Tasmania: Why It Belongs on Your Australia Itinerary, and a 7-Day Route
Tasmania is an island the size of Ireland with half a million people, forty per cent of it protected as national park or reserve, and a food and drink scene that punches absurdly above its weight. It is cool where the mainland is hot, green where the mainland is red, and slow where the mainland is sprawling. Australians treat it as their own secret. It is a 75-minute flight from Melbourne and it should be on your itinerary.
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Getting there and around
Fly into Hobart or Launceston from Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane; flights are frequent and, booked ahead, cheap. The alternative is the Spirit of Tasmania overnight ferry from Geelong to Devonport, which takes about eleven hours and lets you bring a car or campervan. It is an experience in itself but rarely cheaper than flying and hiring.
You need a car. Distances are short by Australian standards, roughly three hours between any two major points, but the roads are winding, the towns are small and the best of the island is between them. Hire at the airport. Watch for wildlife at dusk; Tasmania has more roadkill per kilometre than anywhere in the country, which tells you something about how much wildlife there is.
The 7-day route
Days one and two: Hobart
Australia's second-oldest city sits on a deep-water harbour under kunanyi / Mount Wellington, whose summit, 1,271 metres up and twenty minutes' drive, gives you the whole city and estuary laid out below and is often in cloud or snow when the waterfront is sunny. Spend a morning at Salamanca Place, the sandstone warehouses now full of galleries and cafés, and the whole of Saturday morning at Salamanca Market if your dates align. Walk up into Battery Point, the old maritime village of cottages and lanes.
Then take the ferry up the river to MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art. It is the single best reason to come to Hobart: a privately funded museum built into a sandstone cliff by a professional gambler, full of work that is by turns profound, filthy and hilarious, with a winery, a brewery and excellent restaurants attached. Allow most of a day. Eat at the waterfront in the evening; the fish is what Tasmania does best.
Day three: Port Arthur and the Tasman Peninsula
Ninety minutes south-east, Port Arthur is the best-preserved convict site in Australia and a World Heritage listing. The ruins in their English-looking parkland are beautiful and the story they tell is not; give it half a day and take the harbour cruise, included in the ticket. On the way, stop at the Tessellated Pavement, the Tasman Arch and the Devil's Kitchen, sea-cliff formations a few minutes off the road. If you have the legs, the Cape Hauy track from Fortescue Bay, four hours return, is the finest half-day walk on the island.
Day four: Freycinet and Wineglass Bay
Drive up the east coast to Coles Bay, two and a half hours, stopping for oysters at one of the roadside farms near Swansea. The Wineglass Bay lookout walk is 90 minutes return, steep, and delivers the most photographed view in Tasmania: a perfect white arc of sand between pink granite headlands. Continue down to the beach itself for three hours return, or add the Hazards Beach loop for a full day. Stay in Coles Bay or Bicheno, where there is a penguin colony that comes ashore at dusk.
Day five: the Bay of Fires to Launceston
North to Binalong Bay and the Bay of Fires, named not for the orange lichen on the granite boulders but for the Aboriginal fires seen by an early navigator. It is a 50-kilometre stretch of white beaches, turquoise water and those glowing rocks, almost empty. Swim if you can bear the water. Then cut inland through St Helens and the Weldborough Pass rainforest to Launceston, three hours, in time for dinner. Launceston is a handsome Georgian town with Cataract Gorge, a wild river gorge with a chairlift and a swimming pool ten minutes' walk from the centre.
Days six and seven: Cradle Mountain
Two and a half hours west, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park is the Tasmania of the postcards: a jagged dolerite peak reflected in a glacial lake, button-grass plains, wombats grazing at dusk beside the boardwalk, and the start of the six-day Overland Track. You do not need six days. The Dove Lake Circuit, two hours on a boardwalk around the lake beneath the mountain, is one of the great easy walks anywhere. Marions Lookout, three hours return and steep, gets you above the lake. The Cradle Mountain summit is a full, hard day for the fit. Stay two nights in the lodge, cabins or the campground at the park entrance, and walk the Enchanted Walk at dusk for wombats, pademelons and, if you are lucky, a platypus. Then drive back to Launceston or Devonport to fly or sail home.
If you have longer
Bruny Island, a short ferry south of Hobart: oysters, cheese, whisky, a lighthouse, and the Neck, where two islands join by a sand isthmus with penguins at dusk. A full day or an overnight.
The west coast: Strahan, the Gordon River cruise into World Heritage rainforest, and the West Coast Wilderness Railway. Adds two days.
Maria Island, a car-free national park island off the east coast with the most reliable wombats in Australia. See our wildlife guide.
The Tarkine, the largest temperate rainforest in Australia, in the far north-west. Remote and extraordinary.
Food and drink
Tasmania grows, catches or distils an unreasonable share of the best produce in the country: oysters, scallops, abalone, salmon, cool-climate pinot noir and sparkling from the Tamar Valley and Coal River, cheese from Bruny and King Island, apples, cherries, leatherwood honey, and single-malt whisky that has beaten the Scots at their own game. Eat at the Hobart waterfront, the Tamar Valley cellar doors, and any roadside oyster shed. Our food, wine and coffee section has more.
When to go
December to March is summer, with long days, temperatures in the low 20s and the most reliable walking weather, but it is also the busiest and most expensive period. October to November and April are quieter, cooler and beautiful. Winter is cold, often wet, frequently snowy on the mountains, and Cradle Mountain in snow is astonishing, but many walks are harder and days are short. Whenever you go, pack for four seasons in a day; this is an island in the Southern Ocean and it means it.
Practical notes
A Parks Pass is required for all national parks. A holiday pass covering all parks for two months costs around A$90 per vehicle and is by far the best value.
Book Cradle Mountain and Freycinet accommodation first. Both have limited beds and sell out months ahead in summer.
Drive in daylight. Wombats, wallabies, possums and devils are all on the road after dark.
Biosecurity is strict. Do not bring fresh fruit, vegetables or honey into the state; bins are at the airport.
Mobile coverage drops out in the parks and on the west coast. Download maps.
A week is enough to understand why Tasmanians are insufferable about where they live. Ten days is enough to start agreeing with them.
Cover photo via Unsplash.
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