Czeching Out Tasmania

It’s no small secret to regular readers of this blog that Maria Island has a special place in my heart as my favourite island off an island off an island. But that doesn’t mean the other islands off the coast of Tassie are any less spectacular. One such place is Bruny Island, a favourite amongst Hobart’s weekend adventurers. It’s the perfect place to get away from it all and just relax. I’ve been to Bruny a few times now and it’s rapidly becoming a firm favourite for me too.

Maria Island has such a wild and adventurous atmosphere, you truly feel like you’re in another place entirely from Tasmania. Bruny still feels like Tassie but a lot more laid back (if such a thing were even possible). I can’t be certain but I’m pretty sure time slows down on Bruny. I can imagine the most stressed out CEO, pulling their hair out and screaming into their phone on the ferry over and then collapsing into a docile calmness once they set food on Bruny. It has those vibes maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.

With that in mind we booked a beautiful house near Alonnah for a group of friends to stay in recently. It was in a perfect location near to all the main sights, pretty much bang in the middle of them all in fact. The weather went against us a bit on the first day so we didn’t get much of a chance to explore. A quick drive around Adventure Bay, a  spot of pool at the pub in Alonnah and an evening of boards games made for a lovely time in the absence of our big yellow friend in the sky. Hey, it’s Winter so a bit of inclement meteorological circumstances are to be expected. There was one exciting highlight from Saturday…..getting to finally see an albino wallaby! We were out for a drive around Adventure Bay when I randomly suggested we take a side road into the bush. Having decided it was a bit dodgy in the rain, we turned back towards civilisation and sure enough in a little field there it was. Yay!

The following (and last) day we woke up to………glorious sunshine!! Whoo! Adventure time was on! We had planned to do the Cape Queen Elizabeth Walk. I knew little about it, except the few photos I’d seen of a cool looking rock arch on the beach. With a few of our group having to get back to the “mainland” we were down to six and a half in our party, the half being Holly and Taco’s little one. We found the parking area for the walk and set off on a beautiful long path through the woods. Kookaburras giggled overhead and a Scarlet Robin watched from a fence as we made our way towards the sea.

Eventually the trees gave way to lower scrub and shoreline vegetation and the path became sandier and sandier. Something told me we were potentially getting close to the sea. One final little dune later and we were there, a glorious beach stretching off to our right towards the Neck, a rocky headland to our left. We were going to be rounding that to continue the walk. I was very impressed with the rocky seascape we encountered as it was nothing like the majority of Bruny. The atypical rolling fields and sparse forests had been replaced by ever rising cliffs and rocks that extended right down into the sea.

I always enjoy it when a walk involves a little bit of climbing or scrambling over rocks to get to your destination, something to break up the relative ease of a standard trail. The tide was a little high when we got to the shore, so there were a couple of moments of timing ourselves with the receding waves. Thankfully nobody got soaked and we all made it to Milles Beach on the far side.

At the end of Milles Beach the trail continues up onto Cape Queen Elizabeth itself. We saw a Sea Eagle perched on a tree at the end of the beach as well as a number of wading birds enjoying the sun and surf. The walk to the top isn’t too arduous and rewards with cool views towards the Tasman Peninsula in the distance. We really were blessed with the weather on the day as visibility couldn’t have been better.

Cape Queen Elizabeth is an amazing walk and one I’d definitely do again. It was great getting to have a lovely relaxing weekend with friends and still squeeze in a hike, the perfect weekend! The house we rented on AirBnB was so nice! Spacious, warm, inviting and just so pleasant. And they had table tennis! And kayaks! We didn’t get to go out on the kayaks so will just have to return in the Summer to give them a whirl. (What a struggle).

Group photo on the deck of the house.

If you’d like to find out more about the Cape Queen Elizabeth walk, check out Tas Trails. It’s been our go to site for planning adventures, although we’re rapidly tearing through the Hobart and surrounds list so will need to start exploring farther afield. (Again, oh no, what a terrible thing to have to do)