You can see it from almost everywhere in Hobart. That great grey-blue wall of rock rising behind the city, often with its top lost in cloud. kunanyi / Mount Wellington is the backdrop to the whole town, and the first thing most visitors decide is that they have to get up there. I am Fuad, and across forty-three countries I have stood on a lot of lookouts. The summit...
Some places you remember for a single view. Bruny gave me a dozen. Sea cliffs dropping straight into the Southern Ocean, a thin ribbon of sand with ocean on both sides, an empty beach curving away into low cloud, and a lighthouse balcony with the whole wild south of the island laid out beneath it. I went on a grey, drizzly January day, and it was still one of the...
Most people drive straight past Ross. The Midland Highway bypasses the village entirely, so unless you know it is there and make the deliberate turn, you will never see it. That is actually part of why it is still worth seeing – the bypass that inconveniences drivers is the same reason Ross has remained one of the most intact nineteenth century villages in...
I have visited 43 countries and passed through more cities than I can count. Launceston is not a city that announces itself loudly. It does not have a famous harbour or a skyline you recognise from postcards. It is compact, quiet, and slightly hilly – the kind of place that rewards walking rather than rushing. I spent two nights here as a base for exploring...
I had just come back from a full day at Cradle Mountain. Most people would have called it a day. But it was only early evening, my hotel was in the Launceston CBD, and someone had mentioned that Cataract Gorge was walkable from the city centre. I had nothing but time and slightly tired legs, so I went. That turned out to be one of the better decisions of the Tasmania...
I have visited 45 countries, and I have seen some genuinely beautiful places along the way. Cradle Mountain belongs in that list – and I was not expecting it to hit as hard as it did. This was my second day in Tasmania. I had based myself in Launceston rather than Hobart, which turned out to be a smart decision – Launceston is only about 2.5 hours from...
Most people flying into Tasmania head straight to Hobart. I didn’t. I flew into Launceston instead – and it turned out to be a great decision. Starting in the north put me right at the beginning of a route that took me through Cradle Mountain, the historic village of Ross, and eventually down to Hobart by bus. If you’re planning something similar...