Cruise to Maria Island
Trip Start
Mar 19, 2012
1
32
63
Trip End
Apr 28, 2012
Maria Island National Park, Tasmania, Australia
Friday, March 30, 2012
Today we went on a cruise to Maria Island with East Coast Cruises. Our boat captain was Steve who was very friendly and informative. Maria Island is an island off Triabunna on the east coast of Tasmania … with historic buildings (dated before Port Arthur), sweeping bays, rugged cliffs and mountains, and wildlife (including lots and lots of Cape Island geese!!! They are huge!). I took my ginger pills before departing and surprisingly I had a great day.
We started with 6 adults and 4 children to the island on a converted 20'dive boat. We then dropped of the family of 6 to the island and went on with our cruise with just us and another 2 ladies … so very personal really. We then cruised to another small rocky island about 20 mins away and watched a hub of seals. We were able to get quite close to them and they also jumped/slid into the water and swam near us. They were very noisy and very very smelly!!!!! It was fun watching them though.
This little rocky island also had several caves and the captain took us right into 2 of them … it was a bit scary but awesome and fascinating at the same time. (I think this was the highlight of the day actually!) Well worth being on the smaller boat of the fleet and with a small group so we all got a good look and great attempts at photos. We also saw some sea eagles nesting on the cliffs of this island.
On the way back to Maria Island we had fun watching dolphins (and some seals) feeding on a shoal of fish … once again the boat captain was very obliging and circled the boat a few times so we could get a great look. Very hard trying to click the camera at the right time though. We then went to a cliff edge of Maria Island and saw a waterfall on the 'Fossil Cliffs’, and around to ‘Painted Cliffs’. We then got off at the dock and had our packed lunch and a walk around the historic buildings. Fascinating! Back to the boat and back to Triabunna by 4.30pm. The weather was very kind to us today – a beautiful day … overall a very pleasant day.
Dinner tonight is freshly cooked Tasmanian Crayfish (our first taste!) and King Flathead (cooked by John) with salad!
Comments
Sounds like an awesome day! Love the photos.