Bruny Island

February 12-15, 2026. We will walk on a guided walk with the Tas Walking Company for a "long weekend". The weekend starts with a trip to the Huon Valley and a "feast" at the Fat Pig Farm - an almost self contained farm in the Tasmanian countryside. The next few days will start with a boat ride down the Derwent River to Bruny Island. Once on the island we walk down to the Long Weekend Camp. It looks like glamping - e.g. permanent tents. Day 2 is a 14km walk to Cloudy Bay. Day 3 is to climb the highest point of Bruny Island - Mount Mangana (about 4km (3 hours)). After the climb we have lunch on the beach before our boat trip back to Hobart. This is our warmup walking trip to prepare for the other, much harder, walks coming up.

Yesterday there was a sailing regatta infront of our AirBnB. The tacking made so much noise it sounded like road construction.

There was a nice sunrise in the morning.

Then we said a tearful goodbye to our Bellerive AirBnB and our friends the wallaby family and took the ferry back to Hobart

where we met our 6 other companions (total of 8) who will be with us for the next few days. I was the only American and there was only 1 other woman.

Maria and Steve - They are South Africans living in Sydney - He's high up in Deloitte for the region. She was a stay at home mom originally from Namibia. I now have a good contact for possible travel ideas in both of these countries. They have 2 children who are close to 40 years old.

Gregory and Markus are married and are Canadians who have lived in Adelaide for over 20 years. Gregory is a radiologist and Markus (originally German) is interior designer who is now into landscaping. They just bought investment property 2 years ago in Huon Valley, right across the river from Fat Pig Farm.

Matt and Miles are from Melbourne. They knew Gregory through a Canadian contact and met again in Australia. Matt is a corporate attorney and Miles is an oncologist.

Blake Grosse is our guide who just gave up US citizenship, but he's from Australia and has moved back.

He has been guiding for 2 years after discontinuing as a personal trainer. Holly is our other guide who has just started with Tas Walking Company.

Tas Walking Company has the concession to the Tasmanian State Parks and they hire their guides. The guides are assigned to their hikes and only do a few. For example, Holly only guides on Maria (pronounced Moria) Island and Bruny Island.

Sadie Chrestman, one of the owners, hosted us at Fat Pig Farm. Matthew Evans, billed as a gourmet farmer, was not there as he was with his sick mother on the Australian mainland. Dinner was an amazing of local food and drink which included pork and vegetables.

Sadie gave us a tour of the farm including goats, cows, the vegetable garden and lovely apple orchard.

The Fat Pig Farm feast is an add-on and night one we stayed in the Double Tree in Hobart.

The next day the trip really started. I have to apologize in advance because now that I look through my photos, there aren't a lot of them. Noticeably absent are food photos and there could have been more of the camp where we slept. Sorry about that.

We had the same group (the Fat Pig Farm was an optional add-on) and we met at 7:30 for coffee and a briefing about the day (see above).

The boat ride was fun - we had to put on lined ponchos to keep warm

and interesting in that we passed the Taroona Shot Tower - I didn't even know this was a thing. Please read the link for more information. We saw a lot of very fancy houses and interesting rock formations.

and then picked up the van on Bruny Island for the next part of our day.

Our first walk was in the Bruny Island Neck Reserve along Great Bay. It was 8 miles and about 1100 feet in elevation gain. We walked up to a lookout and back down again. There was a lot of sand walking. The most interesting part was the rock formations at the end and thankfully the tide was out so we didn't have to climb back up the hill. Along the way we saw a white bellied sea eagle. This eagle is interesting for many reasons, but the one I can remember is that it has retractable talons....

At the top of the hill we stopped for our packed lunch which included some sort of sweet potato pie. It was savory, but not to my taste, so I didn't eat much of it. I did eat the cookie and the apple. The lunch tin was rather heavy as well.

After the walk we went to get fresh oysters direct from the oyster beds...

and then finally we arrived at the Mt. Mangana Campsite where we would stay for 2 nights. This was glamping - we stayed in semi-permanent tents. There was 1 shower area with 2 stalls and one drop toilet area with 2 toilets. There was a central "dining house -lodge" area where we ate and drank (a lot). There was no internet/data connection on Bruny Island and it was very quiet at night.

Dinner began with a cheese board with local cheeses and lots of alcohol. This was followed by grilled lamb and grilled steak, couscous salad, and desert.

Pademelons were frequent visitors to our campsite and were fun to watch when they came out to feed in the early evening. Chris said he heard them hop up on our wood entrance in the night. He also went to the bathroom and said there were amazing stars. He didn't wake me up to see them.

Feb 14

After a great sleep it was time for a lovely breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast. The toast and bacon were grilled which made them taste great. Today we could make our own sandwiches, but still had the heavy tin lunch box to carry in our packs.

Today's hike was to Cloudy Bay - just over 8 miles and about 1000 feet elevation gain. Again, it was a very sandy hike. It started and ended with a 2+ mile walk along a beach - once would have been enough. The walk to lunch and the viewpoint was very nice and had some lovely views. We were also able to find some local orchids. After lunch we walked back the same route and stopped for a swim at the beach. The water was beautiful, but very cold and I only managed to get up to my knees. There were reported sightings of a tiger snack, a scorpion, baby oyster catchers, and a White's Skink (lizard). All I saw was the lizard....

Dinner was a lovely cheese board and then fried fish with salad and vegetables and desert. I got up once in the night to see the starts, but no luck - totally overcast.

February 15

Today was our last day and breakfast was berries, yogurt and croissants. We packed out and headed to Movista Falls and the Movista Nature Walk.

This was a special walk because it was in a rain forest. The other prime example of a Tasman rain forest was at Mt Field National Park, where Chris and I hiked a few days previously. Especially interesting were the tree ferns that grow only 10 cm/year. These were the largest tree ferns I've ever seen - towering at 10+ feet tall. Also interesting were the different types of fungus.

From there we walked up the viewpoint at the great neck area where we hiked the first day. It was lovely weather for it.

We drove back to via Adventure Bay - significant for a few reasons. An area called two trees was painted in the 1700s and you can still see the two trees in that painting. Adventure Bay was one of the places that Captain Cook stopped for re-supply on some of his voyages.

There were some lovely tidal pools where star fish were visible and also Cunjevoi (Pyura stolonifera) a.k.a. sea squirts. They filter water and shoot out jets of water when disturbed at low tide.

To see the squirting, you'll have to wait for the very end of the video....

From there it was to the restaurant for lunch where we had some wonderful pizza. There were margarita pizzas, sausage pizza that had some cabbage on it, bacon pizza with some truffle sauce and even a squid pizza (was much better than it sounds).

After lunch it was time to go back to Hobart

and bid all our new friends goodbye.

Here are some general thoughts about our first Tas Walking Co trip. Lots of beach walking (not our favorite for hiking). The facilities were very nice so far (7/10). The guides were good (8+ out of 10). The hikes weren't really memorable (5/10). The food was pretty good (8 out of 10). Tasmanians are still apologizing for their treatment of the aboriginals.

We look forward to 3 Capes which is our next hike starting on Feb 16. It is 3 nights/4 days. More to come at the end of that adventure.