Tasmania east coast road trip: Hobart to Launceston
≈ 600 km · ~8.5 h driving · ideal in 8 days · 5 stops
An island small enough to drive in a week and wild enough to feel much bigger. A convict penitentiary on a peninsula, a pink-granite bay ranked among the world's best beaches, orange-lichened boulders on white sand, and some of the best food and whisky in the country in between.
Photo: Unsplash
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The route at a glance
- Hobart — 2 nights
- Port Arthur — 1 night
- Coles Bay — 2 nights
- Binalong Bay — 1 night
- Launceston — 1 night
The stops
- 1
Hobart
Salamanca Market on Saturday, and MONA — an underground museum of deliberately provocative art reached by a camouflage-painted ferry. Nothing else in Australia is like it.
- 2
Port Arthur
The best-preserved convict site in Australia, on a peninsula chosen because it was nearly impossible to escape. The evening lantern tour is the one to book.
- 3
Coles Bay
The gateway to Freycinet: pink granite peaks, and Wineglass Bay curving below the saddle lookout. Oysters on the way in at Freycinet Marine Farm.
- 4
Binalong Bay
The start of the Bay of Fires — boulders covered in vivid orange lichen against white sand and impossibly clear water, running 50 km north.
- 5
Launceston
Cataract Gorge is a proper wilderness a fifteen-minute walk from the city centre. The Tamar Valley's cool-climate wineries fill the rest of the day.
Good to know
December–February is warm and busy; shoulder months are quieter and Tasmania's weather is changeable in any of them — pack layers whatever the forecast. The Wineglass Bay lookout is a 45-minute climb, the beach itself another 30 down. Port Arthur is a place of mass tragedy twice over; it's treated with care, and so should you be. Book Freycinet accommodation months ahead in summer.
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