Tasmania Itinerary 7 Days by Car: Hobart, Freycinet and Cradle Mountain

An hour and a half, free. Hobart airport is 20 minutes from the centre; after check in, start at Salamanca Place, the row of sandstone warehouses built in the 1830s to store wool, grain and whale oil. Today they hold galleries, design shops and bars. If you land on a Saturday, it is Salamanca Market day, 8:30 am to 3 pm. Walk down to Constitution Dock, five minutes away, to see the fishing boats.

Forty five minutes on foot. From the middle of Salamanca Place climb Kelly’s Steps, built in 1839, and you come out in Battery Point, the 19th century sailors’ and fishermen’s quarter. Arthur Circus is its round green, ringed by colourful Georgian cottages from the 1840s. Walk back along Hampden Road, with cafes and bakeries, and have dinner near the docks.

Four hours with the ferry, entry about A$ 39 and the ferry about A$ 30 return, booked together on the museum’s website. The ferry leaves Brooke Street Pier and runs up the Derwent River for 25 minutes to the museum’s steps. MONA was dug into the sandstone and opened in 2011 with collector David Walsh’s collection, which mixes Egyptian antiquities with contemporary art made to provoke. Pick up the audio device at the entrance: the works have no labels. Check opening days first, because the museum closes on some weekdays.

An hour and a half, free, 40 minutes by car from the centre on Pinnacle Road. It is, on a clear day: from the lookout at 1,271 metres you see all of Hobart, the Derwent and the Tasman Peninsula. The weather turns fast and it can be 10 degrees colder than in town, even in summer: bring a jacket. The road closes for snow or ice; check before you go. If the summit is in cloud, swap it for an afternoon in Battery Point and drive up early the next day.

Thirty minutes, free. Leave Hobart at 8 am; an hour and a quarter later you reach Eaglehawk Neck, the narrow isthmus onto the Tasman Peninsula. A short track leads down to a rock shelf cracked into rectangular blocks that look like a hand laid floor. Go at low tide, when the pools reflect the sky, and watch for slippery weed.

Thirty minutes, five minutes away by car. Tasman Arch is a sea carved rock arch about 30 metres high, and 300 metres from it is Devils Kitchen, a deep cleft where the waves pound. Both lookouts leave from the same car park. If you have time, the Tasman Blowhole is two minutes further.

Four hours, entry about A$ 53, valid for two consecutive days, including a 40 minute guided walk and a 20 minute harbour cruise. Port Arthur held convicts from 1830 to 1877 and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Start with the guided walk to make sense of the layout, then go into the ruined penitentiary, the Separate Prison, where the punishment was silence, and the commandant’s house. The evening ghost tour is extra. Drive back to Hobart, an hour and a half, to sleep.

An hour, free, 25 minutes from Hobart on the way to the east coast. The sandstone bridge was built by convicts in 1823 and is the oldest still in use in Australia. Walk across, go down to the bank for the shot of the arches, and stroll the village’s main street of Georgian houses and bakeries. It is then two and a half hours to Coles Bay; near Swansea, stop at Spiky Bridge, an 1843 convict bridge with pointed stones along its parapet.

Forty minutes, with the parks pass. After check in at Coles Bay, drive up to the lighthouse: the 20 minute boardwalk loop runs along granite cliffs with views down the east coast. From September to November whales pass offshore.

An hour, free, five minutes by car. The small cove has pale green water between granite boulders with orange lichen and faces west, which makes it the park’s best sunset spot, with The Hazards to your left. The water is cold in any month, but sheltered.

Two hours, with the parks pass. Start at 7:30 am, before the tour buses: the track climbs about 1.3 km of stone steps between Mount Amos and Mount Mayson and takes 45 minutes to an hour each way. From the lookout you see the wineglass shaped bay and its white sand. Going down to the beach adds an hour and a half return, with a hard climb back.

Thirty minutes, on the way out of the park, 25 minutes from Coles Bay. It is a long beach of pale sand with dunes and granite boulders, nearly always empty because it has no facilities. Walk to the rocks at the north end and move on.

Thirty minutes, free, beside Bicheno’s centre. In a big swell the sea rushes into a crack in the granite and shoots up several metres; keep back from the edge, because it soaks anyone who gets too close. Have lunch in town and drive an hour and a half to Binalong Bay.

Two hours, free. Binalong Bay is the southern gateway to the Bay of Fires, a stretch of about 50 km of white sand beaches. The orange on the granite boulders is a lichen, not the fire of the name: in 1773 the navigator Tobias Furneaux saw Aboriginal fires along the shore. Walk the rocks at the south end of the beach and, if you have energy, drive on to The Gardens, 13 km away at the end of the road.

An hour and three quarters, free entry. Leave Binalong Bay at 7:45 am: it is two hours on the inland road to Launceston. The South Esk River gorge starts 15 minutes’ walk from the centre. Cross the Alexandra Suspension Bridge to the First Basin, which has a free public pool in summer, and ride the chairlift, about A$ 21 return, which has the longest single span of any chairlift in the world. Have lunch in town and drive on to Cradle Mountain, two hours away.

Three hours, with the parks pass and the shuttle, about A$ 15. After check in, leave the car at the visitor centre: the road to the lake is closed to private cars for much of the day, and the shuttle runs every 10 to 20 minutes. The Dove Lake circuit is 6 km, mostly on boardwalk, and takes two to three hours. The classic shot is the 1940 boatshed with Cradle Mountain behind. On the way back, look out for wombats on the grassland at Ronny Creek.

Thirty minutes, free, beside the hotels at the park entrance. The loop follows Pencil Pine Creek between moss covered trunks and has wombat burrow tunnels for children. Pencil Pine Falls is five minutes from it.

Two hours, with the parks pass. Take the first shuttle to Dove Lake and climb the Lake Lilla track to Wombat Pool, a small tarn in the alpine scrub; if you have the legs, continue 30 minutes to Marions Lookout, which takes in the whole of Dove Lake. The track is steep in parts and the weather turns fast: bring a jacket and water. For an easier morning, the Devils@Cradle sanctuary at the park entrance shows Tasmanian devils up close.

Forty five minutes, free, an hour from Cradle Mountain. The town reinvented itself in the 1980s by painting local history on its walls, and today dozens of murals line the main street with Mount Roland behind. Have lunch here and drive on to Launceston airport, an hour and a half away, in time for the late afternoon flight.