Bruny Island (
Nuenonne: Lunawanna-alonnah
) is a
island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
located off the south-eastern coast of
Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
, Australia. The island is separated from the Tasmanian mainland by the
D'Entrecasteaux Channel
The D'Entrecasteaux Channel is a body of water located between Bruny Island and the south-east of the mainland of Tasmania, Australia. The channel is the mouth for the estuaries of the Derwent and the Huon Rivers and empties into the Tasman S ...
, and its east coast lies within the
Tasman Sea
The Tasman Sea ( Māori: ''Te Tai-o-Rēhua'', ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer ...
.
Storm Bay is located to the island's northeast. Both the island and the channel are named after French explorer,
Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux. Its traditional
Aboriginal name is lunawanna-allonah, which survives as the name of two island settlements,
Alonnah and
Lunawanna.
Geography
Geologically, Bruny Island is actually two land masses—North Bruny and South Bruny—that are joined by a long, narrow, sandy
isthmus
An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus ...
, often referred to as "The Neck". The island has a total length of approximately . The holiday village of
Dennes Point is located in North Bruny, while South Bruny is the site of the towns of
Alonnah,
Adventure Bay and
Lunawanna.
![Aerial perspective of the isthmus of Bruny Island](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Aerial_perspective_of_the_isthmus_of_Bruny_Island.jpg)
Outside its settlements, the island is covered in grazing fields and large tracts of dry
eucalyptus
''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as e ...
forest. Inland forests continue to be logged, but other large sections—mostly along the southeastern coast—are preserved as the South Bruny National Park. While the seaward side of the island features two long beaches—Adventure Bay and
Cloudy Bay
Te Koko-o-Kupe / Cloudy Bay is located at the northeast of New Zealand's South Island, to the south of the Marlborough Sounds and north of Clifford Bay. In August 2014, the name Cloudy Bay, given by Captain Cook in 1770, was officially altered t ...
—it is for the most part extremely rugged, with cliffs of
dolerite
Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro,
is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grain ...
that are over . Bruny's channel side is far more sheltered and a favourite fishing and recreational boating area for local and interstate visitors. Adventure Bay is located on the eastern side of the
isthmus
An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus ...
, while
Isthmus Bay is located on the western side.
Access to the island is by vehicular ferry, funded by the State Government. Since 1954, four vessels have operated the
Bruny Island Ferry
The Bruny Island Ferry links Bruny Island to the Tasmanian mainland. Once operated by North Western Shipping and Towage Co. Pty Ltd and owned by the Tasmanian Government, the ferry '' Mirambeena'' travels between Kettering on the Tasmanian ma ...
service between the island and
Kettering
Kettering is a market and industrial town in North Northamptonshire, England. It is located north of London and north-east of Northampton, west of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means "the place (or territory) of ...
on the mainland. The service is currently plied by the ''Mirambeena'', which is unusual for using a
Voith-Schneider
A cyclorotor, cycloidal rotor, cycloidal propeller or cyclogiro, is a fluid propulsion device that converts shaft power into the acceleration of a fluid using a rotating axis perpendicular to the direction of fluid motion. It uses several blades wi ...
propulsion
Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived f ...
system rather than a conventional
propeller.
The d'Entrecastaux Channel region, sheltered by Bruny Island, is increasingly subject to foreshore erosion, some areas have begun sandbagging to reduce the effects.
History
Bruny Island was originally inhabited by
Aboriginal Tasmanians
The Aboriginal Tasmanians ( Palawa kani: ''Palawa'' or ''Pakana'') are the Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania, located south of the mainland. For much of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were widely, an ...
until European arrival, and there is still a large community of people who identify as Aboriginal.
Abel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 160310 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first known European explorer to reach New ...
tried to land in the vicinity of
Adventure Bay in November 1642.
In 1773
Tobias Furneaux
Captain Tobias Furneaux (21 August 173518 September 1781) was an English navigator and Royal Navy officer, who accompanied James Cook on his second voyage of exploration. He was one of the first men to circumnavigate the world in both directions ...
was the first recorded European to land on the island at Adventure Bay (named after his ship); four years later on 26 January 1777
James Cook's two ships, the ''Resolution'' and ''Discovery'' stayed in the bay area for two days. Cook carved his initials in a tree that was destroyed in a 1905 bushfire and is now commemorated by a plaque. In 1788 and again in 1792 (with Matthew Flinders)
William Bligh
Vice-Admiral William Bligh (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was an officer of the Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. The mutiny on the HMS ''Bounty'' occurred in 1789 when the ship was under his command; after being set adrift i ...
stayed in the Adventure Bay area.
The island itself however is named after the French explorer
Bruni d'Entrecasteaux
Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni, chevalier d'Entrecasteaux () (8 November 1737 – 21 July 1793) was a French naval officer, explorer and colonial governor. He is perhaps best known for his exploration of the Australian coast in 1792, while ...
who explored the Channel region and discovered it to be an island in 1792. It was known as Bruni Island until 1918, when the spelling was changed to Bruny.
Whaling was conducted off the coast of Bruny Island in the first half of the 19th century. The British whaler
''Alexander'' was reported to be whaling in
Adventure Bay in 1804. In 1805, the British whalers ''Richard and Mary'',
''Ocean'' and the Sydney whaler
''King George'' were reported there in the winter months. The American whaler ''Topaz'' was there in 1807. Colonial entrepreneurs also operated shore-based whaling stations there. Bethune and
Kelly
Kelly may refer to:
Art and entertainment
* Kelly (Kelly Price album)
* Kelly (Andrea Faustini album)
* ''Kelly'' (musical), a 1965 musical by Mark Charlap
* "Kelly" (song), a 2018 single by Kelly Rowland
* ''Kelly'' (film), a 1981 Canadi ...
had a station operating in Adventure Bay by August 1826. Kelly and Lucas had another at Bull Bay. Young and Walford had one at Trumpeter Bay.
Alexander Imlay applied for the site as a whaling station at
Cloudy Bay
Te Koko-o-Kupe / Cloudy Bay is located at the northeast of New Zealand's South Island, to the south of the Marlborough Sounds and north of Clifford Bay. In August 2014, the name Cloudy Bay, given by Captain Cook in 1770, was officially altered t ...
in 1837, and Brown and Rogers did the same in 1842. These stations had all ceased operating by 1850, although whaling vessels sometimes anchored offshore in the second half of the century.
Even though "Cooktown" was marked on maps as early as the 1840s, the island was not officially opened up to European settlement until the late 1800s when the timber industry took off. South Bruny was opened up by numerous tramways and haulages, some horse-drawn and some using modified locomotives. The longest and best preserved tramway runs from Adventure Bay to the far southeast corner of the island. Almost all settlements on South Bruny were originally opened as timber ports owned by the different timber companies operating on the island.
Lunawanna (former Daniels Bay),
Alonnah (former Mills Reef) and
Adventure Bay were some of the largest ports operating on the island. At Daniels Bay, the settlement was separated from the timber jetty as the tramway was forced to trace along the south side of the bay to reach deep water as most of the bay was too shallow to bring boats in. Most settlements of South Bruny now serve as shack towns or holiday locations.
Since the 1920s the island has become known as a holiday location with surfing beaches, National Parks and historical sites. In more recent history the Bruny Island was the site of a land transfer by the state government to local Aboriginal people.
Environment
Bruny Island is classified by
BirdLife International as an
Important Bird Area because it supports the world's largest population of the
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...
forty-spotted pardalote
The forty-spotted pardalote (''Pardalotus quadragintus'') is one of Australia's rarest birds and by far the rarest pardalote, being confined to a few colonies in the south-east corner of Tasmania, mainly on Maria Island and Bruny Island.
Desc ...
, up to a third of the world population of the
swift parrot
The swift parrot (''Lathamus discolor'') is a species of broad-tailed parrot, found only in southeastern Australia. The species breeds in Tasmania during the summer and migrates north to south eastern mainland Australia from Griffith- Warialda ...
, all 12 of Tasmania's
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
bird species, and up to 240,000 breeding pairs of the
short-tailed shearwater (or Tasmanian muttonbird). In March 2021 awareness was raised about the feral cat population. This has been steadily growing over the last decade. The local residents have opened an inquiry into the sudden large number of feral cats. With concerns of this spike in numbers having adverse affects on the environment and wildlife. This inquiry, Taskforce Tom, has discovered some of the feral population are the size of large dogs. Initial findings strongly suggest the feral cats migrated from the Eastern Shore of Tasmania. Namely the Howrah/Tranmere region.
On the issue of feral cats, an alternative view taken by some wildlife ecologists is that cats are a naturalized alien species in much of Australia, and that the best current approach to conservation of their prey species is, in general, ensuring adequate intact habitats. An exception can be small islands where eradication techniques allow, especially because such islands are often important refuges but this is unfortunately impractical at present on an island the size of Bruny. Control methodologies are under active investigation and can be expected to improve.
Tourism
A key contributor to Bruny Island's economy is its growing tourism industry. Being home to the
South Bruny National Park
The South Bruny National Park is a national park located on Bruny Island, Tasmania, Australia, about south of Hobart. The park contains the Cape Bruny Lighthouse. The highest point of the park is Mount Bruny at .
History
The park also embr ...
, tourism on the island centres on the showcase of its natural assets.
The
Cape Bruny Lighthouse, first lit in 1838, is an iconic Australian lighthouse. It was the third lighthouse built in Tasmania, and the fourth in all of Australia,
and was the longest continuously manned lighthouse in the country until it was automated in 1993. It was removed from service in 1996, and became part of the South Bruny National Park in 2000. Guided tours of the structure are available.
In 2010/11, overall visitors to Bruny Island increased 4% to 74,600. The island is primarily a day-trip destination with only 21,800 visitors staying on the island overnight. There are a growing number of tourism businesses on the island including a cheese factory, oyster farm, vineyard, smokehouse, lighthouse, museum, art gallery, two eco-cruises along with various accommodation properties and cafes.
Accommodation
Bruny Island offers a variety of accommodation. Visitors can opt to book an airbnb or stay at holiday homes and luxurious retreats. There is also a caravan park in Adventure Bay. The island also offer camping in South Bruny National Park and The Neck.
Apollo Bay
Apollo Bay is a coastal town in southwestern Victoria, Australia. It is situated on the eastern side of Cape Otway, along the edge of the Barham River and on the Great Ocean Road, in the Colac Otway Shire. The town had a population of 1,790 at ...
on Bruny Island also offer private camping through HipCampers. One such available site i
"Quoll Hideaway - Bruny Bush and Beach"which sits on land inhabited by the famous eastern
quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus) which is thought to be extinct on the Australian mainland.
Localities
Bruny Island is divided into eleven bounded localities. The two largest by area are North Bruny and South Bruny which consist of national park, state forest and some grazing areas and do not have
postcodes
A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal ...
.
On North Bruny there are five populated coastal enclaves:
Apollo Bay
Apollo Bay is a coastal town in southwestern Victoria, Australia. It is situated on the eastern side of Cape Otway, along the edge of the Barham River and on the Great Ocean Road, in the Colac Otway Shire. The town had a population of 1,790 at ...
,
Barnes Bay,
Dennes Point,
Great Bay and
Killora. On South Bruny there are four:
Adventure Bay,
Alonnah,
Lunawanna and
Simpsons Bay.
Gallery
File:The Spit Bruny Island.jpg, "The Neck" connects the two halves of Bruny Island and is an important breeding site for short-tailed shearwater and fairy penguins
File:Phalacrocorax fuscescens Roosting.jpg, Black-faced cormorants ('' Phalacrocorax fuscescens''), Bruny Island, Tasmania
File:Bruny-Island-068.jpg, Rock formation off the coast of Bruny Island
See also
*
List of islands of Tasmania
Tasmania is the smallest and southernmost state of Australia. The Tasmanian mainland itself is an island, with an area of - 94.1% of the total land area of the state. The other islands have a combined area of , for a cumulative total of 99.75% o ...
References
External links
* has links to Bruny Island businesses and information.
*
{{Authority control
Islands of South East Tasmania
Southern Tasmania
Birdwatching sites
Important Bird Areas of Tasmania
Whaling stations in Australia