Tasmania Discovery: 8 Days — Hobart, Cradle Mountain, Freycinet & Wineglass Bay Self-Drive

Tour Overview

Itinerary Highlights

Day 1: Arrive Hobart — Australia’s Second-Oldest City

Land at Hobart Airport. Collect your rental car and drive into Hobart (20 minutes). Hobart was founded in 1804 as a penal colony, making it Australia’s second-oldest capital city after Sydney. It sits on the Derwent River estuary, with kunanyi/Mount Wellington (1,271m) rising dramatically behind the city. Afternoon: explore Salamanca Place — a row of 1830s sandstone warehouses (formerly the trading hub for Hobart’s whaling, sealing, and wool industries), now home to galleries, craft shops, and restaurants. If you arrive on a Saturday, Salamanca Market is one of Australia’s best outdoor markets (8:30am-3pm, 300+ stalls). Visit Battery Point, Hobart’s oldest neighborhood, with its Georgian cottages, Arthur Circus (Australia’s most charming roundabout — a village green surrounded by 19th-century workers’ cottages), and views over the Derwent. Evening: dinner at a waterfront restaurant on Constitution Dock — try freshly shucked Tasmanian oysters (Pacific and native Angasi) and grilled Tasmanian salmon. Overnight in Hobart.

Day 2: Hobart — MONA, kunanyi/Mt Wellington & Bruny Island

Morning: MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) — Australia’s most extraordinary museum, carved into a sandstone cliff on the Berriedale peninsula. Founded by professional gambler David Walsh, MONA defies description: a subterranean labyrinth of provocative contemporary art (the “poop machine” — Wim Delvoye’s Cloaca Professional — that replicates the human digestive system and produces actual feces; the wall of 150 plaster casts of female genitalia; Sidney Nolan’s Snake — a 46m painting of the Rainbow Serpent), ancient artifacts displayed without labels (information is on an iPod-like device — “The O” — that tracks your route through the museum), and a building that is itself a work of art (designed by Nonda Katsalidis, with a tennis court on the roof). MONA is Tasmania’s cultural revolution — a museum that changed a city. Afternoon: drive to the summit of kunanyi/Mount Wellington (20 minutes from the CBD — but bring warm clothes: it can snow in summer at 1,271m). The view from the summit observatory: Hobart, the Derwent estuary, Storm Bay, the Tasman Peninsula, and on the clearest days, the distant peaks of the Southwest Wilderness World Heritage Area. The Organ Pipes — a dramatic columnar dolerite cliff face just below the summit — is a world-class rock-climbing destination. Evening: take the 20-minute ferry to Bruny Island (or drive via car ferry) for dinner — Bruny Island produces some of Australia’s finest cheese, oysters, berries, and whisky. Overnight in Hobart.

Day 3: Hobart to Strahan — Through the Wild West

The long drive day: Hobart to Strahan (300km, 4 hours) through the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area — a million hectares of temperate rainforest, buttongrass plains, wild rivers, and glacial lakes, one of the world’s last true wilderness regions. The journey is through the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park — follow the Lyell Highway along the Derwent River. Stop at Lake St. Clair (Australia’s deepest lake, 200m, at the southern end of the Overland Track) for a short walk. Continue through the Franklin River valley — the river at the heart of Australia’s greatest environmental battle (1982-83, the campaign to save the Franklin from damming, which brought down a state government and led to the formation of the Australian Greens). Arrive Strahan on Macquarie Harbour — a fishing village on the edge of the wilderness, six times the size of Sydney Harbour but with 1/1000th of the population. Afternoon: walk the Hogarth Falls trail (40 minutes return through myrtle-beech rainforest) or visit Ocean Beach — a wild 40km stretch of sand facing the Roaring Forties, where the next landfall is Argentina. Overnight in Strahan.

Day 4: Strahan — Gordon River Cruise & Wilderness Railway

Morning: Gordon River cruise, the essential West Coast experience. The cruise crosses Macquarie Harbour to enter the Gordon River at Heritage Landing — a 2km boardwalk through ancient temperate rainforest (Huon pines — some over 2,000 years old, the second-longest-living trees on Earth after bristlecone pines — and myrtle-beech, sassafras, and leatherwood). The reflection of the rainforest in the dark, tannin-stained water of the Gordon River is the definitive Tasmanian wilderness image — captured by photographer Peter Dombrovskis in “Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend” (1979), the image that became the poster for the campaign to save the Franklin. The cruise visits Sarah Island — Tasmania’s most brutal penal settlement (1822-1833), where the worst convicts (re-offenders from other penal colonies) were sent for punishment. Conditions were so harsh that convicts committed murder to be hanged rather than continue living there. The island’s shipbuilding industry (using Huon pine) was paradoxically one of Australia’s most successful — the last ship built at Sarah Island, the Frederick, was hijacked by convicts who sailed it to Chile and freedom. Return to Strahan. Afternoon: optional West Coast Wilderness Railway — a steam train journey through ancient rainforest, originally built in 1896 to carry copper from Queenstown to Strahan. Overnight in Strahan.

Day 5: Strahan to Cradle Mountain — The Heart of Tasmania

Drive to Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park (150km, 2.5 hours). Cradle Mountain (1,545m) is Tasmania’s most iconic peak — a dolerite spire rising from glacial lakes and ancient forests. The park is the northern end of the Overland Track (65km, 6 days — one of the world’s great multi-day walks, completing in the top-10 of any list). If the weather permits (Tasmania’s weather changes by the minute — “four seasons in one day” is literal), the view of Cradle Mountain reflected in Dove Lake is one of Australia’s most beautiful landscapes. Walk the Dove Lake Circuit (6km, 2-3 hours, easy): a boardwalk around the lake, through King Billy pine forests, under the shadow of Cradle Mountain, with the distinctive boat shed (built 1940 by Lionel Connell — Tasmania’s most photographed building) on the shore. The Ballroom Forest — an ancient myrtle-beech forest with a floor so thick with moss and ferns it feels like a cathedral — is off the circuit. Evening: look for wombats (Cradle Mountain is one of the best places in Australia to see wild wombats — large, furry, cube-shaped marsupials that graze on the grasslands at dusk with little fear of humans) and Tasmanian devils (the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial, now only found in the wild in Tasmania — Devils@Cradle sanctuary offers night feeding tours). Overnight at Cradle Mountain.

Day 6: Cradle Mountain to Freycinet — East Coast Beauty

Morning: if weather was poor on Day 5, try again for the Dove Lake sunrise. Drive east across Tasmania (350km, 5 hours). The route passes through the central highlands (lake country — Tasmania has thousands of glacial lakes) and the historic midlands (convict-built bridges, Georgian villages like Ross — with its famous convict-built sandstone bridge, 1836, with 186 intricate carvings by convict stonemason Daniel Herbert). Arrive Coles Bay/Freycinet National Park by afternoon. The Freycinet Peninsula is a narrow granite spine into the Tasman Sea, with pink granite peaks (the Hazards), white sand beaches, and turquoise water. The contrast of pink granite, white sand, turquoise water, and blue sky creates one of Australia’s most beautiful color palettes. Evening: sunset at Honeymoon Bay or Sleepy Bay. Overnight in Coles Bay/Freycinet.

Day 7: Wineglass Bay — Australia’s Most Beautiful Beach

The essential Freycinet day. Walk to the Wineglass Bay Lookout (1.5km, 45 minutes uphill — well-formed track, 400+ steps). The view from the lookout — the perfect crescent of white sand, the turquoise water, the pink granite Hazards — is one of Australia’s most photographed panoramas, and for good reason: Wineglass Bay regularly appears on lists of the world’s most beautiful beaches. The name comes from the bay’s shape and from the 19th-century whaling industry — the bay ran red with whale blood during processing, giving it the appearance of a glass of red wine. Today, the only red you see is the sunset on granite. Descend to the beach itself (30 minutes) — the sand is pure white quartz, the water is crystal clear (ideal for swimming in summer), and wallabies often appear on the beach at either end. Spend the afternoon swimming, walking the beach, and absorbing one of Australia’s most beautiful places. Optional: kayaking around the bay (book in advance) or the full Wineglass Bay-Hazards Beach circuit (11km, 4-5 hours — the premier Freycinet day walk, descending to Wineglass Bay, crossing the isthmus to Hazards Beach, and returning along the coast with views of Great Oyster Bay). Overnight in Freycinet.

Day 8: Freycinet to Hobart — Port Arthur & Tasman Peninsula

Drive south to the Tasman Peninsula (3 hours). Visit Port Arthur Historic Site (UNESCO) — Australia’s most intact and evocative convict site. From 1833 to 1877, Port Arthur was a “natural penitentiary” — the peninsula is connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus (Eaglehawk Neck) guarded by dogs and soldiers, making escape nearly impossible. The Model Prison (the Separate Prison, 1849) implemented a revolutionary and chilling punishment: total silence. Inmates wore hoods whenever outside their cells, were identified only by numbers, and attended chapel in individual standing stalls designed to prevent any sight of other prisoners. The psychological impact drove many insane — Port Arthur had the British Empire’s first purpose-built asylum within a prison. Also visit the Convict Church (never consecrated — it was built to serve all denominations, a radical concept for the 1830s), the Commandant’s House, and the Memorial Garden (the site of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre — 35 victims, Australia’s worst mass shooting, which prompted the nation’s sweeping gun law reforms). Afternoon: drive to the nearby natural wonders — the Tessellated Pavement (a natural geometric rock formation on the shore), the Tasman Arch (a massive sea cave with its roof collapsed), the Devil’s Kitchen (a 60m-deep chasm), and the Blowhole (waves exploding through a hole in the rock). Return to Hobart Airport for departure. Eight days through Tasmania — Australia’s island of wild beauty, convict history, world-class art, and absolutely pure air (Tasmania has some of the cleanest air on Earth, measured at Cape Grim).

Included

• 7 nights (hotels, lodges, wilderness cabins)
• 8-day rental car (compact SUV, unlimited km)
• Gordon River cruise (full day)
• MONA entry + ferry
• Port Arthur Historic Site entry
• Cradle Mountain & Freycinet National Park passes
• Detailed self-drive itinerary, maps & app