North Bruny Life ~ AUS Post #24

February 13-16

Being open to whatever shows up, having no set plan, our stays on Bruny gave us the opportunity to not just pass through a place wondering from the roadside what daily life is like for those that call this place home. Our hosts on the North and South Island graciously took us in, sharing their space, their garden bounty, their life experiences, making our visit so much richer.

Crossing over to Bruny Island on the one level car ferry to follow the road through the countryside and along the water filled us with a sense of the familiar. Island life has a feel all its own. Rain showers followed us for the first few kilometers making the site of a distillery on the side of the hill with a deck overlooking the bay that much more inviting.

We stopped to sample a couple Tasmanian whiskeys while the rain passed through and then headed North past sheep farms and beachfront homes over to the far east side of the island to meet up with our hosts at their historic farm overlooking the bay.

Dennes Point

Our first day on the North Island, at the recommendation of our hosts, we rode a loop around Dennes Point stopping at the beaches along the way. It was our first close up look at the amazing sandstone formations providing seemingly endless photo opportunities.

Wildlife on the Farm

Having lived in Tasmania for a few months, we were now used to nightly visits from the pademelons and wallabies. But at their farm, it was a menagerie. At dinner on their patio, we were visited by a very curious bandicoot and later that night walking around the outbuildings next to the well-tended garden was a zoo-like experience. In just a few meters, we saw our first possums sitting in the trees and quolls jumping around the storage sheds, along with pademelons and rabbits hopping around the lawn. In the mornings, a flock of chooks (wild hens) would peck their way around our tent, their chatter mixed with calls from an array of birds flitting by overhead, while echidnas quietly rooted around at the end of the drive.

Cycle Networking

As we shared our plans to visit the South Island to see the white wallabies and take the Pennicott cruise from Adventure Bay our hosts offered to make a connection for us to stay with their brother-in-law and invited him to come for lunch to meet us. He arrived the next day with a fresh-baked berry crumble, his equally charming English friend and his canine companion. We learned he was a long-time Warm Showers host and had done some impressive bike trips of his own on a recumbent bike. After we told him about the start of our trip in Alaska, he began to tell us about a Warm Showers guest, he hosted from Fairbanks, and now plays Scrabble with her every week. His description sounding ever the more familiar, it occurred to both of us, it must be our same host from Fairbanks that provided us a base camp. It seemed every where we went our chance meetings were turning out to be intentional connections in the most unexpected ways.

Nebraska Beach

Our last night on North Bruny our hosts took us over to one of their favorite beaches for a sunset walk out to an impressive stretch of sandstone cliffs providing a perfect backdrop for capturing the sun’s last glow and an amazing way to end our stay on the North Island.