What to do in Tasmania
Tasmania rewards people who slow down. The experiences worth having here aren't all ticketed attractions — some are a martini class in a great bar, an afternoon hunting for shells on a deserted beach, a pre-dawn drive to watch the sun rise over one of the most beautiful bays in Australia. Here's what I'd point you towards.
HOBART
Institut Polaire Martini Class, Hobart One of Hobart's best bars runs a martini making class that is, genuinely, as enjoyable as it sounds. You learn the technique, you drink the results.
MONA — Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart Unlike any other museum in the world. Built into a sandstone cliff beneath a Hobart winery, filled with a collection that provokes, delights and occasionally unsettles. Give it a full day. The James Turrell light work is experienced inside Faro restaurant during lunch — so eating here is also one of the great art experiences of the visit.
MONA Roma Ferry Take the ferry up the Derwent to MONA, not the car. The approach by water is dramatic and deliberate, and it sets the mood for everything that follows.
History of Hobart Walking Tour (via Macq01) Organised through the hotel, this guided walk through Hobart's convict and colonial past is one of the better ways to understand where you've landed. Book through the concierge on arrival.
Mount Wellington, Hobart Drive to the top on a clear morning and the view across Hobart and the Derwent River will recalibrate your sense of the place. Worth doing early in a trip so you carry the perspective with you.
Battery Point, Hobart Follow your nose through one of Australia's most beautiful and intact historic neighbourhoods. Georgian cottages, hidden laneways, tiny gardens. There's no plan needed — just walk and look. You'll stumble onto something beautiful or delicious, probably both.
Alma, Hobart One of Hobart's best homewares stores. Loads of cool homewares and splatterware!
Royal Tasmanian Botanic Gardens, Hobart A gentle afternoon walk through one of Australia's oldest botanic gardens. Free, educational and beautiful.
Salamanca Markets, Hobart Every Saturday morning along the sandstone waterfront. Give it time — the producers are excellent and the browsing is one of the pleasures of being in Hobart on a weekend.
Hobart Farmers Market Sunday mornings on Bathurst Street. Local preserves, seasonal produce, and Tasmanian gin — Lark, Nant and Killara. Don't leave without something to take home.
GOING NORTH
Ross — Colonial Town and Antique Shops One of Tasmania's finest and best-preserved colonial towns. Walk the main street slowly, browse the antique shops, and let the history settle around you. The Ross Bridge, built in 1836, is one of the oldest in Australia.
Stargazing over Mount Roland, Gowrie Park No light pollution, no WiFi, a mountain at your doorstep. Stay up late. This is what the darkness is for.
Table Cape Tulip Farm October is peak tulip season — fields of colour on a headland above the northwest sea. It's one of those things that sounds like a nice idea and turns out to be genuinely spectacular.
Richmond — Australia's Oldest Bridge Australia's oldest bridge, built in 1823, sits in a village that has changed very little since the colonial era. Walk the bridge, wander the streets. A beautiful final stop before the airport.
Pooley Wine Cellar Door, Richmond The Black Label Chardonnay is the one to try. Buy bottles and drink them on the east coast.
Wineglass Bay Lookout, Freycinet One of the most photographed views in Australia, and in person even better than you expect. Allow an hour and a half return from the carpark. The pink granite peaks, the arc of white sand, the improbable blue of the water. Worth every step.
Boat Harbour Beach Impossibly clear water, white sand, on the northwest coast. Have a swim if the weather is with you.
Cradle Mountain One of Australia's great day walks. Button grass plains, ancient pencil pines, the still dark water of Dove Lake. The landscape up here has a primordial quality unlike anything else on the continent. Check conditions before you go and layer up.
Bioluminescence, Great Oyster Bay On a dark, clear night at Coles Bay, the water glows with bioluminescent plankton. Stay up late. Go to the water's edge. Don't take a photo — just watch.
Freycinet Marine Farm Oyster Shucking, Coles Bay An hour at Freycinet Marine Farm changes how you think about oysters. You'll learn to shuck, eat straight from the estuary, and understand the relationship between Great Oyster Bay's cold, clean water and what comes out of it.
Sunrise over the Bay of Fires Stay in Bicheno and drive north in the dark. Get to the Bay of Fires before the sun comes up and watch the light arrive over one of the most beautiful bays in Australia — the orange lichen on the granite boulders, the impossibly clear water, the utter silence. I'd do it again and again. It requires an early alarm and no ceremony, which is exactly why it works.
Penguin Spotting, Bicheno Little penguins come ashore at dusk at Bicheno, and the local Airbnbs provide red light torches for exactly this purpose. Follow the light, be quiet, and watch them waddle home. One of those experiences that's so simple and so good.
Tasman Sea Salt — Salt Sommelier Experience, Little Swanport One of the most unexpected and genuinely fascinating experiences in Tasmania. The salt is harvested from the clean waters of Little Swanport on the Mayfield Estate property, and the Salt Sommelier experience gives you a real understanding of what makes Tasmanian sea salt exceptional. Must be pre-booked — do not just turn up. Combine with the Mayfield Cellar Door next door for a perfect afternoon. I’m a loyal Tasman Sea Salt customer now, there isn’t any better!
GOING EAST
The Agrarian Kitchen — Experience and Cheesemaking School, New Norfolk
Start with the full-day Agrarian Experience — a complete day immersed in the farm, the garden and the kitchen. You'll harvest produce, cook with what's in season and eat together in one of the most considered food environments in Australia. It's the best possible introduction to why Tasmanian produce is in a class of its own.
If you want to go even deeper, the two-day Natural Cheesemaking Workshop is something else entirely. Led by Rodney Dunn, co-founder of the Agrarian Kitchen, it runs across two consecutive days from 9am to 4pm — twelve people per class, fully hands-on, with wine-matched lunches each day and recipes to take home. This is serious, joyful, immersive learning in a setting that couldn't be more fitting for it.
I’ve done both and highly recommend. Both book out well in advance. Don't leave it until you arrive.
New Norfolk — Antiques and Miss Arthur A lovely riverside town about 35 minutes from Hobart. There's a genuine antique shop worth losing an hour in, and Miss Arthur, a beautiful homewares store that will almost certainly result in something being carried home.
GOING SOUTH
Tasman Island Wilderness Cruise — Tasman Island Cruises A three-hour boat cruise along one of the most extraordinary coastlines in Australia — between Port Arthur and Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula. The boats travel beneath the highest vertical sea cliffs in the Southern Hemisphere at Cape Pillar, into deep sea caves, past rock formations and waterfalls tumbling into the ocean. Wildlife is everywhere: seals hauled out on the rocks, albatross and sea eagles overhead, dolphins surfing the bow wave, and whales if the season is right. This cruise is genuinely one of the best things I've done in Australia. Book ahead — it sells out. Departs daily from Port Arthur.
Tasmanian Devil Unzoo, Taranna An unusual and very good wildlife experience on the Tasman Peninsula. The "unzoo" concept means the animals have space to behave naturally rather than being displayed in enclosures. Tasmanian devils, quolls, wombats and more — seen properly, in a setting that feels respectful. Worth combining with the Tasman Island Cruise for a full day on the peninsula.
Tahune AirWalk, Huon Valley A suspended walkway through the forest canopy above the confluence of the Huon and Picton rivers. The scale of the trees, the silence, the views — genuinely extraordinary. Not what you'd expect from a walk in the woods.
Hastings Caves and Thermal Springs, Huon Valley Underground cave tours through one of the finest dolomite caves in the southern hemisphere, plus a natural thermal pool right outside. Remarkable and quietly surreal — and a world apart from anywhere else on the itinerary.
Dodges Ferry Shell Hunting Park at Beach Bums and walk down to the beach. It's known for large, beautiful shells. Take your time. Costs nothing and is one of those quietly perfect things Tasmania keeps offering.
Bruny Island Day Trip Deserves a full day. The ferry from Kettering is 20 minutes and part of the experience. Get Shucked oysters, Bruny Island Cheese Co., the Neck lookout with views across both bays simultaneously, and the dramatic dolerite cliffs of the south coast. One of the best day trips in Tasmania.
