Things to do on Bruny Island
Just 30 minutes from Hobart, Tasmania is Kettering, where you can board the 20min ferry across the D'Entrecasteaux Channel to Roberts Point, on North Bruny Island. Bruny Island is around 50kms long and is an amazing island off an island. Grab a holiday rental on Bruny Island on Search and Stay because there is so much to discover, natural beauty, marine and native wildlife and, of course, some of the most exceptional produce available in Australia.
WALKS
Among the island’s gems is South Bruny National Park, flanked by cliffs with dramatic views over long sandy beaches, coastal heath and eucalypt forests, and gardens of kelp offshore. Abundant wildlife includes several threatened bird species, among them ground and swift parrots and the forty-spotted pardalote, as well as penguins, echidnas, pademelons and a small population of rare white Bennett’s wallabies. The park is threaded with walks, from easy strolls to challenging climbs. Bruny has a suite of coastal day walks, including two of Tasmania’s 60 Great Short Walks. Keep an eye out for the island’s famous white wallabies on the trail to Green Point and lofty Fluted Cape, and circuit the remote Labillardiere Peninsula.
Pass a striking rock arch rising from the sands of a beach on the walk to Cape Queen Elizabeth, and savour the long beach and wild surf of Cloudy Bay on the hike to East Cloudy Head. Search Search and Stay for your holiday house on Bruny Island near South Bruny National Park.
Delve into deep botanical history while wandering in the Inala Jurassic Garden, full of Gondwanan species and interpretation panels, and explore the adjacent nature museum, where shells, gemstones and fossils continue stories of the links between past and present.
PENNICOTT WILDERNESS JOURNEYS
Bruny’s most dramatic edge can be seen only from the sea, with some of Australia’s tallest sea cliffs lining the coast from Fluted Cape to the island’s southern tip, where the Southern Ocean meets the Tasman Sea.
Three-hour Pennicott Wilderness Journeys boat trips cruise beneath these cliffs, skimming past tall sea stacks, edging into caves, and drifting past an island seal colony.
CAPE BRUNY LIGHTHOUSE
Rising 114m above the fierce Southern Ocean, Cape Bruny Lighthouse was the fourth light station built in Australia. It’s the only lighthouse in southern Tasmania open for tours, offering the chance to climb the cast-iron spiral staircase to its balcony for a vast ocean view. A short walking track also descends from the lighthouse to a beach on Lighthouse Bay, passing a grave site thought to be the burial place of two children from the late 19th century.
THE NECK
The narrow isthmus at the heart of Bruny Island is home to curious bedfellows. Each evening, little penguins arrive ashore at the northern end of The Neck, climbing into the dunes where, in summer, they share space with muttonbirds (short-tailed shearwaters). The procession can be observed on dusk from a viewing platform and boardwalk.
High above this activity, Truganini Lookout commands one of the island’s best views, staring along the length of The Neck and into Adventure Bay. Note the optical illusion that makes the sea level appear higher on one side of the isthmus than the other. For holiday rentals at Adventure Bay and places to stay near The Neck on Bruny Island visit Search and Stay.
FOOD
Bruny Island’s main road could easily double as an aisle in a gourmet grocer. If you're staying in a Search and Stay Bruny Island holiday rental near the ferry terminal,, you're right near Get Shucked oyster farm, with the world’s first oyster drive-through window, and the Bruny Island Cheese and Beer Co – pause for a cheese fix out under the eucalypts, before discovering Bruny’s sweet tooth at the Honey Pot and Bruny Island Chocolate. What’s food without something to wash it down? Bruny Island Premium Wines is Australia’s southernmost winery, while the Bruny Island House of Whisky, near the ferry terminal, showcases Tasmanian spirits, including its own Trapper’s Hut single malt.
And don't forget Bruny Island Rasberry Farm, a bush raspberry farm in the centre of Adventure Bay that offers freshly picked raspberries and a heap of raspberry produce including homemade ice creams!!
If you're looking musings from some true locals and Bruny Island converts, visit anislandoffanisland.com.