Tassie Day 3, south to Bruny Island

I ate my Illegally Imported Trail Mix for breakfast on the road. Ambitious plans for the day: driving south and west through the Huon Valley to the Tahune Forest Airwalk, a long platform suspended above the forest, and then driving back east and crossing over to Bruny Island, where my chief interest was the cheese shop.

The drive south seemed to be taking longer than anticipated, and I was glad to stop at around ten at the Shipwright’s Museum. I paid six dollars to enter. The shipwright himself was at work on a lovely sailing boat, and in the barn beyond his workshop was the skeleton of another boat which he is building for Tetsuya, the head chef at Sydney’s most famous and most expensive restaurant—apparently $300 per head is a cheap meal. The shipwright showed me how to plane a piece of the famous Huon pine, and I got to keep the shavings, which perfumed my rental car for the rest of the week. On the way out, the friendly lady at the desk warned me that it was another hour’s drive to Tahune.




As it was already nearly noon, I made an executive decision, turned the car east, and returned through Huon toward Bruny Island. A few of the old Huon orchards are still growing, and I stopped once at a roadside stand to pick up a bag of Summer Gala apples: two dollars for about fifteen small, fresh, crisp new apples.



I continued along the coast, counting no less than seven roadkill possums, and arriving at the ferry station just in time to miss the ferry. So I left my car at the front of the line and walked back up the road, gazing out over the lovely pier and the still harbour, and munching another cone of the local ice cream, Valhalla.



The ferry ride was not as scenic as anticipated...



and driving onward, I pulled into the Bruny Island Cheese Company at last—where the girl behind the counter announced that they were sold out of cheeses. SOLD OUT! I, and three or four other prospective customers, looked with longing through the windows of the refrigerated room full of shelves and shelves of new cheese—which hadn’t been inspected yet and therefore was not for sale to the public for another two days. Well, that dashed my hastily-formed plan to try to find a hotel and camp out overnight for the cheese, so I sadly tasted a pickled cherry and then drove on.
Twenty km later I found a small shop selling locally made fudge, which made me feel a little better.

The road was turning rough very quickly. In some places, it was unpaved, and a sign would pop up saying “Slow to 45” then I would peal around a corner only to skid into an instant cloud of reddish gray dust and choking rattling stones. I now turned toward the east, crossing over a narrow neck of land: the Fairy Penguin Rookery! Accompanied by five or six people who had been on the ferry with me earlier, I climbed an enormous staircase to a lovely lookout over the beaches, but unfortunately the nocturnal penguins were hiding down their holes. I did find a dead one on the beach, but neglected to photo it.



It was too late in the day to join any of the wildlife cruises for seals or whales, so, feeling somewhat dejected, I rolled along the gravel and past the duck pond into another Berry Farm. I couldn’t pick my own blueberries, but I did order a piece of berry cake which came heavily loaded with cream and strawberry coulis. The kind man behind the counter gave me a free taste of strawberry Valhalla ice cream, which is amazingly rich, and I sat and ate and fought the wasps off my sweet treat and watched the yellow butterflies dipping about.




Refreshed, or at least sugar high, I drove south and found, at last, South Bruny National Park. I glanced briefly at Captain Cook’s original landing site—pretty much just a rock with a plaque, off the road—and then creaked my way out of the car, stretching cramped limbs, ready to hike.

I set off along the trail past the sites of old whaling pits, mysterious cairns of smooth gray stones, and house foundations from the 1830s. After an hour, the track turned very steeply uphill. Soon panting and sweating, I was now determined to reach the top of what seemed to be a mountain. Sure enough, dizzying drops appeared first on my left, then on my right—I was on a narrow strip surrounded by cliffs, and undergoing what is known in business terms as “escalating commitment”—my pride would simply not let me turn around and concede defeat. This paid off, not when I reached the top, but just before: when a little brown being snuffled into view just off the path to my left. AN ECHIDNA! My first sighting! I completely ignored the view from the top of the mountain, which actually wasn’t that great anyway, and instead hurried down the trail again, nervous about missing the final ferry off the island. In just half an hour I was at the bottom with just enough time to kick off my shoes and wade into the thin, clear, sparkling cold water. I hopped in the car, whizzed around winding corners and skidded through the off-road sections like a pro, and just made the second to last ferry.




It was still daylight, and I unhurriedly drove the 45 minutes home, stopping once to pick up a tiny tub of locally grown raspberries. The sweat had dried over me, and I was now thoroughly chilled and remembering the more unpleasant aspects of living in a cold environment. Unsure which restaurants were good—a Google search and several conversations over the day with Tassie locals had revealed mixed reviews—I walked indecisively through the fading light and rising breeze until , feet aching, I stopped at a lively Italian restaurant in Salamanca Square and ate bland pasta until a lucky snag of one of the waiters got me a fantastically good Tiramisu. The sounds of Friday night revellers echoed along the empty streets and off the water as I made my way to early bed.