Day 12. Bruny Island, Tasmania.

Both the campervans are decrepit pieces of junk so we break ourselves in gently with a leisurely drive to the ferry for Bruny Island on Tasmania’s south coast.

If Tasmania’s that funny little island that sits off southern mainland Australia, then Bruny Island is the funny little island that sits off southern Tasmania.

It’s small, but perfectly formed. A beautiful, sparsely populated place formed of two lumps of land joined by thin isthmus in the middle. The northern lump is where we spend most of today, crossing to the hillier southern side at dusk to set up camp on a lovely little site. Me and Steve do the hunter gatherer thing of collecting wood and building a fire while Wend gets the nosh ready.

Believe me, this is about as daring as it gets for three townies like us, but there’s more excitement to come at nightfall when we take a trip to a nearby beach to catch a glimpse of a colony of fairy penguins.

We join a small crowd at a specially built lookout and do what they’ve been doing for the past hour – stare intently and fruitlessly - at the bit of ocean where the penguins are meant to exit before waddling to their burrows in the dunes.

Patience is required for something such as this, and after twenty minutes of peering at a murky strip of sand we’ve just about had enough. Suddenly though, there’s a squawk from the beach and 4 or 5 little fella’s are heading towards us.

This is going to be great; a genuine piece of animal magic is coming our way and we have ringside seats. A Japanese tourist to our left has other ideas however, he whips out his camera and blinds the lot of them with flash photography. Of course, this also succeeds in scaring the poor things to bits and puts paid to any of us seeing anything of note at close range.

Moron.

As we walk dejectedly back to the van cursing Tokyo Joe and his Nuking Nikon, justice is dished out sublimely. He’s still annoying everyone at the lookout, so misses the penguin that passes right in front of us. We stop in our tracks and gawp at the curious little creature, who instead of scurrying off, simply sidles up to my foot for a good old sniff.

A strange end to an eventful day.