Umbrella Point Bruny Island 2014

As we'd had beautiful weather for several days, we were looking forward to a good walk on Bruny Island with great views around the Channel.

I knew something was wrong when I woke to the sound of the Bruny Island Ferry's fog horn. Everything was white.

Trial Bay on way up from Woodbridge

 

 

 

Same spot on way back

Kettering next to ferry terminal

Anyway, today we were going over to Bruny Island on the ferry (free for pedestrians) and walking mainly along the coast and then over & down to Umbrella Point. Very smooth crossing and a full ferry with many tourists going over on bus tours.

The crossing takes about 15 minutes and at the Bruny end is a small shop beyond which is the gate where we begin our walk. The initial part of the walk is across private land, and we had de facto permission to cross. (The Pendani Walking club was going over at the same time, with official permission, so we became temporary members).

Bruny Island Ferry "Mirambeena"

Kettering Harbour

We laugh at such signs! No, as I say we had permission. Sort of.

Not much view looking away from the water.

Coming up from the rocky shore

This gum has obviously been down for a while, judging from the upright growth along its trunk

Looking for Morning Tea

Apollo Bay

It's open walking across a sheep paddock until we crossed down to the rocky beach after Morning Tea. Still no views due to fog.

We were walking along a Coastal Reserve, but had no information how far back from the water line it went, so on the way out we stuck mainly to the beach.

This turned out to be unnecessary, as we found out when the land was subdivided, the developer was required to fence along the top edge of the reserve which gave plenty of room to walk along the top.

There were a couple of homes we passed, providing entertainment to various dogs who are no doubt bored during the day, until we came to the end of Apollo Bay. There the land had been broken up into many smaller blocks and various shacks & houses are close to the shore line which drops down to rocks.

Avoiding this by taking a vehicle track a short distance up to Apollo Bay road and turning right onto a wide gravel road.

Short track from beach to Apollo Bay Rd.

Apollo Bay Rd.

Friendly local

Turning off

Bush track to unnamed bay

Tall young growth

The little bay

Glimpse of the salmon farm in Snake Bay

Heading up onto Umbrella Point

Looking back

One of two amazing gums

Lunch

Dead gum along shore

It's probably been 30 years or more since I've been down here and then it was a nice bush track down to Kinghorne Point. Since then there are several new roads and almost all of the land has been broken up for sale.

After a while, we came to Lowes Rd. where we turned left. Again a pleasant walk up and down a slight hill before coming to a sharp left hand bend which had a bush track straight ahead of us. This is a reserve which leads down to a small, sheltered bay which seems to have no name. I've looked at the Government List site, offical maps, old maps and I can't find any.

Continuing around to our right along a rocky foreshore, we enter Umbrella Point which is open walking with tussocks and rocks which can snag your feet.

We had lunch on the Point with the fog sometimes giving us a view of the fish farm off shore, and some fantastic big gums along the edge.

We walked back the way we came with a detour to help a fellow U3A member that Tas had met on the ferry. Marcus and his wife were over to do some working & planting on their son's property, and needed help in putting a generator into the back of their ute. Many hands make light work, but they baulked when I asked them to do it again for photos.

Loading generator for Marcus

Heading down to reserve, still foggy in places. This was about 1p.m.

View of opposite shore

Waiting for return ferry. Next time we're just going to travel this far and spend the day here!

Fish farm work boat and ferry

We had upper deck to our selves

Kettering without fog

Back along the top of the reserve made for a quicker return trip, stopping at the Bruny Island store to pickup ice cream and sit in the sun, which had finally appeared, to await the arrival of the return ferry. It was quite a pleasant walk and will be better the next time we do it.

There were several wildlife moments on this walk. First I missed a large roo crossing in front of us on the road. Then I missed getting photos of a very large seal playing with a salmon just at the end of Umbrella Point. I also missed a photo of a Sea Eagle. I did get the top of a seals head from the Bruny shop, and took another photo of what we thought was a Sea Eagle in the distance. It wasn't.

Top of seals head

Not an eagle

It wasn't until I got home that I realized I had a photo of Woodbridge from Bruny.

Woodbridge

Even walking back, I could see the fog hadn't cleared from the south channel.

Led by Sally, we had 11 walkers and covered 10.66km in 4:21hours.

I had to edit the GPS file as it indicated I went crazy when we reached the shop, showing me running around the shop a number of times before taking off down the beach before returning. So the distance may be a little out.

Just for your information, I walked to & from Woodbridge and covered just over 20km.

Click here to download GPX file