Bruny Island

The thinly populated North and South Bruny islands, off the southeast coast of Tasmania, are linked by a very narrow isthmus. There is a ferry between Kettering on the mainland and Roberts Point on North Bruny Island. The island was visited in the second half of the 18th C by a number of well-known navigators (Furneaux in 1773, Cook in 1777, Bligh in 1788 and 1792), and Captain Bligh is said to have planted the first apple-trees in Australia here. Bruny Island is named after the French Admiral Bruny d'Entrecasteaux, who surveyed this area in 1792 and is also commemorated in the name of the channel between Tasmania and Bruny Island. In the southeast of the northern island, near Cape Queen Elizabeth, is a memorial to the early European navigators who passed this way. From the lookout (viewpoint) at the near end of the isthmus between Isthmus Bay and Adventure Bay there are magnificent panoramic views.

On the south island visitors can see the spot where Cook landed. In Adventure Bay is the Bligh Museum. There are good bush walks in Labillardiére State Reserve, to the summit of Mount Bruny (506m) and to Tasman Head, at the southern tip of the island. A prominent landmark on Cape Bruny (the southwestern tip of the island) is an old lighthouse of 1836.