Cheeky coffee and muffins at the Bakery across the street (an old sawmill)

Drive down to the Hastings Caves: the only “easily accessible” Dolomite caves in Tasmania

Discovered in 1917 by loggers in the area, this 3km cave is 50m under the forest floor has all the jazzy cave features of straws, stalagmites, stalactites and columns (the meeting of stalagmites and stalactites)

A new one too, helictites – horizontal formations coming out the stalactites, defying gravity

After the caves, we head back to the visitor centre, go through to the Platypus Walk 10 minutes along a creek – afraid no luck this time – and then take a dip in the “thermal spring”

It’s basically like a regular swimming pool, that’s heated with the warmth of the hot spring that’s 600m below, and is ultimately a bit nippy at 28 degrees – pretty underwhelming

Shower and off we head to Kettering to get the ferry to Bruny Island stopping off in Huon village for a bite to eat at Banjos

We finally make it to Kettering and drive straight on to a ferry a minute before it departs – skillz ????

Take a 20 minute ferry across the channel to Bruny Island

Head to the Bruny Island Cheese Factory and sample some cheeses – their original, flagship cheese, the C2, just won best cheese in the world – it was a nice hard cheese, bit like a mature cheddar

They also had several variations of a camembert-like cheese but one was soaked in Pinot Noir and wrapped in vine leaves which was quite unique

Off to Bruny Island Honey to sample some of their wares; they have lots of different products where they’ve mixed honey with things including ginger, fennel and even habanero chillies as well as non-edible creams and lotions to try

Take a look inside a bee hive and see if you can spot the queen

Off we go over the thin neck of the island to Hotel Bruny, our accommodation for the night

They have some lovely little lodges with great glass fronts overlooking the bay, and a couple of bottles of local cider thrown in to top it off – lovely ????

After a chill, we head down for dinner at the hotel: another serving of their own cider, a locally caught fish and chips, and a chicken Parma from locally reared chickens… we sense a theme about where everything is coming from ????

After food, we head back to the Neck Game Reserve

To the lookout, which is named after an influencial Aboriginal lady: Trigunini, and see some majestic views of the Neck and sunset – we even spot a Shearwater egg in a nest

To the Penguin View – no penguins but see all the Shearwaters – hundreds, if not thousands, swarming around just as it gets dark

They come to nest here after completing a journey all the way from Alaska

See some bunnies and hear the screaming chicks of the Shearwaters

On the drive back to bed, we see 2 Possums, 2 Quolls, 1 Bandicoot, many a Pademelon, a couple of young Pademelon or Wallabies and even 1 White Wallaby!

Driving back in the dark, we took it very slow (it is recommended to be around 45 kph but that’s still very speedy)

Another driver was being very dangerous, and honestly quite dick-ish, and almost killed the Possums as well as a couple of Wallabies ???? don’t be that dick: slow down or just don’t drive at night!

We do make it back in one piece – with all the animals we pass making it alive too! – and it’s to bed after having a nose at the wildlife on our lodge’s deck