A friend of mine and her family had been holidaying on Bruny Island and I went across on their last day. We went to the rugged south end of the island, and visited the famous 180-year-old lighthouse.
During summer, tours are conducted and we joined a small group to head up the slightly vertiginous spiral stairs to the top.
It had been blowing a gale at ground level, almost capable of knocking you off your feet, but it seemed calmer when we went out onto the platform at the top and took in the views of the lighthouse keepers’ houses and the wild coastline.
When the lighthouse was decommissioned (it has been superseded by a nearby much less-imposing station, which can just be seen on the ridge in the photo above), most of its fittings were actually able to be retained, and it’s really cool to be able to look up into the set of Fresnel lenses that were used to intensify the beam and ensure it could shine so far out to sea.
The glass on one of the stairway windows, however, is in rather worse repair.
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