Tasmania

The Bruny Island cruise: Tasmania's headline experience

Bruny Island's southern coast is Tasmania at full volume: sea cliffs among the highest in Australia, seastacks like The Monument, deep caves you can slide into, and a slot in the rock that genuinely breathes as the swell moves through it. The only way to see it properly is from water level, in a purpose-built wave-piercing boat that spends three hours working the cliffs while your guide tells the island's wild history.

Seals, dolphins, sea eagles and albatross are regulars, and migrating whales show up in season. It departs Adventure Bay at 1:30pm, wet-weather jackets are handed out, and there are ginger tablets onboard for when the Southern Ocean gets lively. It has been voted Australia's Best Ecotourism Product four times. The Bruny Island Afternoon Cruise, from $189, is the version you self-drive to.

Port Arthur: Australia's convict story, told where it happened

Port Arthur is a whole sandstone settlement of ruins and restored buildings on the edge of a cold, beautiful harbour on the Tasman Peninsula, about 90 minutes from Hobart. The Port Arthur Tasman Sights with Harbour Cruise day trip, from $159, includes your full site entry and the harbour cruise, then stacks the peninsula's best around it: Eaglehawk Neck's coastal rock formations, the sea-carved Remarkable Cave, hand-forged chocolate at the Tasmanian Chocolate Foundry and a wander through the Port Arthur Lavender Farm.

It's an eight-hour day with a young crowd capped at 24, so you'll come home with new mates as well as a head full of convict history. Bring money for food and drinks. You will want the chocolate.

Which Tasmania tour is right for you?

Three tours, three different days. Here's how they stack up.

Bruny Island Afternoon Cruise, from $189, 3 hours: the pure cruise. You drive to Adventure Bay yourself (car ferry from Kettering), board at 1:30pm, and spend three hours under the cliffs. Best if you've hired a car and want the morning free for Bruny's beaches and the Neck lookout.

Bruny Island Cruise with Kettering Bus Pickup, from $209, 8 hours: the same cruise with the logistics deleted. Park free at Oyster Cove Marina in Kettering, bus leaves 8:30am, ferry across, guided sightseeing on the island, the cruise, then back by late afternoon. Best if you don't want to drive on the island or deal with ferry timing. Morning tea and lunch are available to buy on the day.

Port Arthur Tasman Sights with Harbour Cruise, from $159 8 hours: the history day. Site entry, harbour cruise, Eaglehawk Neck, Remarkable Cave, chocolate and lavender. Best if you want one big day out of Hobart with no car at all. Do both if you have three days; they don't overlap.

Hobart: the base camp

Hobart is small enough to walk, old enough to be interesting and cold enough that the pubs have fireplaces. Salamanca Place runs its famous market every Saturday morning, Battery Point is a wander through sandstone cottages, and kunanyi / Mount Wellington looms over everything with a summit road and walking tracks. Mona, the museum across the river, is the other thing every traveller in Hobart ends up talking about.

Base yourself here for both tours. Port Arthur runs as a day out of the city, and Kettering, the jump-off for Bruny, is roughly half an hour south.

Getting to Tasmania and getting around

Hobart Airport is 17 kilometres from the city centre, with direct flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane; Launceston Airport serves the north. The other way in is the Spirit of Tasmania, which sails between Geelong and Devonport in around nine to eleven hours, usually overnight, and takes cars and campervans, so a van hired on the mainland can do the whole island.

Once you're here, a car or campervan is the easiest way to see Tasmania, because the best of it sits at the end of quiet roads. Hobart itself is walkable, with Metro buses to the suburbs. Bruny Island is reached by the vehicle ferry from Kettering, a 35-minute drive south of Hobart, with a 20-minute crossing to the island. No car? The Bruny Island Cruise with Kettering Bus Pickup, from $209, covers the bus, the ferry and island sightseeing, and the Port Arthur day trip, from $159, leaves from Hobart. Tasmania's national parks need a parks pass, sold as a daily pass or a two-month holiday pass, per person or per vehicle, online or at park visitor centres. Port Arthur is a historic site, not a national park, and its entry is included in our tour.

Beyond our tours: Wineglass Bay, Cradle Mountain and MONA

Three Tasmanian icons sit outside our tour line-up but belong in any plan. Wineglass Bay is the perfect white curve on the Freycinet Peninsula, around two and a half hours from Hobart by road; the walk to the lookout is a steady climb of about an hour return, and the beach itself is another hour down the far side. Cradle Mountain is the island's wilderness poster: the Dove Lake circuit is a flat six-kilometre loop under the mountain's jagged profile, and it is roughly four and a half hours from Hobart or an hour and a half from the Devonport ferry.

Back in the city, MONA is Tasmania's strangest and best attraction: a privately owned museum of old and new art dug into the riverbank at Berriedale, reached by a ferry up the Derwent from Brooke Street Pier on the Hobart waterfront. Salamanca Market runs every Saturday from 8.30am to 3pm beside the sandstone warehouses, rain, hail or shine, and the summit of kunanyi / Mount Wellington, 1,271 metres above the harbour, is a 30-minute drive from the city, with a sealed road to the top and a lookout where it can snow in any month.

What Tasmania costs

Our three Tasmania tours run from $159 to $209. The Bruny Island Afternoon Cruise, from $189, is the one to book if you have your own wheels; the Kettering bus version, from $209, adds the bus, the ferry crossing and island sightseeing for a few dollars more. The Port Arthur day, from $159, includes the site entry and the harbour cruise that a self-driver would otherwise pay for at the gate.

On top of the tours, budget for your beds, a parks pass if you're heading into Freycinet, Cradle Mountain or any other national park, fuel if you're self-driving, and food. Hostels cluster in Hobart and Launceston, so book beds ahead in summer and over the Easter and Christmas weeks.

A sample 3-day Tasmania itinerary from Hobart

Day 1: Land in Hobart, walk Salamanca and the waterfront, then head up kunanyi / Mount Wellington for sunset if the sky is clear. Early night; day two starts early.

Day 2: Port Arthur Tasman Sights with Harbour Cruise, from $159. Eaglehawk Neck and Remarkable Cave on the way out, the full historic site and harbour cruise in the middle, chocolate and lavender on the way back. Back in Hobart for dinner.

Day 3: Bruny Island. Either drive to Kettering, take the ferry and self-drive to Adventure Bay for the 1:30pm Bruny Island Afternoon Cruise, from $189, or park at Kettering and let the Bruny Island Cruise with Kettering Bus Pickup, from $209, handle the whole day. Fourth day? Mona, or the Saturday market.

Know before you go: seasons, safety and getting there

Seasons: Tasmania does four seasons in a day and means it. December to February is warmest and busiest; March to May is calm, golden and underrated; winter is cold, crisp and quiet, with snow possible on the mountain. Whale sightings on the cruises are seasonal, so ask when you book.

Safety: the sun is stronger than it feels, so sunscreen even in winter. On the water, take the jacket and the ginger tablet; the southern swell is real. Layers are everything: windproof shell, jumper, beanie, all year.

Getting there: fly into Hobart (Launceston is the other airport, about two and a half hours north by road), or take the Spirit of Tasmania ferry from Geelong to Devonport with a car. The Bruny self-drive cruise needs a vehicle; the bus-pickup version and the Port Arthur day don't.