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Adventure Island
Water, Wilds & Wow!
Behind its three mighty outboard motors the vessel’s wake widens, to crash and boom onto the base of towering sea walls. Off our bow, a great column of ancient dolerite – Monument Rock – rises 50 metres, separated from the polished black cliffs by a narrow channel of surging water. With engines reaching a new crescendo, our craft plunges through the gap in an adrenaline-charged rush – for an instant the incredulous passengers are transfixed in helpless anticipation – then slithers to an arcing stop in a maelstrom of bubbling foam.
‘Okay, who wants to do it again?’ asks the smiling skipper who, not surprisingly, receives a unanimous vote of approval from his beaming passengers. This is a Bruny Island Charters cruise down the south-east coast of Bruny Island in a custom-built eco-touring boat. Bruny Island is a place of pristine grandeur, where sheer walls of rock, rising to 276 metres, stand defiant against the ceaseless gnawing of the Tasman Sea. This is a maritime wilderness, home to a superabundance of marine and bird life. It seems implausible that the capital city of Hobart is just 60 kilometres away.
The engines hum again, briefly this time, before the boat settles in the middle of a great ampitheatre of rock, centre-stage beneath tiers of gigantic organ-pipes stacked so high that to see the top, the passengers must crane backwards, their heads almost horizontal. High above, a sea-eagle glances down.
Just thirty minutes previously, the tour had started from the small township of Adventure Bay, nestling beneath forested hills overlooking an aqua sea and the glistening white of a sandy beach, in what has been described as the ‘ the most historic bay in Australia’ – Captains Furneaux, Cook and Bligh all landed at Adventure Bay during the late eighteenth century. By now, everyone on board is attuned to the skipper’s teasing sense of fun that seasons a wealth of fascinating information about the history, the flora, fauna and society of this very special place, with witty asides and skillful wordplay.
Continuing south, escorted part-way by a shy albatross and past a nesting colony of rare Australasian gannets, the 12.5-metre vessel pauses to nudge its way into a sea cave, rising and falling gently with the ebb and flow, so close to the polished walls that the passengers can almost reach out and touch the limpets. In another cave, an extraordinary 90-degree turn at the end catapults the boat back into the ocean and from there, on to Breathing Rock, a blowhole that, with a great sigh, can propel spray 20 metres into the air.
A triumphant blast of the horn celebrates where the Tasman Sea meets the Southern Ocean as the boat approaches ‘ The Friars’, a group of small islands, some no bigger than rocky outcrops, just off the most southerly point of South Bruny. These rocks serve as a nesting site for gannets and black-faced cormorants and more dramatically, as a hang out for a colony of Australian fur seals. The vessel edges so close to the blubbery mammals that the Antarctic-cleansed purity of the breeze is briefly replaced by the stink of their fish-fuelled breath.
On the cruise home, a pod of dolphins is sighted feeding from a shoal of couta fish. The mammals take time out to play with the boat , bursting exuberantly from the water in graceful arcs.
To witness the awesome majesty and fecundity of nature, to feel the precision of a powerful craft, and to share with the skipper his evident love of the oceans that he calls home, is quite an experience. So is experiencing all this adventure on a day trip from a state capital.
Cruises operate 1 October through to 30 April.