Tuesday, March 30th …..

We were trying to work out when we were last on Bruny Island and it’s certainly been a long time. We were certainly there around 1980 when we had our slide-on camper. It must have been around Easter because we found the camps of mutton-birders and even saw some of them carrying their bags of birds from one of the rookeries. Muttonbird is the common name for the Short-tailed Shearwater which travels from the Arctic Ocean to breed in the Bass Strait Islands each summer. They dig burrows and lay their eggs which hatch out into a fatty, downy chick which have been prized by indigenous hunters for thousands of years. Harvesting muttonbirds is still regarded as an important cultural practice among aboriginal people and, on some islands it is a thriving business. Harvesting starts around the beginning of April and Easter is a popular time for hunters who look on it as a hobby. Apparently, collecting the chicks is a fairly cruel practice. For example, because the birds often share their nests with snakes, it’s stupid to put your arm in the burrow and feel around for the chick. Instead, the hunters use a stick with a hook on the end. When they’ve hooked the bird, a quick wring of the neck finishes the job. I’ve never eaten muttonbird, but you can buy them at the butcher’s for about $6 in the season. I’m told it’s strong-flavoured and oily. Many of the birds nest on a little island just off the southern tip of Bruny near the lighthouse. If you’re careful, you can jump from rock to rock across the gap. One or two mutton-birders we saw, made the trip safely but one poor fellow lost his footing and had to drop his bag of chicks to keep himself from a watery grave. Serves him right, you might say. The muttonbirders’ camps we saw were appalling. You can imagine the stench from the wholesale slaughtering of birds and the cooking of them in big drums. The landscape was a mess of grey down from the careless plucking and the oil from the birds seemed to be everywhere. The ‘birders had abandoned clothes and blankets too which were beyond redemption so it was not a place to hang around in. I wonder whose job it is to clean up after the annual harvest. We might have been to Bruny more recently but it is clearly this fist visit which has stuck in our minds. There’s a ferry to the island every hour or so we joined the line waiting for the boat to turn up. Up behind us is the Oyster Cove Inn sporting a bit of a facelift since we last saw it – some renovations and a new paint job at least. At the end of 1999, Marilyn and I were holidaying in Hobart and were seriously considering a change of lifestyle. Glancing through the paper, we saw an ad looking for managers for the Oyster Cove Inn which, at that time was a bit run-down and needing some imagination to get it moving again. We made an appointment to meet the owner, who lived in Sydney, and outlined our ideas of lifting the focus of the hotel, providing fine food and wine to tourists, gourmet picnic baskets to yachties from the adjoining marina, naughty weekends for jaded couples from Hobart, Murder Parties, and so on. Not what he was looking for, apparently, as he said, ‘Our business here is selling beer to the locals.” Oh, well, he probably couldn’t have afforded us anyway. There’s a new ferry on the run which takes vehicles on two decks and it’s only about 20 minutes across the water. Arriving on the other side, we drive through long stretches of farmland until we come to The Neck Campground where we find a nice spot among the trees and settle in. There’s a long-drop toilet and a covered picnic table for Day Use Only but, otherwise it’s pretty primitive. There’s not even any water. Nonetheless, the National Parks and Wildlife Service believe it’s appropriate to charge us $10 per night for the privilege of parking on their sand. For the rest of the afternoon, we explored the nearby towns of Adventure Bay and Alonnah. There’s not much to see as most of the industry here is farming. There are two caravan parks at Adventure Bay, but one is closed and the other seems to be mostly permanent vans. Alonnah has a ‘tavern’ but only supplies meals at the weekend. There are lots of B&Bs and holiday cottages so it’s cetainly geared up for tourists looking to get away from it all for a weekend. And, it’s beautiful! Endless, pristine beaches, rocky headlands and rolling green hills. We’ll certainly enjoy a few days of this magic place.