation leads to success and that was certainly the case for Scots born Joseph Moir, Engineer, Architect, Carpenter and Overseer.

Once the tallest building in Australia, the tallest in Tasmania (until 1960) and believed still to be the tallest circular sandstone tower in the world, Taroona Shot Tower was built in just 8-months by two stonemasons to Moir’s design.

Standing almost 59-metres tall, 10-metres in diameter at the base and narrowing to 3.9-metres at the top, the tower’s impressive dimensions are deceptive. The adjoined stone building, which gives access to the shot tower, looks diminutive by comparison but is actually a substantial building in its own right. It’s only when standing within the tower that its true size can really be appreciated. Looking upward is more than a little daunting. Lining the walls of the tower is a circular wooden staircase comprising 318 shallow steps with a platform every 180-degrees and on some levels an open slot gives views of the increasing loftiness of the climb.

At the top of the tower, the original chimney pot has been removed and the roof made weather-tight. An external, circular metal platform and railing has been added providing excellent views of the Derwent River and surrounding countryside – at least to those brave enough!

Lookout below

Sitting to one side is the wood-fired cauldron originally used to melt a combination of lead, antimony and arsenic. Once molten the metal would have been poured into a steel colander suspended over the centre of the tower. Droplets of metal would begin to form and cascade down the length of the tower creating perfectly round spheres before hitting a tank of water at the base and cooling. The process took a lot of experimentation to perfect but finally produced successful shot on the 8th of September 1870 and continued to do so until 1905 when it was no longer commercially viable.

The size of the shot produced could be controlled to some extent by altering the size of the holes in the colander but it was not a perfect process. The size of the droplets varied with each pour requiring manual retrieval from the water tank and sorting the tiny shot in poor light by hand.

A Victorian tea shop first opened in the late 1800’s is still operating at the base of the tower. Each day they bake the lightest scones you’ll have ever eaten served with your choice of over 70-types of tea. They are among the best we have tasted throughout our travels around Australia and come very highly recommended.

The Devils of Tasmania

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Discovery Down Under

You cannot think of Tasmania without thinking of the Tasmanian Devil so popularised by the Looney Tunes animated cartoons – once the angry, frustrated, spinning antagoniser of Bugs Bunny and his friends.

The Tasmanian Devil was named by early settlers who thought the mostly nocturnal mammal’s screams and hisses were the sound of the devil. Few other animals are as vocal as this one especially when squabbling over food or fighting for dominance.

The size of a small dog but with the strongest bite of any animal for its size in the world, it is a fierce meat eating predator who’s jaws easily crush bones, which it dispatches along with the majority of its prey. They will eat just about anything including their favourite the wombat due to its high fat content but also small kangaroos, frogs, rabbits, birds and domesticated animals such as sheep. More often, though, carrion forms much of its diet.

First Extinction

Once common throughout Australia it is believed the Dingo was responsible for the disappearance of the devil on the mainland 3,000-years ago. Dingoes never crossed into Tasmania, though, and as a result, the devil thrived as the dominant predator. But its days may be numbered.

Second Extinction?

In 1996 at Mount William in northeastern Tasmania, the first case of Devil Facial Tumour Disease was identified in a female devil. It is an aggressive and contagious cancer that results in the death by starvation of the animal in just months. The disease is passed-on by bites, which quickly infects the host. It is now believed up to 80% of the decline in population is attributable to the disease with just a few pockets on the west coast and far north-west being tumour free. No cure has yet been found.

A recent estimation indicates just 25,000 devils remain and without the assistance of conservation sanctuaries and disease free breeding programmes such as Devils@Cradle, the Tasmanian Devil may well disappear forever.

Devils@Cradle

While at Cradle Lake National Park a wet day gave us the opportunity to rest from walks for a while and to visit Devils@Cradle sanctuary. It was a very worthwhile visit, not just to see Tasmanian Devils for real but also to learn more about them and what the sanctuary and associated breeding programmes are doing to help prevent their demise.

We joined one of the ranger led tours around the sanctuary and what an experience it was. Our guide, Gemma, was an extremely knowledgeable and capable speaker with a very clear passion for the Tasmanian Devil. We learnt so much about the mammal’s short 5-year life, the fast-passed gestation, born just the size of a grain of rice, less than half making it to adulthood and the devastating effect of the facial cancers.

Gemma had helped raise a female juvenile known as Pancake, which had been deserted by its mother. It was clear there was a strong bond between them as Pancake laid in Gemma’s arms suckling on her finger before she decided to give a ‘gentle’ bite, enough to draw blood, when Gemma tried to remove her finger. At some point Pancake will have to be weened away as she grows further and becomes less safe to handle.

Quolls

The devils are not the only endangered resident at Devils@Cradle. The rare and closely related Eastern and Spotted-tail Quolls can also be seen here. Their population has been decimated by feral cats and foxes – both introduced by the early European settlers. Staff at the sanctuary are hoping to breed these timid little mammals and release them into the wild. At the very least captive programmes such as these should help prevent the demise of yet another native animal looking at extinction at the hands of past generations.

Visiting Devils@Cradle isn’t cheap, especially for a family, but the money raised from entry fees goes towards the continuing work of the sanctuary in helping these creatures survive, provides education and gives the opportunity to observe these unique creatures safely and in person.

Rocky Cape National Park

Posted on April 4, 2023 by Discovery Down Under

Sitting on the far northwest coast of Tasmania is Rocky Cape National Park. Though smaller than many National Parks in Tasmania, Rocky Cape NP more than makes up for its size with striking coastal rock formations, caves and a rich Aboriginal heritage.

Ancient Rocks

The rocks around the cape are believed to be among the oldest in Australia. Dated to Precambrian times (4.6-billion years to 540-million years ago) it was a time when life was beginning to form with soft multicellular organisms, algae and jellyfish. Also living during this time, and still to this day, are the Stromatolites that we first saw at Hamlin Marine Nature Reserve, Western Australia. Over the aeons the rock has been uplifted and folded to form the jagged rocks we see today.

Mind the Wasps

For some reason large native wasps and bees are attracted to the bright white paint of the lighthouses along the coast and Rocky Cape Lighthouse was no exception. Among the many creatures to be found here are the graceful but noisy Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos, White-bellied Sea Eagles, Wallabies and Pademelons, Tasmanian Devils, Spotted-tail Quolls, Echidnas and Bandicoots.

Midden Caves

Many caves have formed within the cape region and among those are North Cave, which can be easily spotted from the lighthouse. For a closer view follow the path among coastal heath to the viewing platform. Access into the cave is not permitted as it has significant Aboriginal cultural importance.

South Cave at Burgess Cove is amost filled with shells, bones and other artefacts. The mound of remains, known as a midden, are often associated with a long Aboriginal occupation and a gathering place where mobs would eat and discard the shells and bones from their meals.

Wet Cave at Sisters Beach, a little further along the coast, provides a short scramble along the rocky beach and up through banksia groves to an observation platform. There’s not much to see here, though, as no access into the cave is provided – not that it dissuaded a couple of youths that showed no respect to the Aboriginal community.

Just a short trip along the coast today but tomorrow we head to the famous wilderness of Cradle Mountain National Park, one of the big highlights of our adventures in Tasmania.

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