Tasmania

Tasmania's beaches look tropical and feel southern. The east coast has the best of them: the curve of Wineglass Bay and the quieter Friendly Beaches on the Freycinet Peninsula, the white sand and orange-lichened boulders of the Bay of Fires near St Helens, and long empty strands around Bicheno and Swansea. Near Hobart, Seven Mile Beach and the sheltered bays of the Tasman and South Arm peninsulas are easy outings.

The catch is the water. Even in February the sea off the east coast reaches only about 17°C to 19°C, and around Hobart it is cooler still, so swimming is a brisk dip on a warm day rather than hours in the water. The season is essentially December to March, and many visitors walk these beaches in fleece. Come for the sight of them, not for a beach vacation.

Tasmania eats from its own cold, clean surroundings. Pacific oysters and mussels from the east coast and Bruny Island, salmon and ocean trout, abalone, rock lobster, grass-fed beef, cheese, cherries, apples and berries turn up on menus that name the farm or bay they came from. Hobart has the widest range, with a Saturday market at Salamanca Place, waterfront fish punts and a run of produce-led restaurants in the city and North Hobart. Launceston, at the head of the Tamar, has a serious dining scene of its own.

The drinking matches the food. The Tamar Valley, the Coal River Valley near Richmond and the east coast make some of Australia's best pinot noir, chardonnay and sparkling wine, and the island has a well-known single malt whisky tradition alongside cider and craft beer. Farm gates and cellar doors are part of any drive. What it lacks is cheap street food and late, casual eating; this is a place of lunches and dinners.

Two things carry Tasmania's culture: one of the most striking art museums in the southern hemisphere and the best-preserved convict heritage anywhere. MONA, cut into a sandstone cliff on the Derwent upriver from Hobart, mixes antiquities with provocative contemporary art, and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery covers the island's natural history and Aboriginal culture. Port Arthur, on the Tasman Peninsula, is a ruined penal settlement of brick and sandstone that tells the convict story better than any book.

It is one of several UNESCO-listed convict sites on the island, along with the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart, Darlington on Maria Island and the farm estates at Brickendon and Woolmers near Longford. Hobart's Battery Point and the Salamanca warehouses are some of Australia's finest Georgian streets, and Richmond, Ross and Oatlands keep their colonial sandstone bridges and churches.

Going out in Tasmania means Hobart, and Hobart is a small city. The old sandstone pubs and wine bars around Salamanca Place and the waterfront fill on Friday and Saturday nights, North Hobart has a strip of pubs and bars along Elizabeth Street, and there are a few small late venues in the centre. Most nights wind down around midnight. Launceston has a modest pub scene, and elsewhere evenings end at the local hotel bar or a winery dinner. The livelier moments come around the island's festivals, especially in midwinter.

This is the reason most people come. Around a fifth of the island is World Heritage wilderness, temperate rainforest, button-grass plains, glacial lakes and jagged dolerite peaks. Cradle Mountain and Dove Lake in the north west are the classic base, and the Overland Track runs south from there for about six days to Lake St Clair. The east coast has the pink granite of the Freycinet Peninsula and Maria Island, where wombats graze by the old convict ruins. On the Tasman Peninsula the Three Capes walk follows some of the highest sea cliffs in the southern hemisphere.

Hobart sits under kunanyi/Mount Wellington, with trails and a summit road straight from town. Wildlife is a constant: Tasmanian devils, pademelons, echidnas, platypus in the rivers, little penguins at dusk, seals and whales offshore. Sea kayaking, mountain biking around Derby and rafting the Franklin round it out. Summer is mild, and snow can fall on the highlands in any month.

Day trips here are small places with plenty of character rather than famous towns. From Hobart, Richmond's colonial village and the Coal River wineries are half an hour away, the ferry to Bruny Island leads to oyster farms, cheese and a lighthouse, and the Huon Valley to the south has orchards, cider and the riverside towns of Huonville and Cygnet. The ferry to Maria Island makes a full day from Triabunna.

From Launceston the Tamar Valley wine route runs north to the coast, and the Georgian villages of Evandale, Longford and Ross lie within an hour, with the lavender fields at Nabowla in summer. The island's two cities are about two and a half hours apart by car, so many visitors split their stay rather than drive back and forth.

Tasmania works for families who like the outdoors and do not need theme parks. The wildlife is the main draw for children: sanctuaries near Hobart and Launceston let them meet devils, wombats and kangaroos, and penguin colonies on the north and east coasts come ashore at dusk. Hobart is safe and small, with a children's corner at the state museum, the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens and the waterfront, and Launceston's Cataract Gorge has easy paths, a pool and a chairlift.

The limits are distance and weather. Seeing the island means hours in a car on winding roads, the sea is too cold for long beach days, and the weather can change fast even in summer. Short walks like Dove Lake suit children well; the big hikes do not.

Plan on hiring a car. Roads are well kept and traffic is light, but outside the Midland Highway between Hobart and Launceston most routes twist through hills and forest, so journeys take longer than the map suggests: about two and a half hours from Hobart to Freycinet and four or more to Cradle Mountain. Buses link the main towns but run thinly and miss most national parks, so they suit few visitors.

Hobart's centre, Salamanca and Battery Point are easy to walk, and a ferry runs up the Derwent to MONA. Watch for wildlife at dusk, when wallabies and wombats are on the roads in large numbers.

Shopping is about local making rather than fashion. The Saturday market at Salamanca Place is the highlight, with woodwork in Huon pine and other native timbers, knitwear, ceramics, jewellery and food stalls, and the sandstone warehouses behind it house galleries and craft shops. Farm gates and cellar doors sell cheese, honey, leatherwood honey, wine and whisky to take home. Hobart and Launceston have ordinary town-centre shopping, and there are no luxury streets or large department stores to speak of.

Tasmania is expensive to travel. In the summer season rooms in Hobart and near Freycinet and Cradle Mountain are scarce and priced accordingly, eating out costs what it does elsewhere in Australia, and a hire car and fuel add a fixed cost to any trip. Park passes are needed for the national parks. Budget comes from self-catering cabins, caravan parks and campsites, picnics from farm gates, and travelling in spring or autumn, when the crowds and prices ease.

The performing arts are concentrated in Hobart and are modest for most of the year. The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra plays a regular season at the Federation Concert Hall on the waterfront, and the Theatre Royal, open since 1837, is the oldest working theatre in Australia, staging drama, touring shows and comedy. Launceston's Princess Theatre takes touring productions, and pubs in both cities host local bands and folk nights.

The island's cultural calendar peaks in winter, the reverse of most places. In July the Festival of Voices fills Hobart with choirs, cabaret and singing in churches and halls, and around the midwinter solstice a season of art, music, performance and fire draws visitors to the city in its darkest, coldest weeks. Outside those weeks, a visitor will find something on most weekends but not every night.

Tasmania's wellness is mostly in its pace. Days are slow, towns are small and quiet, and the island suits a stay of long walks, early nights and good food. Spa treatments are found mainly in the upmarket lodges at Cradle Mountain, Freycinet and a few coastal and vineyard retreats, often using local botanicals. The one natural hot water is the thermal pool at Hastings Caves in the far south, warm rather than hot and set in forest. There is no bathing tradition beyond that, although winter sea swims and wood-fired saunas by the water have a following around Hobart.