Maria Island is worthy of, at the very least, an overnight stay. But some people have busy lives, short attention spans or are doing Tasmania in five and a half days. Could these people conceivably breakfast in Hobart, drive north-east for 84km, cross a watery passage, hike up and down Bishop and Clerk (4hr/9km/easy) and be back in Hobart in time for dinner? I had to know.
The first thing I discovered was that without your own boat or a friend with a boat your time is controlled by the island’s sole ferry service. The winter schedule allows you to spend around four hours there, but you get a bonus two between October and April.
Maria Island lies off the east coast of southern Tasmania across Mercury Passage. The Oyster Bay tribe first inhabited the island 30,000 years ago and knew it as Toarra Marra Monah. Abel Tasman changed the name to Maria (now pronounced mar-RYE-a) after the wife of the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies in Bavaria.
The 10.30am ferry from Triabunna dropped me and my fellow hiker on Maria Island 40min later. We hot-footed it to the centre of the historic Darlington town site - full of geese and ghosts - where the way to Bishop and Clerk is clearly marked opposite the Ranger Station (an alternative track is opposite the jetty).
We hastened along the gravel road beneath blue gums and white peppermint eucalypts, splish-splashed our way across Bernacchis Creek and hurried past the cement works ruins. Structures on Maria are remnants of two convict periods, two industrial periods and a resort era. The island now supports threatened species of wildlife introduced to assist in their survival and to keep the forty-spotted pardalote and native pademelons company.
As we power-walked up the hill towards Fossil Cliffs the road became a track and the track became one with the cleared grassland. We could already see Bishop and Clerk before we reached Skipping Ridge and would have stopped and gazed at the view if we’d hadn’t been in such a rush.
After bolting up the steep grassy path along the cliff-top, we dashed between casuarinas, through a stand of she-oaks and back into bushland, now dominated by stringy-barks, blue gums and white (or manna) gums. Green rosellas whipped around us and our heavy footsteps startled some ground thrush. The environment became damp and ferny and the track increasingly rockier.
At the dolerite scree slope we strode up a beautifully constructed zig-zag path, boulder-hopped closer to the top slowed down only to negotiate the unexpectedly tricky few metres of rock climbing to the summit (630m). We then had just enough time to make tea, eat lunch and be rained, hailed and snowed on before whizzing back to the jetty to meet the four o’clock ferry to Triabunna.
Of course we didn’t actually take it.
Like I said, Maria Island is worthy of, at the very least, an overnight stay.
Need to Know
The only regular scheduled ferry to the island is run by Encounter Maria Island. The timetable varies depending on the season. For details see encountermaria.com.au. For more info on Maira Island visit parks.tas.gov.au.
For multi-day guided walks on Maria Island click here.
Words and photo_Elspeth Callender