Standing 3,000km from Antarctica, Bruny might as well be the end of the earth. The small island, situated at the southern point of Tasmania, is a secluded escape for Australian holiday goers and, increasingly, foreign tourists seeking breathtaking walks in the wilderness coupled with exquisite local produce. We travelled with the Bruny Island Long Weekend, a guided tour with a focus on nature and food – but you could also create your own itinerary. Just make sure to bring sunscreen, good hiking boots and your appetite.
Getting there: first, Hobart
If you're travelling to Tasmania before heading out to Bruny, an overnight stop in Hobart makes a great start to the trip. We stopped at Avalon City Retreat, a splendid top-floor pad in the heart of Hobart with views of the harbour. (At $680 a night, it's expensive – but if you're travelling with friends or family, the flat sleeps four in two bedrooms.) Of course, it’s all about the details: a basket of Tasmanian produce – bread, bush pepperberry mustard, leatherwood honey, biscotti, sparkling wine and more – awaits us, the spacious apartment is tastefully decorated with local and European art, and there's a choice of three different types of pillows. Outside, a large pine bath allows visitors to simmer under the stars on the terrace.
Eating out in Hobart
Garagistes, a fusion restaurant in downtown Hobart serving a five-course set menu ($90 a head), is built in an old garage. The resulting atmosphere is subdued and tastefully lit; an open-plan kitchen allows you to watch the chefs prepare your meal as you sip sake or wine at your table. The extensive, carefully curated wine list provides a paragraph for each offering describing the terroir and aims of the producers – we opt for Gamay Sans Tra La La, an organic red from the Loire valley.
The menu can appear intricate, if not intimidating– dishes include verbena-cured striped trumpeter with biodynamic sesame oil, and Agrarian Kitchen suckling pig with pickled nectarine, kohlrabi and lovage. But this pompousness is easily forgotten after the first bite: this is perfectly, painfully crafted food made to impress.
Getting to Bruny and settling in: time for some glamping
Our Bruny Island adventure begins the next morning. Bleary eyed, we meet our local expert guides Rob Knight and Alex Hern at the harbour and jump on a catamaran for an hour and a half scenic journey to Bruny. With clement weather, one of the most legendary and dangerous surfing spots in the world, Shipstern Bluff, is visible from the boat.
A solar-powered campsite in the middle of Bruny’s former logging forest (the industry hasn’t been active since 2011) is our home for the next two nights. Our tent is a luxurious affair with comfortable king bed and duvet, and hotwater bottle provided – sore backs in the morning are ruled out right away. The best feature is an outdoor sheltered shower proudly planted on a hill overlooking centenarian trees. One certainty: there are few finer things in a life than a hot, steaming shower in the great outdoors.
At night, guests (currently limited to eight) gather in the bothy, a small cabin serving as a kitchen and dining room, heated with firewood. But more on that later ...
Long, scenic afternoon walks
The weekend revolves around two long hikes of about five hours each. For the first of these, our guides usher us along a less-walked trail bordering the coastline. It’s a little under 13km and we get to do a little climbing as we admire geological rock formations and fossils scattered along the way. We are taught about bush plants (some of which we munch on) and native fauna. Tasmania is host to an incredible range of endemic birds and we are lucky enough to spot green rosellas, fan-tailed cuckoos, pied oystercatchers and the rare and endangered 40-spotted pardalote. Wildlife lovers will not be disappointed: along the way we also watch white wallabies and echidnas.
Our second long hike takes us surely but slowly up the cliffs bordering Cloudy Bay until a magnificent view is fully revealed. We learn about Tasmania’s Aboriginal heritage and the grim history of colonisation that followed, coupled with stories about early European explorers – from David Collins to La Pérouse and Dumont d’Urville – and their dangerous feats. There is something quite magical about learning the history of a place while standing on a cliff top; I picture magnificent ships precariously anchoring near land; the first apple tree planted by Captain William Bligh; and the apparently amicable meetings between Antoine Bruni D’entrecasteaux and Aboriginal people across the Bruny channel. (As opposed to contact with the British, which was atrociously violent.)
The weather is volatile and the wind ferocious, so when you're told to bring sunscreen and a Gore-Tex jacket, be sure to do so.
The best walk, however, probably is the Mavista nature walk, a short trek through Bruny’s rainforest. In the morning, as you follow a stream of clear running water and the sun gently filters through towering sassafras, eucalyptus and myrtle trees, it is hard not to be awed by the ecological diversity of this small island.
Local produce: a fantastic feast
For an island with around just 600 inhabitants, Bruny's local produce is simply mind-blowing. Almost 100% of food we consume over the weekend has been sourced by our guides from the island itself or within Tasmania. We are plied with local oysters (some of which we pick and shuck ourselves), wine (there's a trip to the cellar door at Bruny Island Premium Wines for a tasting) and succulent smoked pulled pork from pigs raised by producer Ross O’Meara a few minutes away from our camp.
And despite our guides’ protestations that they are “not really cooks”, the food is delicious. There are three courses for dinner each night, which include homemade flat bread, roasted vegetables with quinoa and yoghurt dressing, a surprisingly delicious wallaby carpaccio, panna cotta with ruby-red raspberries, and platters of local cheese by the Bruny Island Cheese Company. I haven’t eaten so well in months.
Flying out: leaving on a (sea)plane
On our final day, we embark at the aptly named Adventure Bay for a two-hour tour of the southern tip of the island. From the boat we spy geological formations, peer at the second highest dolomite cliffs in the southern hemisphere and gape at the colony of fat, smelly seals lounging on the rocks. Dolphins jump alongside our boat for long minutes, to the delight of everyone.
Saving the best for last, the journey back to Hobart is made by ... seaplane. The 15-minute journey is magical: landing in the harbour in front of tourists, it’s hard not to feel like a rock star (or at the very least like MacGyver).
Practicalities
Getting there and around
Hobart is a one-hour flight from Melbourne or a two-hour flight from Sydney. The Bruny Island ferry terminal is 40 minutes from Hobart and the journey lasts 15 minutes. A seaplane journey will take 15 minutes.
When to visit and what to bring
No doubt about it: summer and early autumn are the best times to embark on this tour. There's frequent rain and the weather can change abruptly, so bring a windproof and rainproof jacket, warm socks, a swimming costume and powerful sunscreen.
• Guardian Australia travelled with Tourism Tasmania
