Travelways

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Short walk has some tall tales

THE walk from the car park to Tamar Island is easy. It's flat, boarded path most of the way. But it wasn't always so easy to approach Tamar Island. Back in 1994 there was a big, bovine hurdle to overcome. His name was Bruno the bull. At least, that was his name in the public sphere. Veteran staffers at The Examiner maintain that the curmudgeonly giant was named by a night news editor who wanted a name that would fit neatly into a headline. From July of that year, the name Bruno featured in dozens of headlines as the community embraced the issue: should he stay or should he go? A boat or a bullet? And if he should go, who was going to move the cantankerous one-tonne shorthorn? A Save Bruno petition was circulated, new homes were offered around the state and national media picked up the story. About six weeks into the furore Parks and Wildlife said Bruno had been tranquillised and moved to a secret Tamar Valley property. That week National Parks Minister John Cleary told Parliament that Bruno had not only been moved but had an operation to fix an ingrown horn. Bruno had exceeded his 15 minutes of fame to make an appearance in Hansard. Parks continued to keep his whereabouts a secret and announced his death in February 1998. One of Bruno's legacies was to delay the completion of the boardwalk, which finally opened the island up to the people some months later than expected in 1994. It's now recognised as one of Tasmania's Great Short Walks. If you know the history, it's hard not to think of Bruno when you set foot on the island after walking a two-kilometre track across the   wetlands, past duck-shooters' huts, vast fields of reeds and over muddy rivulets. To one side of the small hill there's a flat, grassy area with gas barbecues. A path winds around to a wooden jetty on the channel side but the floating pontoon that once allowed boaties access has been removed. Nestled among regrowth is a long, iron hut, built out of three cottages that housed dredger workers in the 1880s. Further up the island's only hill is the toilet block. This is the channel side of Tamar Island and as you walk the views of the East Tamar become more spectacular. A rich collection of exotic trees - spruce, radiata pine, English oak, cedar and elm - give any amount of shade to the hill. One of the oak trees has a plough embedded in its trunk. The island's lessee from 1892, Thomas Robinson, is thought to have tied the plough to the tree upon the death of his wife. Now there's a unique monument. It's worth raising your best picnic plastic glass to say, so here's to you, Mrs Robinson. And here's to you, Bruno.