The Ultimate Tasmania Road Trip
We recently came back from a 2-week family trip to Australia. We wanted to go to three major places in Australia on our trip there. The usual choices are Sydney, the Red Centre, and the Great Barrier Reef. But we opted to cut out the Reef and go to Tasmania instead. Mainly because it just seemed so much cooler. After going there, I am happy to say we’re so glad that we made that choice. Everyone should go to Tasmania. Hopefully this article helps you plan your trip.
Why Go?
Tasmania is an island the size of Ireland hanging off the bottom of Australia. It has a total population of about 400K people and is still largely undiscovered by tourists (outside of Australians). It has spectacular natural beauty — unspoiled by crowds. It has amazing beaches — that are totally empty. It has epic hikes — with almost no one on them. I personally hate crowds, so I loved Tasmania. It felt like the End of the Earth. Close to wilderness, but enough civilization to feel comfortable.
Logistics
How Long to Go For
You can easily fill up ten days road tripping through Tasmania. We had five days. This was good enough to see ONE side of the island. We picked the Eastern side plus a short side trip to Cradle Mountain. I feel like we could’ve easily stayed another five exploring the western side of Tasmania. But alas, we just didn’t have the time.
When to Go
We went to Tasmania in early March. I thought it was a great time to go. It was late summer, but not crowded because the Australian summer break was already over. It was easy to get reservations and show up at places unannounced.
Travel and Lodging
We flew into Launceston and out of Hobart. Tasmania is big enough so it doesn’t make sense to go in and out of the same city. You definitely need to rent a car. It is the only way to get around. We splurged and got ourselves an SUV. It was totally worth it to road trip in comfort.
We organized our trip so that we essentially stayed in a different place every night. I think that was the right way to do it. Below, I’ll lay out the trip as we did it, but where appropriate I’ll add in where you can stay an extra night (or in a different place).
The Itinerary
Of course there is information about Tasmania all over the internets. But, though the places are well described, I felt there wasn’t a good reference itinerary. I made a lot of guesses — mostly hits, but a few misses. To that end, I wanted to document our itinerary and give recommendations for other tourists heading to Tasmania. Hopefully you can use this article to travel better in Tasmania.
First, some quick context. This was a family trip for the three of us — two active late 30’s parents and one active 5 year old kid. We like to pace ourselves. We didn’t want to drive more than 4 hours per day, ever. We are outdoorsy — but like a good hotel room. To that end, we stuck with hotels/AirBnBs on Tasmania. Much of this trip could be done camping or with a camper van. We just didn’t want to do it in a new country with our kid.
Day 1: Travel Day (to Cradle Mountain via Launceston)
We flew into Launceston from Uluru, connecting through Melbourne. You can fly in from Sydney direct to Launceston as well. We rented a car at the airport and drove straight to Cradle Mountain. I would recommend getting a midday flight so that you can drive up to Cradle Mountain during the day. It’s about 2 hours from Launceston and there are not that many restaurants up there and most of them close by 9pm. We were racing the clock to make it in time so we could eat. We eked in at 8:47pm. But there was unnecessary stress (and necessary shouting).
But the getting there for food is actually a secondary issue. The primary issue is that, when the dusk hits in Tasmania — especially up in Cradle Mountain — , the animals all come out to play. In addition, for some reason, they wanna get right up onto the road. We nearly hit 7 animals on our drive up to Cradle Mountain. We saw everything — a Barnaby’s wallaby, pademelons, an echidna, a black-tailed possum, and a bunch of wombats. It was exhilarating to be greeted with that much wildlife — but also nerve racking to drive knowing that something could jump out at you at any time.
If this is your only night up in Cradle Mountain — I highly recommend doing a night drive into the park. Most of the animals are nocturnal and super active at night. One of the best spots is the Ronny Creek boardwalk where you can walk around with flashlights. There are wombats everywhere there. You’ll probably see a bunch of other animals on the drive as well. It is amazing. We didn’t know and only did a short drive near our lodge. If we had known, we definitely would have made it out to Ronny Creek. Even on the short drive, we were all thrilled.
We spend the night up in a little cabin up at Cradle Mountain Wilderness Village. It’s not too expensive, but a spectacular place to stay. I could see the Milky Way peeking through the eucalyptus trees from our little balcony there. A beautiful first night in Tassie.
Day 2: Cradle Mountain
We spent the next day exploring Cradle Mountain National Park. It’s kind of like the Yosemite of Tasmania — but with weird plants and even weirder animals. We did the regular tourist circuit of Dove Lake, Ronny Creek, Pencil Pine Falls, the Enchanted Forest, and then back out to Ronny Creek to look for wombats. It was grey, rainy day — but we still had a great time exploring the otherworldly Tassie mountain landscapes.
I would say the best part was seeing all the wildlife. We saw so many animals super close up while on our short hikes — pademelons, wallabies, wombats, and these weird duck-chicken birds.
I wish we could’ve done some of the harder hikes in the park to really explore the place. Unfortunately, my 5 year old can only hike ~3 miles and is too heavy now to be carried on my back (as a lingering calf injury of mine can attest to). If we could hike more, I would have definitely hit up Marion’s Lookout.
We were originally thinking about cutting Cradle Mountain out of our itinerary. But, looking back it was one of the highlights of Tasmania. I would not miss it. The wildlife alone is worth the visit. Not to mention the mountain vistas, weird grasslands, and strange trees. This is what I loved about Tasmania — everything is familiar, but not. It’s a strange land where all the trees, birds, animals, and grasses are from a totally different branch of the evolutionary tree.
At the end of the day, we drove out of the park to head to Launceston for the night. If we had to do it again, I would stay another night up at Cradle Mountain. All the animals come out at dusk — which is right when we had to leave :(. Also, as luck would have it the sun came out gloriously right as we were leaving the place. Whaddya do? With more days we could’ve waited out the weather.
Day 3: Tamar Valley Wine Country
We woke up in Launceston this day — but, if we had to do it again, I would’ve just stayed another night up in Cradle Mountain and left in the morning and gone directly to Tamar Valley. It’s a longer drive up front, but I think seeing Cradle Mountain during the dusk hours would’ve been totally worth it.
In any case, Launceston (or Lonnie as Australians call it) is a nice little town. It’s the second biggest town in Tasmania at 100K people. It feels like a nice, lived-in Midwestern town — only set in the epic landscape of the Tamar River estuary. We had a splurge dinner at MudBar there the evening before. This morning we had a light breakfast at a hip coffee shop called SweetBrew and hit the Tamar Valley Wine trail.
The Tamar Valley is one of the biggest wine growing regions in Tassie. It specializes in cool weather grapes like sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, and bubbly (all our favorites). The production is small and boutique. In fact, Tassie wine only makes up like 1% of the wine production in Australia. They actually don’t export it to the USA — the Australians just drink it all. I get it, it’s good stuff.
We hit up three wineries on our winding road trip. They are listed below. I think we were touring on a weekday so there was no one but as at most of these places. We got private tastings and personalized attention.
- Tamar Ridge. My favorite. Beautiful property with crisp, mineraly whites. I also like their super sciency label work.
- Bay of Fires. We had lunch here of a cheese plate and pizza. Good spot with horseshoes and other outdoor games.
- Piper’s Brook. Biggest name winery in Tassie. Great Sauv Blanc.
One other random thing — they call wineries “cellar doors” in Tasmania. Again, this is the story of Australia — all so familiar being from the US, but slightly different.
We also stopped by the Platypus House , up near the mouth of the Tamar River. It’s small zoo where we saw duck-billed platypi and echidnas. It was a short 1 hour tour — but informative, kid-friendly, and well orchestrated. I recommend it for anyone with kids. Parents won’t be bored either. Cause monotremes (egg-laying mammals) are cool.
We also swung by Bridestowe Lavender Estate on our way to St. Helens. The estate was nice, but the lavender had already been harvested a month earlier. We could only imagine what the place must have looked when the lavender was fully blooming. In any case, we picked up one of the famous “Bobbie” lavender bears for the kiddo. She ended up dragging Bobbie everywhere in Tasmania. Unfortunately, that guy never made it home. He was unceremoniously left at an Indian restaurant in Hobart. Alas. Bobbie, you were a good bear. I hope you’ve found a good home.
We eventually rolled into the tiny town of St. Helens around sunset. It was a long driving day, but it didn’t feel tiring because it was punctuated by a number of stops — wine tastes, monotremes, lavender, and lunch. It was also a gloriously sunny day with views for days.
In St. Helens, we stayed in a modular house at this new campground called the NRMA St. Helens Waterfront. I highly recommend it. They have a good restaurant right on site and it’s right by the water. We saw a killer sunset lighting up the sky a vibrant pink from there. But, I have to admit, the coolest part was this huge inflatable bouncing bubble. I could say that it’s “great for kids”, but let me not kid you — it’s great for adults too.
Day 4: Bay of Fires
I woke up early this day and drove over to Binalong Bay by myself to take some sunrise photos. There was no one there and light was perfect shining on the strange red lichen covered rock. I sat on a rock and meditated with the Southern Ocean lapping around me. A peak experience for sure.
A side note — the Southern Ocean (sometimes called the Antarctic Ocean) is the fifth ocean of the world. Oceanographically, it is different than the Pacific and Atlantic with it’s own unique currents and patterns.
Another side note — if you look at a map of the world, you will note that there is very little land at 40 degrees south (which is about where Tasmania is located). As such, the air just whips around the globe creating a set of winds called the Roaring 40’s. These winds hit the west coast of Tasmania and pound it with wind, rain, and storms. The mountains there suck all the moisture out — for the most part — so the east side of Tasmania has much better weather.
In any case, after sunrise, I drove back the 5 miles to St. Helens and got the family. We packed up and headed up to the Gardens — which is as far north driving you can go into the Bay of Fires. We did short hike there onto the huge rocks. The entire Bay of Fires is this otherworldly landscape of huge rocks covered in this strange red lichen, beautiful white sand, and turquoise water. It really feels like the ends of the earth here.
Random aside — the beautiful white, quartz sand at the Bay of Fires squeaks if you run on it. I don’t understand the physics — but it’s definitely a thing.
The Gardens is nice spot — but it wasn’t as epic as some of the other pictures I had seen on the internets. So I broke out Google Maps and looked at the satellite imagery to figure out where a good spot could be. We ended up driving on a number of little off road tracks and found the perfect spot. You can see the pictures below. It looked like something out of Myst. This is why we came to Tasmania. We really felt like we were “out there”. At the same time, I did not feel that total remoteness that I feel backpacking because our car was a few 100 yards away from us.
Once we had our fill of the Bay of Fires, we drove south down the coast. We tried stopping Iron House Brewery for a late lunch — but they had already closed. We should’ve planned better. This is something to be mindful of traveling in Tasmania though. Places close after lunch around 2ish and don’t open again until 5:30. Also dinner ends by 9pm. Don’t think you can roll up and get food whenever. Check the time!
We drove down to Bicheno, where we were staying for the night. We got some meat pies, ate it by the ocean (with some very interested sea birds), checked in to our apartment, cleaned up, headed down to Freycinet National Park to do a sunset hike. Freycinet is a popular National park. It’s about 45 minutes from Bicheno. In retrospect, we should not have stayed in Bicheno — instead we should have stayed in Coles Bay. It’s basically inside the National Park. It would have been much easier to access the hikes if we had stayed there. That was a tactical error. Stay in Coles Bay.
In any case, we did a short hike around the Cape Tourville lighthouse around sunset. It’s on the far western end of the park — about 20 mins from Coles Bay. It’s a great place to go for sunset. We saw a wallaby hanging out in the parking lot. Some idiot tourists were trying to get a selfie with it. I was waiting for the wallaby to maul them, but that didn’t happen. We did a short 1.5 mile hike around the lighthouse — seeing the ocean, the lighthouse, and some spectacular views into the Hazards and Wineglass Bay. We had dinner at the Freycinet Lodge and drove the 45 minutes back to Bicheno in the dark. I was white-knuckling the whole way — just waiting for a wallaby to jump in front of the car.
Day 5: Hobart, MONA, and Food
I woke up early this day and went on a circuit run of Bicheno — across the ocean path, up the whaler’s lookout, and all the way to the famous Bicheno Blowhole. Bicheno is a nice little town. But again, if I was in Coles Bay, I could’ve gone and done the famous Wineglass Bay hike by myself. With it being almost an hour away, I couldn’t squeeze it in. Alas — I will have to leave that hike for another visit to Tasmania. But the morning run was great.
We hit the road to head to Hobart. The forecast was for rain starting midday, so we aborted Port Arthur for today and instead decided to hit the famous MONA museum there. We still stopped at couple of places on the drive:
- Freycinet Marine Farm for some fresh oysters.
- Devil’s Corner Cellar Door for some amazing wine, mussels, and fungi pizza.
Yeah, it was mostly about food. After Devil’s Corner, we trucked it to Hobart and the MONA. The MONA is a relatively new museum that Famous museum there opened by this guy David Walsh. He made is fortune creating quantitive gambling systems — from horse racing to online poker. Somewhere in there he started collecting art — old and new. Thus the name: The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA).
The museum is so cool. So many of the exhibits are so weird and crazy. The art is very experiential and bends your mind. Some highlights:
- Cloaca. A robotic intestinal track that is “fed” at one end and “poops” at the other end.
- Blue Pigment. Just big sandbox filled with the most brilliant blue pigment ever.
- Event Horizon. A color experience by James Turell. Imagine being in the Drake Hotline Bling video. But with such blindingly strong color that you start to hallucinate.
- Pulse Room. A room of hundreds of light bulbs. Touch a handle and the pulsing of the lights synchronizes with your heartbeat.
- 20:50. A room filled to your waist with used engine oil that perfectly reflects the space above it. The desire to touch the oil is so strong.
- Wall of Vaginas. Plaster casts of 151 real vaginas. Mounted along the wall on a long hallway.
- Kryptos. A weird binary code labyrinth that ends in a surprise.
- bit.fall. A 3d water printer that prints trending topics from the internets.
We spent four hours at the museum, but I could’ve easily spent the whole day to take it all in. My daughter loved it too — the art was all so interesting. It’s worth it to go to Hobart just for this museum.
Upon exiting the main subterranean part of the museum we walked through a bunch of MONA sculptures outside. Fortunately, by the rain had cleared and we could see the Derwent River Valley and Mt. Wellington gleaming in the sun. Once we were fully done with the MONA, we drove down to the Hobart city center near the docks. Another rain shower came up and created the most vibrant double rainbow I’ve seen in my life. In fact, looking closely, I swear it was a triple rainbow — there’s a strange dark band and set of inverted colors inside the primary rainbow. I don’t understand the physics — but it was definitely a thing.
That night we had a splurge dinner at this restaurant called Aloft inside one of the pier buildings in Hobart. It was hands down the best meal we had in Australia. The food was very unique and the flavor was off the charts.
After that we finally checked into our AirBnB at Otago Bay. The property we stayed at was spectacular. It was a little house overlooking the river. One of the great regrets of our Tasmania trip is not spending more time enjoying that house — grilling out, hanging out, pretending like we lived there.
Day 6: Port Arthur and Bonorong
Our last day in Tasmania. After a nice breakfast overlooking the Derwent, we hit the road to Port Arthur. Port Arthur is a historical site from the convict era of Australia. Back in the 17–1800’s it was essentially the Supermax prison of the British Empire. The most hardened criminals were sent there. We did the guided tour of the grounds to learn the history of the place. We also took a few hours afterwards to walk the site on our own — through the old penitentiary, the silent prison, and the guards houses. It’s a really great way to bring to life what that era of Australia must’ve been like.
As an aside — Port Arthur is also the site of the worst mass shootings in Australian history. Some psycho walked into the cafeteria and shot up the whole place. Unlike America, Australia did the sensible thing and totally redid their gun control laws to ban assault rifles. This is the story of Australia — it’s like a more functional USA. They implement sensible solutions to their problems — universal health care, well funded public transit, gun control…sigh.
After three hours at Port Arthur, we had to rush back to the Hobart area for our 4:30 appointment at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. I wish we a full day on the Tasman Peninsula (where Port Arthur is). We had to miss the Tesselated Pavement and some hikes around the capes there. Unfortunately, because of the rain the day before we had to commute to and from the Tasman Peninsula from Hobart which cut out a lot of time. Such is travel.
Our Bonorong Night Tour was easily the highlight of our trip. You can visit during normal hours, but, if you can, I strongly recommend the Night Tour because you can get really up close and personal with the animals — feeding them and seeing them at their most active.
Our group was the three of us and three others for a total of 6. We started with hand feeding the 100+ kangaroos on the property for 30 minutes before the tour. That in itself was amazing, but then Robyn showed up and the real fun began.
Robyn took us on a tour of the entire facilities, stepping into many habitats to feed the animals. She was an amazing tour guide — clearly loves the animals, is super knowledgeable, and has an infectiously enthusiastic attitude (and a thick Australian accent) that makes the whole experience that much better.
The best part is that Bonorong is a sanctuary — so most of these animals are being rehabilitated for release into the wild, and if not possible, they are given a great life there. The mission makes the experience feel much more positive. These are happy animals here.
We saw all the animals. Quick highlights:
- feeding the kangaroos
- talking with Frank the sulfur-crested cockatoo
- hanging with Millie the wombat literally crawling over us
- feeding the three Tassie devils
- photo ops with the koalas
- feeding rose petals to a ring tailed possum
- hand feeding Randall the echidna
- feeding two types of quolls
- bettongs
- sugar gliders
- tawny frogmouths
- more birds that I can’t remember
The night tour is expensive ($400 AUD for the three of us), but it was totally worth it. The three hours we spent there were some of the most memorable of the trip. I will never likely get that close to these animals again in my life.
After the Bonorong tour it was late — we got some Indian food at a little hole in the wall place in Hobart and went back home to pack up for our early flight out of Hobart the next day.
Conclusion
Go to Tasmania. It was an amazingly diverse place to visit — from mountains, to beaches, to ultra-Modern art, to wildlife. The best part is that it’s still relatively undiscovered — but very easy to travel there. Go before it gets run over by tourists.
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure.”
― Freya Stark
