Longer way home
Cradle Mountain reflects in glassy water at dawn in Tasmania.

Photo: Ščenza

Hobart, Australia · Oceania

Tasmania: Australia's island state and its wild Southwest

Tasmania is Australia's island state, the size of Ireland, with one of the largest temperate-wilderness reserves on earth and a small population concentrated on the eastern coast. The walking, the food, and the genuine emptiness are the reasons to come.

Ščenza

By Ščenza

· updated · 4 min read

It’s 6:42 a.m. at Dove Lake, at the foot of Cradle Mountain in central Tasmania, and the lake is so still that the reflection of the mountain is essentially indistinguishable from the mountain itself. A wallaby is grazing on the lake-edge boardwalk. The dawn fog is just lifting from the surrounding forest. I’m here at the start of the Overland Track — the six-day walk through the central Tasmanian highlands — but for the first hour I’m simply standing on the lakeshore, alone, with one of the most quietly extraordinary mountain scenes in the Southern Hemisphere.

Why I keep coming back

Tasmania is Australia’s only island state — separated from the mainland by the Bass Strait — and the country’s most temperate, most wilderness-dense, and arguably most distinct region. The southwest of the island holds one of the largest contiguous temperate-wilderness reserves in the Southern Hemisphere (the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, 20% of the island’s land area).

The island has a unique cultural identity within Australia — a slower pace, a more European feel in the colonial-era architecture of Hobart and Launceston, a deeply embedded local-food and natural-wine scene, and an indigenous palawa community that has been working through a generations-long process of cultural recognition.

Where to base yourself

Hobart for the capital, the waterfront, MONA, and the southern access to the wilderness.

Launceston for the northern half of the island.

Cradle Mountain Lodge for the central highlands base.

Strahan on the west coast for the wild-coast access.

A 10–14 day Tasmania trip typically loops around the island: Hobart → Freycinet (east coast) → Bay of Fires → Launceston → Cradle Mountain → Strahan → back to Hobart.

What to actually do

Visit MONA. The Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, opened in 2011 by David Walsh; the most consequential single private museum to open in Australia in this century. Provocative, dense, occasionally extraordinary. Access by ferry from Hobart’s waterfront. Allow a full day.

Walk in the Tasmanian wilderness. The Overland Track (6 days, Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair) is the iconic multi-day trek; booking required, October–May. The shorter Dove Lake Circuit (2 hours) is the day-walk version with the same views. Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park is the iconic eastern walk (2-hour return to the lookout, longer to the beach).

Drive the east coast. Hobart → Port Arthur (the most-preserved 19th-century convict-station site) → Freycinet → Bay of Fires (the orange-lichen-on-granite beaches in the northeast).

Visit the west coast. A different Tasmania: Strahan, the World Heritage cruises on the Gordon River (through dense temperate rainforest), the abandoned 19th-century mining towns of Queenstown and Zeehan.

Eat your way through the island. Tasmania has one of the best per-capita food scenes in Australia: seafood (oysters, abalone, scallops, crayfish), Tasmanian whisky distilleries, cool-climate wines (pinot noir and chardonnay particularly), Tasmania’s distinctive cheeses.

Walk on Maria Island. A 3-hour drive from Hobart plus a ferry; a small no-cars island with wallabies, wombats, and Tasmanian devils (an introduced disease-free population). Day trip or overnight.

Where to eat

Franklin (Hobart) — Contemporary Tasmanian. The Source at MONA — Modernist Australian. Dier Makr (Hobart) — Casual contemporary; reservations. Stillwater (Launceston) — Long-running modern Tasmanian. Get Shucked (Bruny Island) — Oyster shack on a beach; the seafood is the show. Bay of Fires Lodge (multi-day walk + meals) — One of Australia’s iconic luxury walking lodges. Whisky tastings at Sullivans Cove, Lark, or Hellyers Road. Wine tastings in the Tamar Valley around Launceston.

When to come

Late December through March is the Australian summer; the best season for the Overland Track, the warmest temperatures (18–25°C), the longest days.

April–May is autumn — the deciduous beech (fagus) trees turn golden for two weeks; one of the most photographically beautiful periods.

June–August is winter — cold, occasional snow on the highlands; whisky and fire-and-wine season.

September–November is spring — the wildlife is active, the wildflowers are in bloom.

Practical notes

  • Visa: ETA.
  • Money: Australian dollar.
  • Transport: A rental car is the practical choice; the island has good roads, and most destinations are accessed by driving. Hobart and Launceston have small airports with direct flights from Melbourne and Sydney.
  • Distances: The island is the size of Ireland; longer-than-you’d-think drives between regions. Plan 2-3 hour driving days as the norm.
  • The Overland Track booking: Strictly limited to 60 people per day starting (October to May); 6-day pass currently AU$300. Book through the Parks and Wildlife Service.
  • The Aboriginal cultural context: The Tasmanian palawa community lost a significant portion of its population to colonisation; the cultural revival from the late 20th century onward is an ongoing process. Engage thoughtfully; the museums and cultural centres provide context.
  • The weather: Tasmanian weather is famously changeable; the highlands can have snow in any month. Layer up.

A final thought

Tasmania is, in my view, the most under-visited region of Australia by international travellers and one of the most rewarding. The combination of the temperate wilderness, the food and wine culture, the strange architectural inheritance of the convict era, and the genuinely small population produces a destination that is quietly extraordinary across a 10-day visit.

The Overland Track is the most-iconic experience; even a single day at Cradle Mountain captures the essence. Combine the wilderness with at least a day at MONA, an afternoon on the east-coast beaches, and a day in the west-coast wilderness for the most complete Tasmanian picture.

Go in autumn if you can. The fagus turn for two weeks each year, the temperatures are still mild, and the crowds are at half the summer peak. Walk slowly. Eat the oysters. Drink the pinot. The island is one of Australia’s smallest and most rewarding states; it deserves the longer visit.

If you only have a few days

8 ideal things to do in Hobart

  1. MONA, arriving by ferry up the Derwent

    Berriedale, north of central HobartA full day, on the first boat from Brooke Street Pier

    David Walsh opened it in 2011, built into a sandstone cliff, so you enter at the top and descend three levels into the rock — a deliberate reversal of the way a museum normally flatters its visitors. The collection is confrontational, occasionally juvenile, and frequently very good indeed. The Ladies Lounge, a work only women were allowed into, was sued over by a male visitor in 2024 and won on appeal, which is the most MONA sequence of events conceivable.

  2. The Dove Lake Circuit at Cradle Mountain

    Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair National ParkTwo to three hours; shuttle bus from the visitor centre

    Six kilometres of boardwalk and track around a glacial lake with Cradle Mountain standing at the far end, through the mossy tangle they call the Ballroom Forest and past a boatshed that appears on roughly every second postcard printed in this state. You cannot drive in while the shuttle is running; you queue for the bus like everyone else, and that is the correct policy. The Overland Track starts near here and takes six days. This takes a morning and explains why people commit to the six.

  3. kunanyi / Mount Wellington summit

    About 22 km by road from central HobartAny clear hour; check the road for snow first

    Twelve hundred and seventy-one metres straight up above the city, reached by a sealed road, with an enclosed lookout at the top because the summit has recorded gusts past 200 km/h and takes no interest at all in your hat. The dolerite Organ Pipes are the cliff you can see from town. Snow is possible in any month of the year. I have been up three times and had a view once, which Hobart people tell me is a respectable average.

  4. Salamanca Market on a Saturday

    Salamanca Place, Hobart waterfrontSaturday morning

    Georgian sandstone warehouses along the old whaling waterfront, and on Saturdays the whole street turns into stalls — Tasmanian cheese, cool-climate pinot, leatherwood honey, oysters, and more woodwork than one island should be able to produce, all of it from timber with a story attached. It is the one morning a week when Hobart is unambiguously busy. Arrive ahead of the coaches, eat your way along one side, then do the other side properly.

  5. Wineglass Bay, and then down onto the sand

    Freycinet National Park, east coastLookout 1–1.5 hours return; the beach 2.5–3.5

    The lookout walk is 2.6 km return and climbs through the pink granite of the Hazards, and the great majority of people stop there, take the photograph and turn round. Keep going. The descent to the beach doubles the walk and empties it almost completely. The name is usually explained by the shape of the bay; the other explanation, told just as often on the east coast, is that whaling turned the water that colour.

  6. Port Arthur Historic Site

    Tasman Peninsula, about 97 km south-east of HobartA full day; the site is much bigger than it photographs

    A convict station from 1830 to 1877, World Heritage listed in 2010, where the Separate Prison ran the silent system — hoods, numbers in place of names, no speech permitted — and documented what it did to the men who went through it. The gardens are pretty and the ruins photograph beautifully and neither of those is the point. There is also a memorial garden to the thirty-five people killed here in 1996. Read the notice at the entrance about how to conduct yourself around it, and then conduct yourself accordingly.

  7. A day on Maria Island

    Ferry from Triabunna, about 90 minutes from HobartDay trip, or a night in the old penitentiary at Darlington

    No cars, no shops, one convict settlement, and wombats grazing the ground at Darlington as though nothing much has happened since the commissariat store went up in 1825. The Painted Cliffs are iron-oxide staining through sandstone and look like somebody ran a marbling comb across them. Tasmanian devils were introduced in 2012 as a disease-free insurance population. Carry everything you will need; there is nowhere to buy a coffee, which I established the hard way.

  8. The Gordon River cruise from Strahan

    Macquarie Harbour, west coastHalf a day; the reflections need a still morning

    Tannin-stained water the colour of weak tea, so still on a good morning that the rainforest doubles exactly on the surface, and Huon pine on the banks that was already standing before any European saw this coast. The boats stop at Sarah Island, a penal station so severe that its prisoners built ships in order to escape from it. This is the river the Franklin Dam campaign saved in the 1980s, and about ten minutes on the water tells you what the argument was about.

Just the list, on its own page →

From a Split boy’s notebook

The Split lens

What reminded me of home

An island state somewhat overshadowed by the mainland it belongs to, with a serious wilderness identity and an emerging food-and-art culture. MONA in Hobart is what an ambitious private museum in Split could be — a singular cultural institution that puts a smaller city on the international map for reasons other than its beaches.

What Split could borrow

Tasmania's serious investment in wilderness and food brands — Saffire Freycinet, the Cradle Mountain lodges, the small-batch whisky distilleries — has built a high-end identity quite different from the mass-market mainland tourism. Our Dalmatian hinterland could play the same wilderness-and-food-premium card; it just hasn't.

Filed underislandswildernesstrekkingfoodoff-grid

Who can take you

Tour operators & guides to try

A short, opinionated starter list — just my humble opinion. Verify before booking.

  • Intrepid Travelsmall groupwww.intrepidtravel.com →

    Intrepid's Tasmania trips combine Hobart, MONA, the east coast (Freycinet, Wineglass Bay), and Cradle Mountain over 7–10 days. Group size 12–16. The pace is moderate — accessible day hikes rather than the Overland Track itself. Caveat: the Overland Track is a permitted 6-day trek that fills 6+ months ahead; if it's a priority, choose an operator specifically for it (Cradle Mountain Huts Walk is the upper-tier lodge-supported version).

  • Audley Traveltailoredwww.audleytravel.com →

    Audley Travel's Tasmania trips are the upper-tier alternative — Saffire Freycinet on the east coast, the high-end Cradle Mountain Lodge, and tailored private-guiding for the wilderness walks. Upper-tier pricing. Caveat: Tasmania is genuinely a self-drive country with excellent roads; for budget-conscious travellers, the rental-car itinerary at half the cost is nearly the same experience.

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