Bruny Island, Tasmania, Australia

Monday, February 17, 2025

Our day began in Snug, Tasmania at the Snug Beach Campground. Andi and I woke up early this morning to drive to the SeaLink ferry terminal in the nearby town of Kettering, Tasmania. Today, we planned to take the ferry to Bruny Island — an island separated from the Tasmanian mainland by the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. Ferries run every 20 minutes between Kettering and Bruny Island. We literally drove up to the terminal, bought a round-trip ferry ticket for $90 AUD ($57 USD), and drove right onto the boat.

The whole process was so smooth that Tory slept through the entire thing! As we pulled off the ferry on Bruny Island, she climbed down from her bed above the cab and asked, “Where are we?”

The first place I suggested we go on Bruny Island was Dennes Point & specifically, Nebraska Beach. How could I travel to a place with a name like that and not pay homage? Unfortunately, the paved road to get there immediately turned to gravel. We weren’t on the unsealed road for more than thirty seconds before the silverware drawer sprang loose from the cabinet and broke the latching mechanism. Ugh.

Andi tried to fix the latch with a butter knife — the only tool we have — without success. Now we’ll have to take the silverware drawer out of the cabinet when we travel, I guess.

We continued driving south on Bruny Island to “The Neck.” This is a narrow isthmus of land connecting the northern and southern parts of the island. Andi parked the RV in a small parking lot to see the lookout. We waited around for Tory to get ready for a several minutes before she told us she’d “catch the next one.” OK then.

Andi, Aden, and I climbed the 300+ steps to the top of the lookout to see both sides of the narrow stretch of land. There’s a penguin rookery here as well, but we didn’t see any penguins in their dens this morning.

The view was spectacular, albeit the weather a little brisk. When we returned to the RV, we told Tory we saw a penguin riding a unicorn, and she missed it! “Guess you’ll have to catch it next time,” we joked. She was not impressed.

Andi took a few minutes to fly his drone before we pulled away from The Neck. The clarity and aquamarine color of the ocean in Australia continues to amaze us. Beautiful, unspoiled, sandy beaches that seem to stretch on forever.

I’d read about a place called Penguin Cafe, and suggested we stop for breakfast. Turns out, the Penguin Cafe no longer exists, but another cafe by the name of Mari Bruny opened in its place. We parked the RV across the street and found a table inside the cafe.

Right away, I had a bad feeling about this place. There was only one waitress/cashier and she seemed to be running around like there was a kitchen fire. A sign posted at the register told customers that if there were more than 10 people in line, to go elsewhere to get coffee. I really dislike restaurants that act like they don’t want your business.

But— we stayed, and eventually the waitress/cashier came back to the register to take food orders for a line of customers waiting at the counter. Aden ordered a bacon and egg roll, Tory ordered eggs on sourdough toast, and I had avocado toast. The woman working the counter was nice enough to let Andi order a burger since he doesn’t eat eggs.

While we waited for our meals, Tory and Aden wrote several postcards to family and friends. Australian stamps are the old “lick and stick” kind which brought back childhood memories.

The quality of our meals at Mari Bruny were very good actually. There aren’t many other restaurants on Bruny Island, so I’m guessing this restaurant is in high demand, hence the long lines and overworked help.

Tonight, we’re camping at a berry farm on Bruny Island. Andi booked our stay through an app called Hipcamp. The idea is, people offer places for campers to stay on their land in exchange for a small fee. Andi told the owner of the farm we’d stop by around 12:30pm to check in, so we headed to the berry farm next.

Kath, the owner of the farm, was so sweet and welcoming. We were drawn to her right away. She gifted us a jar of her homemade blackberry jelly, and showed us where we could park our camper tonight. Her husband, Alex, introduced himself as well. They offered to let us have a campfire tonight if we wanted, and began splitting wood for us to use.

After we arranged camping with Kath, we decided to go to South Bruny National Park for a hike. There are several popular walking tracks on Bruny Island, but only a few of them are accessible by paved roads. We’ve learned the hard way that unpaved roads are not a friend to this RV.

Grass Point is the walk we decided on — an easy 4 km coastal walk along Adventure Bay. At the end of the track, there’s a junction to the more challenging Fluted Cape Walk.

Easy walks usually mean more people, and that was the case with the Grass Point trail. A tourist bus might’ve let off a few minutes behind us because a cluster of people kept gaining on us every time we stopped for a picture. We called them “the zombies” and joked we’d better keep moving on the trail, or they’d eat us.

At the end of Grass Point trail, we came to the turn-off for the Fluted Cape Walk — one of Tasmania’s recommended 60 Great Short Walks. “We can do this, can’t we?” Andi encouraged us all. We all agreed to continued onward.

I’d read the Fluted Cape trail climbs to the top of the cliff offering spectacular views of Adventure Bay and Penguin Island. Right away, we began climbing a dusty, tree-rooted trail that followed the edge of the cliff. The beginning wasn’t too difficult, and views of the water peeking through the trees helped distract us from our increasing heart rates.

About half-way up the cliff side, the trail became quite steep. It felt like we were on a stair climber, not a flat trail, as we labored straight up the mountain side. Both kids started to protest, making requests to turn around and go back the way we came.

“We can’t go back! We’re almost to the top,” I encouraged.

Andi checked an app on his phone that showed the hiking trail and its elevation gain, and confirmed that we were in fact only one-quarter of the way there. There was still quite a bit of up-hill climbing to go before we reached the top. However, the second half of the trail was all downhill. We just needed to push through the tough part.

“Five bucks to each kid if you complete this hike,” Andi offered.

“Eight,” Tory countered.

“Done.” Andi agreed, and Tory immediately continued forward.

“I didn’t agree to that. I’m not motivated by money,” Aden said, discouraged. He sat down on a rock and refused to move any further.

Andi took off after Tory who was well up the trail by this point. I stayed back with Aden and tried my best to encourage him to continue. The fact of the matter was, the trail was a loop and Tory and Andi weren’t coming back. We needed to move along with them, I told Aden.

“No we don’t,” he told me, “we’ll just turn around and meet them back at the RV.”

Eventually, I did convince him to keep walking. There was a lot of grumbling, and we moved at a pretty slow pace, but we made it.

The cliff-top views were amazing, but what was even more incredible was seeing the sense of accomplishment on Tory and Aden’s faces. We all felt it; we’d just completed a really challenging hike up the mountain.

Well, technically, we hadn’t finished it yet because we still needed to go down the other side. That part was easy though. We met a nice couple from Adelaide, Australia on the trail. The man was wearing a Glacier National Park t-shirt which sparked our conversation.

On our descent, we also passed a group of guys who were making their way up to the top. One of the guys wasn’t wearing shoes! Ouch!

Tory’s determination is incredible. Once she set her sights on finishing the Fluted Cape Walk to earn $8, she led our pack the whole way. The steepness of the track didn’t seem to phase her one bit.

As we walked back to our RV in the parking lot, we saw a grassy lawn with several wallabies. They don’t seem to be very afraid of people, and let us stand nearby and watch them for a while. Bruny Island also has rare white wallabies. I briefly saw one behind someone’s house as we were driving to the national park.

The kids were pooped after our walk and we were all hungry, so we drove back to the berry farm. My watch calculated 16,000 steps so far today, so I’m sure Tory and Aden’s smaller-sized legs were tired.

Andi, Aden, and Tory built a campfire while I prepared us an early dinner. We felt lucky to be staying at such a nice property tonight. Kath and Alex’s flower gardens were beautiful, in addition to their berry patch and fruit trees. Most of the berries are done for the season, but Kath said we could help ourselves to any fruit we liked.

Andi offered to fly his drone over the property to take any pictures Kath and Alex liked. They seemed very appreciative as Alex is working on making a map of walking trails on their land. The drone provides such a neat perspective, and is a gift we can easily give to others who don’t have access to the technology.

For dinner, I made chicken stir-fry. Kath gave us a garden zucchini which I added to my veggie mix.

One thing that’s unique about Tasmania is their packaged water. It comes as a bag in a box here, not a bottle. The water is fine to drink in Australia (and in Tasmania), but we can’t guarantee the cleanliness of the RV water tank, so we’ve been drinking boxed water while we’ve been traveling in the RV. I think the packaging of these boxed waters are so interesting.

Andi and I took one more walk at sunset on Alex and Kath’s farm property. They have 30 acres of land, and have several mowed trails through the bush. The wallabies and pademelons started coming out of the forest toward dusk. We saw several of them in the yard as we went to sleep tonight.

Not sure where we’ll go tomorrow for our last day in Tasmania. We’ll either stay one more night on Bruny Island, or go back toward Hobart. More to come…