The warm turquoise waters are so clear that every ridge in the white sand floor is visible. Tea trees line the shore for a distinctively Australian look. Is this the Whitsundays? Maybe Rottnest Island? The dead giveaway is the orange lichen garnishing the granite boulders. Yep, it’s Tasmania. And that’s me, swimming in Bass Strait – the strip of treacherous water between mainland Australia and Tasmania. Flinders Island is not so cold, not so barren.
An hour into my week-long walking holiday, Flinders Island has kicked the stereotype of the Bass Strait islands being cold and barren.
“It’s the jewel of Tasmania,” the pilot shouts as our eight-seater Airvan chugs noisily away from Bridport, on the state’s north-eastern coastline. Below us stretch the low islands of the Furneaux Group, remnants of the mostly submerged plain that once linked Tasmania and Victoria.
On the west coast of Flinders Island, my guide Matt describes the land as “the Bay of Fires on steroids”. On this trip, we climb Mt Killiecrankie (fun to say, almost as much fun to climb) and I swim every day bar one, in spectacularly turquoise seas, making this a walk-swim-walk expedition.