Ten days ago Sue and I were on Bruny Island.  This is a relatively small (relative to Tasmania, itself small relative to Australia) off the coast of tasmania, south of Hobart.  Two of our friends are spending the summer in Tasmania – as they have done for the last few years – and we went to stay in a house on Bruny Island with them for a long weekend.

It’s a two-hour flight to Hobart, but that’s the sort of thing we Aussies will do for a weekend away.  Some mainland families have even begun to buy “weekenders” in Hobart for use on a regular basis.  This is much to the annoyance of locals, as it puts the prices up, of no real benefit to anyone the non-owners say of course.

Anyway, back to our weekend.  The island is beautiful, and large enough to have its own cheese-making farm, winery and oyster farm.  So, together with Andrea and David’s supplies of wonderful Tasmanian wine, we had a really good time.

We spent time looking at the wonderful coastline, including the lighthouse shown above, and the cliffs overlooking the Southern Pacific.

The lighthouse was particularly good, although we were too late in the day to climb to the top, we did get a good look inside, which was spectacular even from the ground floor.

It’s now out of use, of course, replaced by a deeply unimpressive small structure a little to the west of the original tower.

Tasmania appears to be full of such gems, and really is a very beautiful state.  Well worth the trip.