Must-see attractions in Hobart

  • Wharf at MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art.

    MONA

    Hobart

    Twelve kilometres north of Hobart's city centre, MONA is burrowed into the Triassic sandstone of a peninsula jutting into the Derwent River. Arrayed…

  • Salamanca Place, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Salamanca Place

    Hobart

    This picturesque row of three- and four-storey sandstone warehouses is a classic example of Australian colonial architecture. Dating back to the whaling…

  • Australia, Tasmania, Hobart. Tourists take in the spectaular view of Hobart from the top of Mount Wellington at 1271m.

    Kunanyi/Mt Wellington

    Hobart

    Ribbed with its striking Organ Pipes cliffs, kunanyi/Mt Wellington (1271m) towers over Hobart like a benevolent overlord. The view from the top stretches…

  • Cascade Brewery (1824), Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Cascade Brewery

    Hobart

    Standing in startling, Gothic isolation next to the clean-running Hobart Rivulet, Australia’s oldest brewery (1824) is still pumping out superb beers. The…

  • Battery Point

    Hobart

    Tucked in behind Salamanca Pl, the old maritime village of Battery Point is a tight nest of lanes and 19th-century cottages. Spend an afternoon exploring:…

  • Cascades Female Factory Historic Site

    Hobart

    This World Heritage Site was where Hobart’s female convicts were incarcerated and put to work. Around 12,500 women were transported to Tasmania, and at…

  • North Hobart

    Hobart

    Hobart at its most bohemian, the Elizabeth St strip in North Hobart (aka NoHo) is lined with dozens of cafes, restaurants, bars and pubs – enough to keep…

  • Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery

    Hobart

    Incorporating Tasmania's oldest surviving public building, the Commissariat Store (1808), TMAG features Aboriginal and colonial relics and an excellent…

  • Salamanca Arts Centre

    Hobart

    The nonprofit Salamanca Arts Centre has been here since 1977 and occupies seven Salamanca warehouses. It's home to dozens of arts organisations and…

  • Colonial-era buildings on the waterfront at Hobart

    Waterfront

    Hobart

    Hobartians flock to the city’s waterfront like seagulls to chips. Centred on Victoria Dock (a working fishing harbour) and Constitution Dock (full of…

  • Penitentiary Chapel (1831), at site of Hobart's first gaol.

    Hobart Convict Penitentiary

    Hobart

    The courtrooms, cells and gallows at 'the Tench' had a hellish reputation in the 1800s, and every convict in Tasmania passed through here. The barracks…

  • Visitors queuing to enter MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, reflected in the building's mirror glass.

    Moorilla

    Hobart

    The vineyard that drapes across MONA’s peninsula is southern Tasmania's oldest, with vines first planted by Italian entrepreneur Claudio Alcorso in 1958…

  • Mt Nelson

    Hobart

    The Old Signal Station atop Mt Nelson (352m) provides immaculate views over Hobart and the Derwent River estuary. The Mt Nelson semaphore station …

  • Lost World

    Hobart

    A real local secret (not so secret now, eh?), Lost World is an amazing boulder field near the summit of Kunanyi/Mt Wellington, backed by a miniature…

  • Mawson’s Huts Replica Museum

    Hobart

    This excellent waterfront installation is a model of one of the huts in which Sir Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition team, which set sail…

  • Barilla Bay Oysters

    Hobart

    From Seven Mile Beach, follow Surf Rd out past the Hobart Airport runway and around to the left for 2km and you’ll come to Barilla Bay Oyster Farm. One…

  • Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens

    Hobart

    On the eastern side of the Queen's Domain park, these beguiling 200-year-old gardens feature more than 6000 exotic and native plant species. Picnic on the…

  • Tasmanian Cricket Museum

    Hobart

    Cricket fans should steer a well-directed cover drive towards Blundstone Arena, aka Bellerive Oval, for this beaut little cricket museum, plus oval tours…

  • Theatre Royal

    Hobart

    Hobart’s prestigious (and very precious) Theatre Royal has been host to bombastic thespians since 1837, and despite a major fire in 1984, it remains…

  • Shot Tower

    Hobart

    On Taroona’s southern fringe stands the Shot Tower, a 48m-high, circular sandstone turret (1870) built to make lead shot for firearms. Molten lead was…

  • St George's Anglican Church

    Hobart

    Designed by colonial architect John Lee Archer (with a tower designed by convict James Blackburn), this landmark 1838 church sits atop the highest bit of…

  • Allport Library & Museum of Fine Arts

    Hobart

    The State Library is home to this excellent collection of rare books on the Australia-Pacific region, as well as colonial paintings, antiques, photographs…

  • Hobart Real Tennis Club

    Hobart

    Dating from 1875, this is one of only three such tennis courts in the southern hemisphere (the others are in Melbourne and Ballarat). Real (or ‘Royal’)…

  • Blackmans Bay Beach

    Hobart

    About 3km from Kingston, Blackmans Bay has a safe-swimming beach and a blowhole. The water is usually quite cold, and there’s rarely any surf…but it sure…

  • Moo Brew

    Hobart

    Stand-out beers from Moo Brew, MONA's own craft-beer brewery in nearby Bridgewater, include a zingy Hefeweizen and a hoppy pilsner. Call to organise a…

  • Lady Franklin Gallery

    Hobart

    In an exquisitely proportioned colonnaded 1842 sandstone building called Ancanthe (Greek for ‘vale of flowers’ – enough of a reason to visit alone), the…

  • Tinderbox Marine Reserve

    Hobart

    Tinderbox Marine Reserve borders a small beach in the delightfully named Tinderbox, near Blackmans Bay about 23km south of Hobart. Strap on a snorkel and…

  • Queen’s Domain

    Hobart

    In Hobart's early days, the leafy hill on the city’s northern side became the governor’s private playground, upon which no houses were to be built. Today…

  • Australian Antarctic Division

    Hobart

    Just south of Kingston is the government HQ responsible for administering Australia’s 42% wedge of the frozen continent. Australia has a long history of…

  • Kingston Beach

    Hobart

    This relaxed swimming and sailing spot has steep wooded cliffs at each end of a long arc of sand. There’s a picnic area at the northern end, accessed by a…

  • Narryna Heritage Museum

    Hobart

    Fronted by a babbling fountain, this stately Greek-Revival sandstone mansion (pronounced ‘Narinna’) was built in 1837 by trader Captain Andrew Haig. Set…

  • Franklin Square

    Hobart

    Encircling a statue of Sir John Franklin, Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land (aka Tasmania) from 1837–43, Franklin Sq is one of central Hobart's…

  • Cenotaph

    Hobart

    Part of the broader Queen's Domain, the epic Cenotaph monument forms a visual finishing point if you look down the looong axis of Macquarie St from South…

  • Tasmanian Transport Museum

    Hobart

    Trainspotter? Tram fan? Train rides happen at this transport mecca on the first and third Sundays of each month (admission increases to $10/5 per adult…

  • Parliament House

    Hobart

    Presiding over an oak-studded park adjacent to Salamanca Pl, Tasmania’s sandstone Parliament House (1840) was originally a customs house. There’s a tunnel…

  • Army Museum of Tasmania

    Hobart

    The Anglesea Barracks were built adjacent to Battery Point in 1814. Still used by the army, this is the oldest military establishment in Australia. Inside…

  • Rosny Hill Lookout

    Hobart

    For a classic view of Hobart, the Derwent River and the hulking mass of kunanyi/Mt Wellington in the background, drive up to this seldom-visited hilltop…

  • Maritime Museum of Tasmania

    Hobart

    Highlighting shipwrecks, boat building, whaling and Hobart’s unbreakable bond with the sea, the Maritime Museum of Tasmania (out the back of the town hall…

  • Runnymede

    Hobart

    This gracious 1840 sandstone-and-slate residence is 5km north of the city centre in New Town. It was built for Robert Pitcairn, the first lawyer to…

  • Markree House Museum

    Hobart

    This backstreet house is a window into life in 1920s Hobart, built for the Baldwin family in 1926 in the 'arts and crafts' architectural style of the day …