Rough Guides - Tasmania

It used to be a mainlanders joke that Tasmania was twenty years behind the rest of Australia. And in some ways this island state remains old-fashioned, a trait that is charming and frustrating by turns. Yet increasingly Australians are beginning to wonder whether the joke might have been on them after all. The isolation that once stymied growth in Tasmania is now seen as an asset. More and more Aussies find themselves lured across the Bass Strait by the relaxed pace of life and outstanding wine and cuisine, as much as the states famously pristine environment. An increasing number of luxury hotels have appeared, too chintz and doilies in heritage stays are out, cool contemporary beach houses are in and Australias most cutting-edge gallery, MONA in Hobart, definitively refutes accusations that Tasmania is backwards. The Tasmanian landscape vast swathes of rainforest that date back to the last ice age, jagged glaciated mountains and white-powder beaches still brings many visitors to the island. Even if youre not particularly outdoorsy, the experience of visiting such a pure environment brings a tingle of exhilaration.

Tasmania has come a long way since it was known as Van Diemens Land and was Britains dumping ground for the worst of the worst convicts. Its name became so tainted with penal brutality that the state decided to rebrand when transportation ended in 1853. Until the past couple of decades, the island retained a reputation as somewhere brooding, almost gothic, and it was also renowned for its ties to the old country. Roughly the size of Ireland, Tasmania has rolling hills, hawthorn hedges and stone villages that recall Englands West Country, largely in the midlands between its two largest cities, the capital Hobart and Launceston in the north.

Yet if anything defines (and divides) Tasmania it is the environment. This is the closest point in Australia to the Antarctic Circle; the next land west is Argentina, and air monitoring stations record the air in the states northwest as the purest in the world. With forty percent of the island protected in parks and reserves, Tasmania is one of the cleanest places on earth. Much of the southwest is pure wilderness; a place of wild rivers, temperate rainforests, buttongrass plains and glacially carved mountains and tarns. Protected as a vast World Heritage Area , it offers some of the best wilderness walking and rafting in the world.

Cradle Mountain in the centre and Strahan on the west coast are the gateways from which most people experience the wild, and they form two stops on a much-travelled loop that includes capital Hobart, with its must-see Museum of Old and New Art and burgeoning food and arts scenes; convict history on the Tasman Peninsula; the string of beautiful beaches along the sunnier, drier east coast , the states holiday playground; and Launceston, the states second city and gateway to the vineyards of the Tamar Valley. Tick off the lot and youll have a taste of the state. Yet those less-visited corners are equally appealing: places like the far south down to Cockle Creek, a blend of wilderness, scenery and food culture; the sparsely populated northeast corner, home to the mesmerizing Bay of Fires beaches and Mount William National Park , a haven for Forester kangaroos; or small resorts in the northwest like pretty Stanley or the isolated shack villages at Arthur River. All are places to slow down; to discover astonishing scenery and wildlife, perhaps settle into a free bush camp for the night and revel in the purity of this environment.

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BAY OF FIRES