Hobart
Laid-back colonial-era city - ideal for foodies, sailing enthusiasts and hikers.
Laid-back colonial-era city - ideal for foodies, sailing enthusiasts and hikers.
Launceston (‘Lonnie’ to locals) squats in a basin where the North and South Esk rivers meet to form the Tamar River.
Tasmania’s laid-back east coast is heaven for devotees of squeaky, white-sand beaches, fishing and slow-paced seaside atmospheria.
Rust-coloured, iron-rich soils and verdant pastures extend north of Launceston along the Tamar Valley and west to the Great Western Tiers.
Devonport is Tasmania's third-largest city, but it is much less interesting than Hobart and Launceston.
Mortifying mountains, dashing tannin-stained rivers, impenetrable rainforest, desolate coast and rain, rain, rain… Welcome to the wild west, much of which is now part of Tasmania’s World Heritage Area.
Straddling the Coal River 27km northeast of Hobart, historic Richmond was once a strategic military post and convict station on the road to Port Arthur.
Driven by a troupe of ambitious local businesspeople, Swansea has overtaken Bicheno as the east coast’s ‘gourmet’ holiday destination.
The quiet harbours and valleys of the southeast have much to offer, particularly if you enjoy driving through serene, green countryside and snacking from roadside produce stores.
The small township of Coles Bay is dominated by The Hazards, spectacular 485m-high pink granite outcrops.
Bruny Island, named after French explorer Bruny D’Entrecasteaux, is almost two islands, joined by a narrow, sandy isthmus called The Neck.
It’s amazing (and something of a relief) that the northeast receives so little tourist traffic: it’s seductively close to the Pipers River vineyards and boasts some of Tasmania’s most secluded white-sand beaches.
The Lyell Hwy winds down into Queenstown through a surreal, denuded moonscape – deep, eroded gullies and hillsides scalded by acid rain – the legacy of environmentally destructive mining.
Tasmania’s best-known national park is the peerless 168, 000-hectare World Heritage area of Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair.
Saved from hydroelectric immersion in the 1980s, this World Heritage–listed national park embraces the catchment areas of the Franklin and Olga Rivers and part of the Gordon River – all exceptional rafting, bushwalking and climbing areas.
Flat, fertile and uncomplicated, King Island (known locally as ‘KI’) stands guard over the western end of Bass Strait.
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