For those of you planning your own trip to Tassie, and for our own benefit for when we hopefully come back here, here’s our “Tassie on a page” synopsis.
Spanning the 7th of March through to the 16th of May 2026, we spent a total 74 days in Tassie, a smidge over 10.5 weeks, and we still feel there is a fair bit we haven’t seen or fully experienced. Of note, the weather for our entire trip was generally really good, with only a few days of rain or high-wind which limited what we could do and enjoy. Even the locals we chatted with commented on the ‘great weather’ we’d had. The Tassie weather is one of extremes, so when planning your trip, ensure you allow enough time for making last minute adjustments to plans when the weather turns nasty.
Despite only being 360km long (North to South) and 310kms wide (East to West), we drove over 6,800km exploring the state. Like most places, there are a lot of roads to explore. And yes, we could have driven the most direct, quickest and easiest route between locations but where is the fun or adventure in that. Instead, we always opted for what we hoped would be the most scenic and enjoyable route, sometimes looping out of our way a bit to find the hidden treasures that are off the beaten track. In Tassie this often resulted in us taking gravel roads.
We also walked a LOT, the longest hike being 18km, but most hikes were between 3 and 6km and we did heaps of these.
We chose to explore Tassie by regions that we made up on the fly and following is a summary of how we moved around:
- Region #1 – Cradle Mountain, based from the Discovery Park in Cradle Mountain
- Region #2 – The North West, based from Stanley
- Region #3 – The Mid West, based from Strahan
- Region #4 – Hobart and the South, based from Phil’s Place, a WikiCamps find about 20km North of Hobart
- Region #5 – Bruny Island, based from the Neck Campground (top of South Bruny)
- Region #6 – Freycinet Peninsula, based from the Richardsons Beach Campground (next to the Visitors Centre)
- Region #7 – Great Lake and the Central Plateau, based in Brandum at a mates place
- Region #8 – Bay of Fires and the North East, explored from both Cosy Corner South Campground and Gladstone
- Region #9 – The Mid North, based from Myrtle Park Camp and Recreation Ground
So what were our favourites you ask? OK, here we go:
Our favourite places, towns or locations, roughly ranked from the top being the ‘most favourite’ to the bottom being ‘still very favourite, but not number 1’.
Tony’s list:
- Cradle Mountain, inclusive of the hikes we did and the scenery and wildlife we saw.
- The Gladstone Pub for the welcoming and fun locals we met and chatted with.
- The little house (in this post) on the west coast, aside a little river, just south of Granville Harbour.
- Deloraine is simply beautiful in the autumn colours. A lovely little town with a great vibe.
- Myrtle Park Camp and Recreation Ground, one of my all time, across Australia, favourite camping spots. Beautiful trees with autumn leaves, heaps of space and aside the St Patricks River which has wild Platypus and Trout in it.
Jules’ list:
- The Meander Valley, simply stunning in every way. Green pastures with the most beautiful views across to the mountains.
- Cradle Mountain for the scenery, varied walks/hikes and the amount of wildlife we got to see and also the proximity to Devils at Cradle
- Myrtle Park Camp and Recreation Ground for seeing wild Platypus and the most beautiful automnal trees.
- Freycinet for the hike to Wineglass Bay, but mainly we got to go on the oyster tour and learn how to shuck oysters and it introduced us to a really yummy Riesling.
- Stanley, including the caravan park where they provide complimentary bathmats in the showers to use!
Our favourite experiences or activities, roughly ranked from the top being the ‘most favourite’ to the bottom being ‘still very favourite, but not number 1’.
Tony’s list:
- Guided fly fishing in the Meander Valley. A great day in a beautiful location.
- Gordon River Cruise with the premium package on the grey boat (not the red boat).
- Hiking up to the Bastion Cascades as the falls were beautiful, very photographic and we also found heaps of cool fungi along the walk which we had to ourselves.
- MONA in Hobart. The architecture of the building is worth the admission price alone.
- Having lunch on Balmoral Beach, a secluded location in Bathurst Harbour which is only accessible by foot, boat or plane. This was part of our day trip on the South West Wildnerness flight with Par Avion.
- The Wall exhibition in Derwent Bridge. Just WOW. What the artist has done in Huon Pine needs to be seen to be believed and apprecited.
- Devils@Cradle, a great convservation and rehabilitation group for the Tasmanian Devil and both the Eastern and Spotted Tail Quolls.
Jules list:
- Gordon River Cruise with the premium package on the grey boat (not the red boat).
- Our day trip on the South West Wildnerness flight with Par Avion to Bathurst Harbour.
- The Wall exhibition in Derwent Bridge. An amazing place to visist to see the wall carvings of one very talented artist.
- Watching a pair of Wallabies have an all out fight in the middle of the road in Cradle Mountain. They didn’t give a shit about the car, nor did they want to move out of the way when we slowley approached them to get pass.
- Experiencing life in the Highlands with -6 temp, frozen pipes and the fog! But also having the luxury of a hot shower and fire at night.
- Watching Tony get his beard and mo trimmed by Lee Power at Paradise Lost Barber in Hobart.
- Watching, laughing at and sometimes hating on a little, the Turbo Chooks (Native Hens) and leeches
I hope this summary of our time in Tassie helps. But, we’re not done on our wider trip yet, our next stop is Geelong for a few days after disembarking from the ferry.