Bruny Island Wilderness Cruise from Hobart

Franklin Wharf, the coach ride and the Bruny Island ferry

The day starts at the Dock Head Building on Franklin Wharf, in the middle of the Hobart waterfront, where our guide checks you in before the coach leaves at 07:45. The drive south along the D'Entrecasteaux Channel to Kettering takes about 40 minutes, with commentary on the orchards, boatyards and oyster leases along the way, and then the coach rolls onto the vehicle ferry for the 20-minute crossing to Bruny Island. For anyone wondering how to get to Bruny Island from Hobart without hiring a car, this guided coach-and-ferry combination is the simplest answer.

On the island the road crosses The Neck, the narrow isthmus of dune between North and South Bruny, before winding down to Adventure Bay on the east coast. The guide uses the journey to explain the island's Aboriginal and maritime history and to point out the wildlife areas you will see from the water later in the day.

Adventure Bay

Adventure Bay is a long, sheltered arc of white sand on the eastern side of South Bruny, named after a ship that anchored here in the 1770s and the historic landing place for several famous expeditions. The cruise office and the small holiday village sit at the southern end of the beach, with a café, a general store and picnic tables where you can buy lunch after the cruise. There is about half an hour before departure to check in, collect your wet-weather jacket and watch the boat being readied on the sand.

The bay is also where you return to in the afternoon for free time: a walk along the beach, a coffee, or the short track towards Grass Point for views of Fluted Cape. A Bruny Island boat tour from Adventure Bay is the only way to see the cliffs beyond the cape, since no road reaches that stretch of coast.

Fluted Cape, the sea cliffs and the caves

Leaving the beach, the boat rounds Fluted Cape, where the coast changes in minutes from sand to sheer dolerite walls rising almost 300 metres straight out of the Tasman Sea, among the highest sea cliffs in Australia. The skipper takes the boat close to the rock so you can look up at the fluted columns, then nose into sea caves and under arches that only a shallow-draught boat can enter. Along this stretch you pass the Breathing Rock, a blowhole that gasps as each swell is forced through it, and The Monument, a lone dolerite pillar standing clear of the cliffs.

The commentary covers the geology of the Jurassic dolerite, the birds nesting on the ledges and the history of whaling in the bay. Expect spray and movement; this is an exposed coast and the boat is open, which is exactly why a Bruny Island cruise feels like an adventure rather than a ferry ride.

The fur seal colony and the southern tip

The turning point of the cruise is the rocky outcrop at the island's southern end where hundreds of Australian and long-nosed fur seals haul out on the rocks and tumble into the water beside the boat. The skipper holds position so you can watch them bask, squabble and swim, with the smell and the noise part of the experience. Shy albatross and other seabirds wheel overhead, and pods of dolphins frequently ride the bow on the way out or back.

Between May and November humpback and southern right whales pass along this coast on their migration, and the skippers follow them when conditions allow, though no sighting of any animal can be promised. This is the moment people mean when they search for a seal cruise in Tasmania, and the return run along the cliffs gives a second look at the caves in different light before the boat lands back on Adventure Bay beach.

Free time on Bruny Island and the return to Hobart

After about three hours on the water the boat returns to Adventure Bay by early afternoon, and you have free time to buy lunch at the café, walk the beach or simply sit in the sun. The coach then retraces the route across The Neck to the ferry, with a stop for the Neck lookout if time allows, and crosses back to Kettering in the late afternoon light.

The drive to Hobart ends with drop-off at your hotel, so there is no need to find your way back from the wharf after a long day. The whole experience lasts about ten hours and is one of the most popular Hobart day trips for travellers who want a wild coastline rather than a city sight; people who have hired a car can instead choose the cruise-only option and meet the boat at Adventure Bay.