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Bruny Island Friday
I heard Rus this morning and saw that is was daylight so started to get dressed. It's pretty chilly and you move pretty fast! After a short while I looked at the clock and it was just four something.... but daylight!! I knew it was different when it was still light at 9:00 p.m. last night but didn't think about what time the sun would come up!! It was hard to try to go back to sleep. We had the clock set for six. We had tried to find a place to check on options last night and had no luck. Booking agencies have been ten to the block everywhere else!! We decided we wanted to do Bruny Island today because we weren't sure that would be an option on Sunday. We thought we'd just walk to the station first thing. We did and got there before they opened. Everything here opens hours later as well! A much slower and peaceful pace!! We got our tickets and then walked on back to the hostel. They picked us up about an hour later at 8:20a.m. and we were off for the day. What a WONDERFUL day!! We were a group of six today and Jonathan, our guide, made seven. We drove to Kettering to catch the ferry 'Mirambeena' that would take us across the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. The ferry has two decks and can carry up to 75 passenger cars at a time. It's a 15 minute trip that it makes back and forth nine times each day. We went up top to catch the view and found the wind to be chilling!! Bruny has 500 residents...70% commute to Hobart to work, 5% are retired, 5% are unemployed and the remainder work on the island. The island is the size of Singapore (which has about 3 million people). The island has 320 kilometer of road, almost all of which is unsealed (dirt). We were only on pavement a very short while today and we covered 270 kilometers. The timber industry was a major industry here, along with whaling, coal mining and sealing. Of course those things are don't anymore but they all left their mark. Now salmon farms, sheep and rock oysters are some of their industries. Bruny Island has a north and south section with a long thin "neck" in between. That is the section where the fairy penguins are. They have built a wooden walk up the hillside there so people won't walk in the actual nesting grounds. It was a huge area and their footprints and nesting spots were evident everywhere. We so wished we could have spend the night there so we could watch them come up. These are the smallest of all penguins and are flightless. Tasmanian estimates range from 110,000 to 190,000 of them of which less than 5% are found on mainland Tasmania. They will probably become extinct there. The most abundant populations are on these offshore islands. Driving around the island was so beautiful. We wound around and would see ocean on one side and the next thing we knew it was on the other - or on both. Water is everywhere. There are inlets, ponds and lakes. The ponds over the landscape may have been man made for sheep or such but all of their edges were surrounded by cattails and other water plants. Very pretty. What amazed me more and more as the day went of was how many eco-systems or environments we went through!! We went through dry coastal areas where rainfall was 6 or 7 inches a year to cool temperate rain forests. Such contrasts!! This island is only 15 K wide and 85 K long!!
This view to the left was taken from the Lighthouse on the southern end. Off in this direction is Maatsuyker Island which has a famous lighthouse near it. It's the one Jacque has a print of in her office at Island Water. It was 80 kilometers from here and difficult to get to. This south end of Bruny Island is mostly National Park. The view from the lighthouse in all directions was beyond seeming real!! There are folks that live with that day in and day out!!! The weather makes it seems so different from day to day. We were so fortunate to have an absolutely perfect day. The wind was calm and it was a "mild" day. Jonathan said the wind there is usually about 25 or 30 knots. There have been days he can't take people up there because the winds are so strong you can't keep your footing. Good Friday this year it was 80 knots. The northern end is where we saw the flocks of sheep and rolling pasture land. Some of the sheep were full and fluffy and a couple of flocks had recently been sheared. They appeared so scrawny. Jonathan was telling us about the women's groups that do the shearing. They had some kind of function lately and were giving haircuts for $5.00. He said he gave them $5 and didn't take the haircut!! After seeing the sheep I wouldn't have let them cut my hair either! Flowers were in bloom all over the island!! I've seen geraniums the size of our large azaleas at home. Everyone has a flower garden all over their yard. No desire for grass. The flowers grow wild everywhere else and look like they are fertilized by gardeners. We walked for awhile in the rainforest and I just couldn't imagine what it had looked like at one time. We could see the GIANT remains of the tree trunks from the trees harvested here in the late 1800's!! Ferns of all descriptions were prolific! There were very few facilities on this island. We stopped at one little store for morning tea and biscuits. Lunch was at a delightful little place called the "Penguin Tea Room". The lady that ran it was Welsh. We were seated in and amongst the things for sale, many of which were handmade. She also made pastries and sweets which she sold. We had salmon salads or seafood soup. Everything was lovely and tasty. Jonathan got some of her biscuits (cookies) and shortbread which he served with wine up at the lighthouse for afternoon tea. I've about figured the system out here. Never eat much at a time because they eat many times a day. Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Afternoon tea may be the dessert you don't get at lunch. Driving along we came upon a Bennett Wallaby. That was really a surprise. We also passed a camel farm. I had expected neither here. Camels are exported from Australia to Arabia. Australia actually has more than the country they originated from!! We passed many a native hen. They have the same reputation that the bush turkeys did. We hated to see the day end!
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| We walked around town for a short while looking
for a computer place. Have given up on the idea here. Everything closes so
early and it doesn't appear to be a lot of computer resources available. With this
being the weekend we won't have any better luck. This has been more "remote"
than any where else we've been.... which well may be why it would be a favorite. I
have found a two week cycling adventure trip that I would love to come back to do!! We had dinner on the wharf and are off for a nap!
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