Bruny Island

Bruny Island is a 362-square-kilometre (140 sq mi) coastal island of Tasmania, Australia, located at the mouths of the Derwent River and Huon River estuaries on Storm Bay on the Tasman Sea, south of Hobart. The island is separated from the mainland by the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. The island and the channel are named after French explorer, Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux.

The island's Aboriginal name is lunawanna-allonah, from which the island settlements of Alonnah and Lunawanna are named.

Bruny Island was inhabited by Aboriginal Tasmanians people. Some people living on the island identify as being of Aboriginal descent. Abel Tasman was the first recorded European to sight the island, in November 1642 but did not determine it was an island. On 11 March 1773, Tobias Furneaux was the first British explorer to reach the island and his ship anchored at Adventure Bay (named after his ship) for four days and the crew ascertained the land was an island. Four years later, on 26 January 1777, James Cook's two ships, the Resolution and Discovery stayed in the bay area for two days. Cook carved his initials in a tree that was destroyed in a 1905 bushfire and is now commemorated by a plaque. In 1788 and again in 1792 with Matthew Flinders, William Bligh stayed in the Adventure Bay area.

The island is named after the French explorer Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, who explored the channel region in 1792. It was known as Bruni Island until 1918, when the spelling was changed to Bruny.

Whaling was conducted off the coast of Bruny Island in the first half of the 19th century. The British whaler, Alexander, was reported to be whaling in Adventure Bay in 1804. In 1805, the British whalers Richard and Mary, Ocean and the Sydney whaler King George were reported there in the winter months. The American whaler Topaz was there in 1807. Colonial entrepreneurs also operated shore-based whaling stations there. Bethune and Kelly had a station operating in Adventure Bay by August 1826. Kelly and Lucas had another at Bull Bay. Young and Walford had one at Trumpeter Bay. Alexander Imlay applied for a site as a whaling station at Cloudy Bay in 1837, and Brown and Rogers did the same in 1842. These stations had all ceased operating by 1850, although whaling vessels sometimes anchored offshore in the second half of the century.

Even though "Cooktown"^{[citation needed]} was marked on maps as early as the 1840s, the island was not officially opened up to European settlement until the late 1800s when the timber industry took off. South Bruny was opened up by numerous tramways and haulages, some horse-drawn and some using modified locomotives. The longest and best-preserved tramway runs from Adventure Bay to the far southeast corner of the island. Almost all settlements on South Bruny were originally opened as timber ports, owned by the different timber companies operating on the island. Lunawanna (formerly Daniels Bay), Alonnah (formerly Mills Reef) and Adventure Bay were some of the largest ports operating on the island. At Daniels Bay, the settlement was separated from the timber jetty as the tramway was forced to trace along the south side of the bay in order to reach deep water, as most of Daniels Bay was too shallow to bring boats in. Most settlements of South Bruny now serve as shack towns or holiday locations.

Since the 1920s, the island has become known as a holiday location with surfing beaches, National Parks and historical sites. In more recent history the Bruny Island was the site of a land transfer by the state government to local Aboriginal people.

Geologically, Bruny Island actually consists of two land masses—North Bruny and South Bruny—that are joined by a long, narrow, sandy isthmus, often referred to as "The Neck". The island has a total length of approximately 50 kilometres (30 miles). The holiday village of Dennes Point is located in North Bruny, while South Bruny is the site of the towns of Alonnah, Adventure Bay, and Lunawanna.