The Daily Telegraph Your 16-page guide to one of the most unspoilt islands on Earth

Saturday, April 12, 2008 telegraph.co.uk TASMANIA INTRODUCTION

ABOUT THIS SUPPLEMENT

Lying 150 miles off mainland Australia’s south coast is a magical island with so many experiences to discover. Tasmania has a wilderness that’s listed as a World Heritage Site, plus stunning lakes, spectacular rainforest and unique wildlife. You’ll breathe some of the cleanest air on the planet, but Tasmania is not all about rugged terrain and the great outdoors — you can stay in luxury accommodation and enjoy the finest food and wine. You’d be missing out on a taste of paradise if you did not include Tassie in an Australian holiday. This supplement aims to give you a glimpse of one of the most unspoilt islands on Earth. INSIDE Motoring 4 Accommodation 5 Wildlife 6 Walking 8 Property 10 Food and drink 11 Events 12 Wilderness 13 Adventure 14 fantastic tassie organic forestry and a savage here? In an old jam factory on Sport 15 protector of sea eagles. Salamanca Docks, where the REPORT BY VICTORIA MATHER And you just thought you first settlers stepped ashore, Produced by Telegraph Create in association with Tourism Tasmania, Tailor Made might go for a jolly hol, staying Flora de Kantzow has done the Travel and Qantas. don’t be fooled by Tasmania’s air somewhere sensational, such as Manhattan thing: acres of PICTURE CREDITS: Cover: Geoffrey Lea/Tourism Tasmania (Wine Glass Bay); Owen the Avalon Coastal Retreat at exposed brickwork, fabulous art, Tomalin/Alamy (Tasmanian devil). P2: Getty, Lindy-Lou Bateman/Tourism Tasmania. , and hug a a humming bar. Those convicts P3: JP & ES Baker, Chris Crerar/Tourism Tasmania. P4: Joe Shemesh/Tourism of understatement — this is an goosedown pillow. wouldn’t know the old place. Tasmania. P5: Peter Luxton, George Apostolidis/Tourism Tasmania. P6: Tim Dub/ Tourism Tasmania. P7: Geoffrey Lea, Keiichi Hiki/Tourism Tasmania. P9: Simon Right, so the first thing one Hobart is jumping. On the Kenny/Tourism Tasmania, Don Fuchs/Australian Geographic. P10: Getty (2). used to need in Tasmania was an waterfront are all the hot P11: Garry Moore/Tourism Tasmania (2). P12: Don Stephens, Nick Osborne/ island that invites superlatives anorak, regardless of whether or restaurants and bars; yachts bob, Tourism Tasmania. P13: Pure Tasmania, Geoff Murray/Tourism Tasmania. P14: Brett Fernon/Tourism Tasmania. P15: Nick Hancock, George Apostolidis, not one was an anorak. and the market comes to town. Mark Spencer, Jeff Jennings/Tourism Tasmania. The is one We live in homogenised he worst thing a pooed on her bed, about which of the most beautiful places on Tesco-world; here in Tasmania mainland she was a terrific sport: “Always Earth. The headland on which Australian can do nice to know the natives Avalon is perched is so private to a Tasmanian is appreciate one,” she commented. that anoraks are not required: build a swimming The Tasmania I first went to you can wander nude. All around pool in the shape was emerging from being is deep blue sea from the floor to of Australia (yes, Australia’s orphan state to a ceiling glass walls of this

© TAILOR MADE TRAVEL MADE TAILOR © this stuff state of grace, largely due modernist bombshell. The bath is happens, mainly to a terrific ball of energy, sculpted from huon pine, the in Palm Beach, the late premier, Jim Bacon, fridge filled with meats and Sydney) and leave off Tassie. and his wife Honey Bacon cheeses from Wursthaus, the Weird. You’d think Australia’s (that was a marriage made Fauchon of Tassie. You can walk onlyT island state would be so in heaven). and swim, eat and read in front of perfect as the Jacuzzi. Jim took Tassie on tour: the log fire. Tasmania is pretty much “Hello, world — we’re here, we’re The posh Islington Hotel, perfect in every way. fab, we have sensational food meanwhile, is an 1847 Regency Admittedly, when I first went and wine, amazing beaches, house overlooking Mount there and woke up to the history, wildlife, beauty, Wellington, stuffed with antiques. dripping wet veil of rain that eco-emptiness.” Dust-gatherer angst (the urban was Cradle Mountain, I thought Honey was the Carla of Tassie. version of hunter-gatherer angst) it was a very long way to have What they rode was the comes to mind, but one is deeply travelled to Wales. eco-wave, then a bit hippy-dippy, cossetted, canapé’d to the gills, I was then entirely beguiled now acutely fashionable. It was and kissed all over by the by possums squeezing people-with-beards power that in‑house dachshund. themselves down the triumphed over logging and If clutter gives you the creeps, drainpipes. One intrepid possum dam-building on the Franklin the Henry Jones Art Hotel is morphed itself through Carol River. Now Tassie is a bit of an scary in the other way: trendy. Thatcher’s bedroom door and eco-issue model — a pioneer of Are you cool enough to stay SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 2008 | | 3 INTRODUCTION TASMANIA

TRAVEL TIP

Þ Tasmania has four domestic airports: Hobart in the south, Launceston, Devonport and Wynyard in the north. Flying time from Melbourne is 1 hour 10 minutes and from Sydney,1 hour 50 minutes. Þ There are two passenger and vehicular ferries travelling to and from Tasmania. Spirit of Tasmania I and II depart Melbourne nightly taking approximately 10 hours to reach Devonport. Þ Tailor Made Travel offers a seven-night self-drive itinerary, including accommodation, car hire and international flights with Qantas from £1,339. 0800 988 5915; www.tailor-made. co.uk; [email protected] Þ Qantas offers 28 services a week from the UK to Australia.

DID YOU KNOW…

Þ Tasmania is actually an archipelago of 334 islands. Þ Hobart is the second driest city in Australia after Adelaide. Þ Macquarie Harbour in Furry friend: clockwise from left, the possum is among creatures native to Tasmania; Strahan is seven times the size Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park; descend Mount Wellington with Island of Sydney Harbour. Cycle Tours; and enjoy fine cuisine and wine at the Moorilla Food & Wine Centre there’s smalltown life as it is has the oldest golf course in the the Central Highlands, which has temperate myrtle rainforest. The meant to be: friendly and southern hemisphere, the grass just been refurbished, and you historic mining village has just charming, a happy timewarp kept short by grazing sheep. see platypuses in the lakes full of been restored and has simple with terrific food. The cool- Flora de Kantzow, creator of brown trout, before coming cottages in which you can stay. climate wines are world class, the Henry Jones, is now opening home to a log fire in your room, Tassie is a walkers’ paradise. the beers unpasteurised, the Quamby, outside Launceston, an 170 malt whiskies and 300 There’s the four-day walk along food at The Source — a 1828 colonial manor in the Tasmanian wines. Stay awhile. the , ending in an restaurant at the Moorilla Estate Anglo-Indian style. It will have a Strahan itself is a small, eco-lodge with compost loos vineyard — incomparable. private golf course. Indian whitewashed world reminiscent (much nicer than they sound). If Unlike the rest of Australia, friends of mine are in great of Ireland. It overlooks Cradle Mountain is too wet, the which consists of an enormous excitement about it and have Macquarie Harbour, which is so wilderness on the Derwent River frill of activity round an hired a car and a driver. “Why?” big it makes Sydney Harbour is enchanting. intractable interior, Tasmania is I asked. “The roads are look like a puddle. The fish and How can so much of the manageable. Later this year, the completely empty.” chips on Strahan Wharf are the world’s excellence be in one small place to which to move on would “Yes,” they replied. “That is best in the world, and you should island? Yet it is: go to Port Arthur be Diamond Island, where what terrifies us.” Released from stay in the Wheelhouse where the convicts were held and there’s a new spa where all the the traffic jam that is Mumbai Apartments, designed by local the sense of historical evil is more food is sourced from within 45 onto the open highway, their builder Richard Dyson, on the palpable than anything in the minutes of your table. Or you inner Mr Toad would surely roar clifftop. With their portholes and London Dungeon. Tasmania is an could drive to the new Priory forth. Poop, poop. polished timber floors, it’s like utterly genuine place. Don’t leave Country Lodge in Bothwell, One of the world’s loveliest staying on an ocean liner. little Tassie when you’re on your sister hotel to The Islington. drives is from Strahan to Hobart. Just an hour along the wild next trip to Australia. You’ll be Fishing? It’s on the way to the I’ve told the Indians to stop at west coast is Corinna, on the edge missing one of the best highland lakes. Golf? Bothwell the Art Deco Tarraleah Lodge in of the Tarkine, Australia’s largest experiences in the world. TASMANIA MOTORING

THE GREATEST DRIVE ON EARTH why would you want to? Head was way off the mark when he sit at a campfire beneath a star- development. All routes lead out on the open road in Tasmania said that Tasmania was more blazed Southern Hemisphere sky from the pocket-sized capital, REPORT BY JAMES STEWART and you embark on one of English than England. Bits do look without forking out so much as a Hobart. Despite a hotel and Australia’s great drives. Traffic like a sketchy recollection of the cent. Around you are empty foodie renaissance that is adding jams are unheard of. Winding Cotswolds or small towns in rainforests or pristine beaches. cosmopolitan gloss to historic a road journey across tasmania roads force you to slow down to Wales that have hunkered down Illuminated by the stuttering character, the natural setting holiday pace. This is touring from the weather; but most of it flames are some of the strangest remains the star attraction. If you is the perfect way to take in the country: perhaps it lacks the epic is far too rugged for that. It’s limited-edition creatures ever put do only two things in Hobart, get distances of the mainland more a continent in miniature, 40 on the planet — Tasmanian devils, afloat on the Derwent estuary island’s ever-changing scenery marathons, but neither is it the per cent of it preserved as platypuses, hedgehog-like and ascend Mount Wellington, bore‑athon they become. national park, packed full of weird echidnas that bumble through the like every tourist since Charles Whereas the landscapes of the wildlife and landscapes that are bush with a sailor’s roll, cuddly- Darwin in 1836. mainland states change at a startlingly epic and naggingly looking wombats, pademelons An hour’s drive east are the or once, intensely blue sky. Behind is an grindingly slow pace, in familiar by turns. and spotted quolls like fat stoats in cool-climate wine estates of Shakespeare is empty, undulating road. The way Tasmania, a state the size of So, two days? You’ll need 10 at patterned pyjamas. colonial village Richmond and wrong. Far from to Paradise is neither steep nor Ireland, a constantly changing least, or more if you pull off the The camper van rules in Port Arthur, the penal sink into being a steep and thorny. It isn’t even hard to find. slideshow of scenery slips past bitumen and onto the dirt roads Tasmania. If ever there was a which the Empire poured its thorny way, the In fact, Paradise is signposted — your windows. You can be driving that criss-cross the countryside. vehicle tailored to the freedom worst. The penitentiary — the road to Paradise is it’s a 15-minute drive from through open paddocks and You may jeopardise your rental and leisurely pace of a driving prize of convict-era Australia — all red volcanic soils Sheffield in north Tasmania. colonial farming villages in mid- insurance — check the small print holiday around the island, the made the fledgling colony’s name and livid green If people never get there, it’s morning, then find yourself — but at their ends lies the great motorhome is it. Two-wheel tours “harsh with the crack of the pasture, a hyper- because everyone twisting deep into ancient outdoors, the essence of the come a close second, whether jailer’s whip”, Trollope wrote. real vision of underestimates the size of rainforest beneath snow-dusted state and the goal of any your saddle is on a 1,200cc BMW Strange, then, that Port Arthur farmland drenched in the Tasmania. Sure, you can sprint alpine mountains an hour later. Tasmanian driving tour. or a mountain bike. appears like an Oxford college luminous light of what is from one end to the other in a By lunchtime you are walking Tasmanians do not pursue a So, where to go? The classic with a disciplinarian bent. Bizarre, F officially the cleanest air on the couple of days, snatching a few along a beach whose sands are love of the outdoors so much as grand tour spins around a too, that everyone overlooks a planet. Ahead, Mount Roland hours apiece at the poster-places, literally squeaky clean while take it for granted. Thanks to a coastline that is longer than that boat trip beneath the highest sea thrusts a sudden slab of dolerite before returning to mainland wallabies bounce away into the liberal scattering of bush camps, of New South Wales and Victoria cliffs in Australia just outside the more than a kilometre into an Australia. Many visitors do. But coastal scrub. Anthony Trollope the birthright of every local is to combined yet has none of their prison’s bay — fluted dolerite TARGA TASMANIA — THE ULTIMATE TARMAC RALLY did you know...

Amid all the talk of World have also provided a dating from the 1920s to the classic car, a tiny 1969 Triumph Þ Tasmania has the highest Heritage sites and eco-tourism, it challenging 1,300-mile present. It is also possible to hire GT6. We have already been cliffs in the southern should not be forgotten that course for one of the world’s a race-prepared car for the warned that Targa Tasmania is hemisphere, rising to 300m Tasmania has a proud place in greatest Tarmac stage duration of the rally and there is the most serious and dangerous along the . the history of motorsport. In the rallies, the Targa a touring category for those thing we will ever do, so wish us Þ Wild dogs were chained 1950s and 1960s the wickedly Tasmania. Inspired by who just want to enjoy a luck. You can follow our day-to- across Eaglehawk Neck, the fast Longford road circuit near epic European road great drive. day progress at telegraph.co.uk/ narrow isthmus of land on Launceston twice hosted the races such as the The 17th Targa motoring and find more the Tasman Peninsula, to Australian Grand Prix as well as Targa Florio in Sicily, Tasmania runs next week information about the event at prevent convicts escaping several races in the famous long abandoned on (April 15-20) and among the www.targa.org.au. from Port Arthur. Tasman series. This daunting safety grounds, Targa entries is a crew Peter Hall, motoring editor Þ You can explore almost course also saw prestigious Tasmania attracts from The Daily the entire west coast of motorcycle and sports car hundreds of Telegraph Þ Grandstand Motor Sports is Tasmania by bicycle, led events; Chris Amon’s 122.2mph crews, including motoring the leading motorsports tour by expert guides and average in a 1968 Ferrari P4 some of the section, as co- operator offering packages to staying in comfortable was Australia’s fastest lap record biggest names in driving Franca the Targa Tasmania 2009 car B&B accommodation, until the F1 circus moved from motorsport, and Davenport and I rally for both competitors and with experienced Tasmanian Adelaide to Melbourne in 1996. an amazing take on the big V8- spectators (0845 375 0300; cycling operator Island Since 1992 the island’s roads variety of cars powered locals in my own www.grandstandmotorsports.co.uk) Cycle Tours. AccOMMOdATION TASMANIA

LUxURY IN TowN ANd wILdERNESS

Tasmania has some of the best scenery and views in all of Australia, and as well as being perfect for scenic touring by road, it lends itself to the most hearty and healthy of hiking holidays. But whether you decide to explore the island by foot or by car, you can be assured of luxury at the end of the day. There are some travellers for whom a day s trek up a mountain is not complete Tour de force: the long, empty roads that traverse the state make Tasmania without a tent, a sleeping bag a motorist s dream. Above, historic Port Arthur, once a grim penal colony and a Cup-a-Soup, but I am not one of them. I want the reward of a good bath, a comfortable east coast are gentle holiday finest trout fishing in the bed and some gourmet food mills. Other parts are virtually Southern Hemisphere. But the before I will even contemplate deserted. Take , a last leg into west Tasmania the next excursion. ferry ride from . It has couldn t be more different. Tasmania has responded to gorgeous short walks, abundant Lieutenant-Governor George visitors tastes for comfort by wildlife, historic ruins steeped in Arthur, of Port Arthur fame, providing some fantastic hotels. tales of imprisonment and folly, called it beyond the limits of the For instance, a five-minute drive and sweeping bays drenched in unknown . More than 150 years from the centre of Hobart lies brilliant light. later, it remains a land apart, The Islington. This is Tasmania s You can drive to the village pummelled by massive waves only five-star guest house and it resort of Coles Bay to reach that have built up unopposed feels like the private home that it Wineglass Bay in the Freycinet from South America. was until recently it still has the National Park. A perfect crescent From here you can drive into owners antique furniture and of sand beneath granite peaks the mountains. To Cradle impressive, hugely expensive art Peak experience: Cradle Mountain Lodge offers superb facilities and food that glow pink at dusk, it is a Mountain, for example, adventure collection, spread throughout a standard fixture in beach top tens playground of a Unesco-listed series of lavishly decorated highlands, Tarraleah is a absolute must visit is Cradle compiled by travel magazines. Not World Heritage Area that reception rooms. gorgeous example of 1930s Art Mountain Lodge. Its location, on as well known are those that comprises a fifth of the state. Or In a striking double-height Deco architecture. the edge of the Cradle Mountain- scallop the Bay of Fires near St you can grind on a dirt road glass conservatory you will be It was refurbished in 2006, Lake St Clair National Park, Helens pristine quartzite strands through wilderness from Arthur plied with drinks and canapés previously having housed the top means the walking is superb. as perfect as you ll find anywhere River to Corinna, a gold-rush town while admiring the view across brass of Tasmania s huge hydro- The Lodge itself is all you AROuNd yOu ARe in the world. Here, you d expect reinvented as an eco-retreat. the architect-designed garden to electric scheme. Admirers of could possibly want, and brings cafés or restaurants. Crowds, at Roll back into Hobart and in Mount Wellington. The 11 industrial history will adore to mind Alpine skiing lodges. The eMpTy RAINFOReSTS, least. Instead the only mobs are of the morning you ll stretch your bedrooms are comfortable, seeing the impressive pipes and main building is warm and kangaroo in the nearby Mount legs in a primeval forest that has spacious and attractive, and trappings of the hydro-electric welcoming with its roaring fire, pRISTINe BeAcheS William National Park. You can barely changed for 30,000 years, boast luxurious bathrooms. site, while everyone else will just cosy lounge and a restaurant camp behind whichever beach then have afternoon tea in a The Islington does not have its fall in love with the stunning whose windows give a perfect ANd SOMe OF The takes your fancy for up to four sleepy Georgian town. You don t own restaurant, but provide views. The building is a joy the view of the wallabies, possums weeks for free. get that on a drive in mainland adequate warning and the Art Deco features have been and wombats that roam the STRANGeST wIldlIFe From St Helens the drive cuts Australia. In fact, you don t get resident chef will cook dinner beautifully restored, and estate. The food is pretty past mining ghost towns that on a drive anywhere else on especially for you. She also supplemented with new additions fantastic too. ON The plANeT swallowed by rainforest to reach Earth. Paradise indeed. rustles up creative breakfasts, such as silk duvets, Tasmanian What s more, the rooms are the second city of Launceston which stand you in good stead mohair throws, Molton Brown sublime. Ours was enormous, lit and the Tamar Valley. Wine for all that invigorating touring toiletries and spa baths. with fragrant candles, and was estates and orchards roll down to or walking ahead. Add an The restaurant offers divided into two by a double- meet a broad, meandering river. travel tip outstanding gourmet lunch to gourmet four-course meals, all sided log fire. On one side was a Chefs conjure up gourmet cuisine take away, and even halfway up featuring local produce sumptuous sleeping area; on the faces crammed with sunbathing among the vineyards. The short Mount Wellington you need imaginatively put together, and other, a sitting area with fur seals like a rocky Costa or cut there from Hobart is through never feel deprived of luxury. with a wine wall featuring 300 extensive CD library. The pièce diving in what National the state s historic heartland, One of the best-loved trips wines, it is definitely worth de résistance was the balcony Geographic has lauded as the where picture-postcard Georgian Tailor Made Travel offers a across the island is the Hobart to staying a while to savour as yes, yet more views, but here most accessible underwater villages such as Ross nestle in the 12-day Best of Tasmania self- Strahan route which passes many as possible. After dinner, you can enjoy them from the wilderness on Earth. folds of sheep-grazing hills, and drive holiday from £1,565 through magnificently changing retiring to the splendid library luxury of your very own hot tub. From Port Arthur, you head rose bushes and hawthorn including accommodation, car scenery, showcasing the best gives you the chance to prolong Whether you are a walker or north up a coastline that teeters hedgerows ring colonial manor hire and international flights Tasmania has to offer. Almost the night further, and to sample not, a trip to Tasmania is well on tropical, blessed with mile estates near Longford. with Qantas. (0800 988 5915; exactly halfway across lies the the selection of different malts worth it just to enjoy its world- upon mile of dazzling white sands Just south of Launceston, the www.tailor-made.co.uk; wonderfully unusual Tarraleah a whopping 170 of them. class hotels. and sculptural granite boulders small town lies beneath the lake- [email protected]) Lodge. Perched on a ridge in the Further west again and an SASHA BATES like lost Henry Moores. Bits of the pocked Central Plateau with the

ID:17798109 size:6.495 by744.18 ***TOURISM TASMANIA 6 | | SATURDAY, APRIL12, 2008 TASMANIA WILDLIFE CALL OF THE WILD

n my day job as travel south-east coast of Tasmania, exhilarating breaches. At one Tasmania does seem to have REPORT BY editor of BBC Wildlife watching hundreds of bottlenose point, two dolphins performed a earned itself a reputation as JAMES FAIR Magazine, I’m working on a dolphins performing acrobatic synchronised leap, crossing each being tame and a bit like England. feature about the world’s leaps as if they were taking part other’s route in the air as if However, apart from the slight DOLPHINS ABOUND OFF THE COAST greatest wildlife spectacles. in an audition for Windsor Safari drawing an imaginary archway. It “small island” mentality, the I’ve been e-mailing film- Park. I guess they weren’t there. was a shame that one of the rolling green hills in some areas OF TASMANIA — AND THE ISLAND IS makers, photographers, In fact, apart from a fellow animals was a touch ahead of the of the country and perhaps the writers — anyone, indeed, I journalist, a couple from the others, but this was eight years starlings in Hobart, nothing could I think might have a tourist board and our guide Rob ago — they should have perfected be further from the truth. HOME TO AN ASTONISHING NUMBER legitimate opinion on what Pennicott, there appeared to be the manoeuvre by now. In fact, Tasmania — thanks constitutes a truly galumphing, nobody within 10 or 20 miles. And there was more. Juvenile largely to the absence of the OF MARSUPIALS TOO gob-smacking or just plain And this was jaw-droppingly Australian fur seals were European mammals that have gorgeous wildlife experience. spectacular. I will never forget performing mini-breaches as if in ruined much of the Australian With a few hundred cruising along at some 15 or 20 imitation of the dolphins. Rob mainland’s indigenous fauna — responses in so far, my experts knots and looking down over the said they were doing it to avoid has astonishing numbers, and have mentioned a massive bows, and there, staring back up great white sharks (no, we didn’t diversity, of marsupials that are diversity of spectacles, ranging at me, were three or four see any), but it looked to me as if also tolerant of humans and easy from the predictable (the dolphins swimming effortlessly in they were just having a laugh. to see. And this makes it unlike wildebeest migration in East the bow wave. I could almost That happened the first time I anywhere in the world. Africa) to some I didn’t forecast reach down and touch them, they visited Tasmania, and I recall that There’s quite often a true (er, a wren building its nest). were so close. Later, Rob stopped before my second trip in 2005, a surprise just around the corner. But none have mentioned the boat, and all around us the colleague remarked: “There isn’t Take the unprepossessing sitting in a small boat just off the ocean seemed to boil as dolphins much wildlife in Tasmania, is surroundings of the caravan park coast of Bruny Island, off the exploded out of the water in there?” For some reason at the south end of Adventure WILDLIFE TASMANIA

DiD you know

Þ Ten Tasmanians, led by British ex-pat Bruce Englefield, have travelled 11,000 miles to run in tomorrow s Flora London Marathon to raise funds for a captive breeding programme for a Tasmanian devil named Delilah. Donations can be made to Australian Pacific Touring: at www.aptouring.co.uk Þ If the Tasmanian devil is made extinct, it is likely that another seven rare and endemic species of mammal will also be lost forever, including the eastern quoll, the bettong and the poteroo. Þ Huon pines can live 1,500 years and grow incredibly slowly (no more than 2mm in diameter in a year). They also contain an essential oil called methyl eugenol that stops the trees from rotting, and it is recognised as the world s best natural boat-building material. Þ The orange-bellied parrot breeds in Tasmania but migrates to mainland Australia for the winter. It is the only parrot that migrates across the open ocean. The species is critically endangered, with an estimated 100 to 200 individuals left in the wild. Þ A Bennet s wallaby can have three young on the go Animal magic: far left, see Bennett s dolphins performing acrobatic feats with Bruny Island Charters. at any one time one grub Clockwise from top left: the quoll is a relative of the Tasmanian devil; Bruce Englefield prepares for attached to her nipple in the the Flora London Marathon (see panel, right); a wombat; and a Bennett s wallaby enjoys beach life pouch, a joey in the pouch, and another one out of the pouch (but still suckling). She Bay, on Bruny Island. There s a surrounding the Gordon River large about the size and weight should the disease spread over can produce three different small colony of docile red-necked where you can find a pine tree I WILL NEVER FORGET of a bulldog and they re not the entire island. Scientists are types of milk to cope with their wallabies, made easier to see by that is 2,300 years old. It s a always pretty. On the night I was also investigating whether some different demands. the fact they have pelts so white Huon pine, and its two main CRUISING ALONG AT 15 there, a five-year old male, with a devils have a natural resistance Þ Tasmania is a hotspot for you begin to wonder if this is trunks have both fallen over battle-scarred face, black fur to the disease if that is the case, giant squid. Four of these huge Alice in Wonderland only here but one half is still (well, was in KNOTS AND LOOKING resembling a threadbare carpet there might yet be hope. creatures have been washed the white rabbit has grown to 2005) attached to its roots and and looking like a bar-room A smaller relative of the devil is up on a Hobart beach in recent about four feet in height. so still growing. Here the forest is DOWN AND THERE, trouble-maker who d got involved the eastern quoll, another years the longest, in 2002, White forms (or morphs) of dense, dark and damp, leeches in one fight too many, turned up carnivorous marsupial, but this measured 50ft. many animals can happen lurk in the leaf litter and STARING BACK AT ME, to feed on the wallaby carcass one looks like a cross between a anywhere but they are more rambunctious parrots called that had been staked down rat and a weasel, though with likely to occur on islands where green rosellas squabble in the WERE DOLPHINS outside the ramshackle shed lovely light grey or chocolate males and females both canopy. It s often said that this is where we were hiding. brown, spotted coats. Craig possessing the recessive gene what the ancient supercontinent I thought he was on his way Williams runs trips to see them in TRAVEL TiP responsible can easily meet and of Gondwanaland (existing out, said Geoff when he arrived. farming country in the north- mate. Bruny s white wallabies between 500 and 200 million Devils won t live much more east, and the premise is take full advantage of this. years ago) would have been like, than five and really it s amazing remarkably simple take some Elsewhere on Bruny, you can find and it seems to make sense. he s still going. Brawler was wallaby burgers to an open colonies of the world s smallest But, really, if you have an certainly still going: he fed for pasture surrounded by Tailor Made Travel offers a penguin, appropriately named interest in wildlife, there is about half an hour, eating eucalyptus woodland, cook them seven-day self-drive holiday little penguin. one main reason for visiting perhaps a quarter of his own over an open fire, open a bottle from £620, including six nights And that s just Bruny. What I Tasmania, and that is to see its body weight, and because Geoff of Tasmanian Pinot Noir (and accommodation, Tassie Devils love about Tasmania is that it s most famous native son the thoughtfully rigs the carcass for maybe while it s breathing, go tour and trip to Bruny Island. not a place you can easily pin Tassie devil. North of the Gordon sound (as well as flooding it with and look for platypuses in the Flights with Qantas from £809. down or sum up, with a great River, near the small town of light), you can hear the crunching nearby stream) and as the light 0800 988 5915; diversity of scenery and habitats Marrawah, Geoff King runs the of bones and the tearing of fades, look for sprites scampering www.tailor-made.co.uk; that range from dry eucalyptus Devil Restaurant, an eaterie sinews coming through the about in the shadows, just [email protected] forest to high, bleak, rugged where road-kill wallabies and speakers. This is a truly visceral beyond the light of the barbecue, moorlands. possums are on the menu. experience. Later that night, a lured out of the forest by the Up in the north, for instance, is My visit to the restaurant younger, prettier female with a smell of cooking meat. These are among them, the light fading the alpine area of Cradle was in April 2005, when the large, white crescent on her the quolls, and you can spend an until we could no longer see them Mountain, where boardwalks full extent of a dreadful, chest also appeared, but she amusing hour playing a kind of clearly and only knew they were stretch over vast expanses of infectious cancer that has dined for less than five minutes grandmother s footsteps with there from the rhythmic sound of swampy buttongrass. The halved devil numbers was before disappearing into the still them as they try to grab the them tucking into their dinner. streams are stained dark by becoming known. And night air. scraps Craig throws them from And what of the most famous tannins, and above you, the though some scientists Because the devil is endemic the barbie. Later on, once endemic Tasmanian species I exposed dolerite cap forms are worried this cancer, to Tasmania, scientists are in a darkness had fallen and the stars have yet to mention? What are geometric, square-edged crags known as Devil Facial desperate race to find were shining brightly through the your chances of adding that to and peaks. In the distance, you Tumour Disease out why DFTD is inky-black night sky above us, we your swelling tick list in a two- can make out the spectacular (DFTD), could make affecting them and went spotlighting, finding week sojourn? Well, realistically, cliffs of the Walls of Jersusalem the animal what they can do. possums, wallabies and wombats. to strike it lucky, you will probably National Park, deemed primitive extinct in the Part of the In Narawntapu National Park, have to settle in one of the more enough to be the setting for wild within conservation on the north coast, the sheer remote areas and spend a good episodes of the BBC s Walking 25 years, it efforts involve numbers of wallabies, wombats 10 or 20 years of your life out with Dinosaurs. Up here you get has yet to setting up captive- and to a lesser extent eastern there. But speak to a Tassie ancient King Billy pines and the make any breeding refuges grey kangaroos (there are no big bushman for half an hour or strange palm-like pandanus plant inroads into with animals that reds in Tasmania) brought to so, and not only will you have and a multitude of marsupials devils in the are known to be mind the antelopes of the African heard his Tasmanian tiger story, hiding in the forests. north and healthy the idea is savannah. Nibbling on the rich you ll be convinced there s one On the west coast, there s west. that these will provide grasslands, they remained with your name on it just around the temperate rainforest Devils aren t an insurance population unperturbed as we wandered the corner. 8 | | SATURDAY, APRIL12, 2008 TASMANIA WALKING

REPORT BY NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE THE BEST WAY TO GET CLOSE TO ON THE TASMANIA’S NATURE IS BY FOOT

ne of the most memorable. I tested it again incontestably recently, and again experienced lovely places in the sensation of what it must Tasmania is the have been like to set foot in an Freycinet unspoiled New World, before Peninsula. In the homo sapiens put it to his filthy 1820s, the ex- purposes. There are no more RIGHT TREK ruler of Iceland than eight to a group and the O and now British four-day walk, which features an convict, Jorgen optional six-hour climb of Mount Jorgensen, paused to take in Graham (from the 620m summit the prospect. He gave his less of which you can survey the than level-headed opinion that whole area), caters for most ages after travelling the world as he and levels of fitness. had, and after seeing its many The walk was reinvented five splendid sights, this was a view years ago so that now you sleep “impossible for the most all three nights in the award- luxuriant imagination to winning lodge designed by Ken conceive more lovely within the Latona, rising at the civilised hour whole circle of the creation”. of 7.30am. Six hours of the day This 38-kilometre are devoted to walking. By the promontory on the Australian end, you will have trodden two island’s east coast was named hypnotic strips of quartzite sand after a French cartographer (including Wineglass Bay, voted who sailed along it 200 years by Condé Nast Traveller one of ago on an important scientific the best beaches in the world); expedition that may have had a ascended through a forest of secret pretext. towering white gums that stretch A long-suspected brief of the like whales into an ocean- “Voyage to the Southern coloured sky, and tracked an Lands” was to map Van Aboriginal trail into a valley of Diemen’s Land — as Tasmania absolute silence. then was — ahead of the British, In Britain, it is almost and so claim the island as a impossible to find a place without Napoleonic settlement: Terre background noise. On the Napoleon. The mission only Freycinet Experience walk, whole narrowly failed but the French hours pass when you hear no left behind their names on some plane, no traffic, no human of the most heartstopping voices, nothing. wilderness on earth. The creation of a Sydney “Everyone was gazing at the environmentalist, Joan land,” wrote Francois Péron, a Masterman — she helped to bilious, one-eyed zoologist who establish the better-known Cradle lives on in the shape of a rock Mountain Huts trek on the inhabited by mutton-birds. increasingly overcrowded Cradle “We vied with each other in Mountain trail — the walk aims to our admiration of the lofty leave behind no imprint. mountains that nature seemed We’re encouraged to slough to have set, like so many granite off the grosser habits of the bulwarks, against the furies of world we’ve escaped and to tread the stormy ocean, which with the lightness of ghosts. extends from here to the Boots are scrubbed for the Antarctic ice.” root-rotting fungus, phytophora Today, the voyage from cinemomi, and anyone who Europe takes 26 hours, not dares to toss away their orange eight months, and yet what is peel after a picnic lunch is remarkable is the extent to instantly chastised. which this coastline has The place — and I cannot remained in the pristine repeat this enough — is practically condition described by Péron: as the first explorers found it. the same casuarina trees, the One’s baggage unloaded, the same cerulean sea, the same journey begins on board the orange-lichened rocks. Naturaliste, a motor-boat named The lichen, known as after one of the French corvettes. caloplaca, is a barometer of the Our destination is Schouten healthy atmosphere. The colour Island. Over a sandwich lunch in of the freshly cooked local Crockett’s Bay, we survey our crayfish, it confirms the findings itinerary. During the next three of the CSIRO that Tasmania has days we shall walk the entire the cleanest rainwater and air in length of the pensinsula. the world. Small wonder that One thing that elevates The increasing numbers of people Freycinet Experience above other want to come here. They have Tasmanian treks is the quality of been coming since the early its guides. We are lucky to have 1900s, when Errol Flynn’s Tom, who points out, in the fork father, a professor of marine of a gum tree, the nest of a biology at the University of white-bellied sea-eagle — “as big Tasmania, used to camp in as a double bed”; also the Honeymoon Bay — where he remains of a whaling station, a discovered a large new species reminder of a brief period in the of jellyfish, “a somewhat distant 1820s when convict-harvested cousin of man himself”. whale-oil illuminated the streets Of the dozen treks I have and studies of London. made in Tasmania, that Once, the bay was black with organised by The Freycinet numerous southern right whales Experience is the most streaming through Schouten picturesque, varied and Passage. Today, the surface is SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 2008 | | 9 WALKING TASMANIA

MARIA ISLAND WALKS

I was sceptical about my trip to there were nearly always by a geomorphological Maria Island. I had booked a options to shorten or lengthen occurrence but this rock, known four-day guided walking tour each day’s walk — add on a few as the painted cliff, is the result with Maria Island Walks and extra hours by climbing one of of thousands of years of could not believe it could come the mountains, thereby gaining weathering, rendering it more close to living up to their spectacular views over the beautiful than many works of grand claims. They promised dramatic coastline, or enjoy a art — an exotic convoluted gourmet food and fabulous rest and a swim off one of the sculpture, vibrant in orange accommodation on an island many wide, sweeping, deserted and yellow. that, due to its National Park beaches. Either way, the calm Nothing disappointed in status, insists you bring your beauty provided an almost the food and accommodation own food with you and that you spiritual level of relaxation and stakes either. Our first two take all your rubbish away. We an embarrassment of riches in nights were spent in surprisingly would be camping, carrying our the wildlife-spotting stakes. comfortable luxury tents, while own luggage and walking Wallabies and kangaroos have the guides astounded me by several miles a day. It further the run of this protected park, rustling up gourmet dinners promised untold sightings of which means their numbers which would have been geographical wonders, friendly reach into the hundreds and impressive in any restaurant. wildlife and rare birds. they have absolutely no fear of These enthusiastic Tasmanians As it happens, the wildlife humans. I also saw an echidna, also had a depth of information watching began the moment we two wombats, and lizards on Maria Island’s flora, fauna boarded the boat in Hobart for aplenty, while for birdwatchers, and history. the half-hour trip south-east to this is a dream location. On the final night we stayed in Maria, followed as we were by a There are 130 recorded bird a beautiful colonial home in the Room with a view: the award-winning Bay of Fires Lodge designed by Ken Latona pod of dolphins surfing our species, including the world’s tiny settlement of Darlington wake. There is something about second rarest goose, the Cape where you could still see the old ruffled by a school of blue-nosed the whitest beach in Australia, these amazing creatures that Barren. My favourites were the cells dating from the time when dolphins. composed of sweeps of sand TRAVEL TIP gladdens the heart and cannot funny little hooded plovers, Maria served as a penal colony. Under Tom’s tutelage, we learn so fine and pure that it can fail to put you in a good mood. which have this odd habit of That stage in the island’s history to distinguish a variety of bird appear as if the waves have By the time we landed, I was running along ahead of you. did not last long, however — calls, such as the yellow wattle cast their foam on the shore and in love. Like a child’s drawing They try to distract you from the when news of Maria’s beauty bird, whose guttural, coughing left it there. of an idyllic island, Maria’s location of their hidden nests, spread, many honest men were gurgle is “reminiscent of The wildlife exceeds even that Tailor Made Travel features mountains loomed over green and will run the entire length of tempted to commit crimes in vomiting”, and the black swan encountered on the Freycinet many Tasmanian walking forests fringed with white the beach before taking flight order to have the pleasure of whose cry reminded the early Peninsula. In a short space I came experiences, including the beaches and ringed with crystal- and doubling back when they being sent there. Luckily explorer George Bass of a rusty across a draughtboard shark, two spectacular Bay of Fires four- clear water. feel you are at a safe distance. nowadays you don’t have to go alehouse sign in a wind. wedge-tailed eagles (one of 80 day guided walk from £833. Over the course of the four But although I enjoyed to quite such lengths to get to Tom is, in addition, a passionate pairs on the island) and a wombat Flights with Qantas from £809. days there is so much to wildlife-watching, I was very visit but, whatever else it takes student of animal droppings. foraging on wild geraniums 0800 988 5915; www.tailor-made. captivate you that you honestly surprised to find I could stand, in to get there, do it. It’s worth it. Twice he halts to inspect the long before it saw us and shuffled co.uk; [email protected] don’t notice that you are getting awe, in front of a rock. I’m not greyish “scat” of a Tasmanian over the dunes in a blur of leg exercise into the bargain. And normally brought to a standstill SASHA BATES devil, the nocturnal predator that and bone. eats, literally, everything: echidna After a night in the upgraded quills, bottle tops, even a pencil standing camp (sleeping bags DID YOU KNOW… dropped by one of the wildlife provided after a meal of abalone rangers. Numbers have caught by the guide), we arrived drastically reduced in recent at Ken Latona’s lodge: a years, owing to a disease that spectacular Tasmanian causes facial tumours; but hardwood and glass construction Þ Tasmania has more than walking one morning onto Salt which rests like a lizard on the 2,000km of walking tracks and Water Lagoon we see a line of rocks above Anson’s Bay. 18 national parks. small fresh imprints in the sand — Latona, who sold up last year Þ The Tasmanian Wilderness tracks left by a baby devil. to Grant Hunt, spent 18 months World Heritage Area covers Two virtues are worth pointing selecting his site. He famously 1.38 million hectares. out. Once you start the trip you compares his buildings to Þ Tasmania has the cleanest don’t have to put a hand in your “sheds” and shares the aim of his air in the world and its pocket. And the group that goes mentor Glenn Murcott: to touch rainwater is so pure that through is the only group at the the earth lightly. “All my buildings quantities have been shipped lodge — unlike at the Bay of Fires encourage you to get out,” he to Australian Olympic athletes where two groups overlap for told me. “If you want to be a competing overseas. two nights. couch potato, get lost.” Þ The island has a higher The Bay of Fires Walk is a The food is pretty good. The proportion of its land area 20-mile beach trek down the East only complaint of the eight (22.6 per cent) reserved for Coast’s northern shoreline. And guests, among them some couch recreation and conservation what a beach. It is hard to dispute potatoes from Melbourne, was purposes than any other Sea of tranquillity: the peace and amazing views on Maria Island are truly hypnotic the valuation of the Sydney that they had to pump their own Australian state. Morning Herald, which named it water for a shower. TASMANIA PROPERTY

REPORT BY VICTORIA GLENDINNING BACK FROM HER SECOND VISIT WITHIN SIX MONTHS, THE WRITER INDULGES HER FANTASY OF BUYING INTO A DREAM

SEEKING thical investors should with between eight and 15 acres, Fortunately, homes are often on a be buying land in are offered from A$90,000 to “lot” of anything up to 40 acres, Tasmania. You could A$100,000. Nearer Hobart, some of it uncleared bush. There hardly go wrong perched above the sea at Orford, will be no difficulty, providing it is acquiring a chunk of there is an immaculate one-storey not a sensitive area for rare plants paradise for which, family house on more than 10 or wild animals, in getting council within 20 years, the acres for A$435,000. permission to build your own overcrowded world South of Hobart, along the house, or to rebuild an existing one. will be clamouring. D’Entrecasteaux Channel and on Planning regulations, from a PARADISE On an island the size both sides of the estuary of the British point of view, are completely of Sri Lanka (population: 20 million) Huon river, waterside towns frame counterintuitive. The less there are, according to the 2007 a rolling agricultural hinterland developed your property, and the E census, 494,520 inhabitants. That which, west of the Huon, becomes more you intend to do with it, the leaves a lot of world-class beauty wild and mountainous. fewer complications there will be. unoccupied: vast tranches of forest, On the main street of Huonville This is because you will be creating unpolluted salmon and trout rivers, every other shop is an estate jobs for builders and tradesmen, some of the planet’s last true agent, offering stylish timber-and- and adding value. wildernesses, rugged mountains, glass houses, “colonial” The principle is that incomers sheep-nibbled pastures protected homesteads and cottages, and must not be a burden on the state. by towering trees, and miles of sea hundreds of shacks. A foreigner who intends to build, or inlets and empty, sandy beaches. Shacks are small single-storey substantially improve, can buy There is old money in Tasmania, constructions, often weather- property and remain non-resident, but as a whole it is quite poor. Most boarded, with overhanging eaves and the only official body involved tourists come from mainland and verandahs, sometimes will be the Foreign Investment Australia. It’s a chicken-and-egg balustraded. The simplest shacks Review Board. But if you buy a situation. The Tasmanian are “relocated” — mobile homes, to house to occupy just as it is, you government promotes tourism and us. But if not pulled down, shacks have to become a resident, which development, but until travellers can be elaborated and built onto, involves jumping through hoops: a from the rich northern hemisphere resulting in light and spacious medical examination which start coming in larger numbers, bungalows. You might have several includes an Aids test and a chest Tasmania cannot risk investing in shacks on a property, for different X-ray; proof that you have had no the necessary infrastructure. purposes. criminal conviction in the past Nevertheless, there are already A few miles down the coast from five years; sponsors and an pockets of perfection in hotels and Orford, near Rheban, there is a immigration lawyer. This process restaurants. The wines, hardly long, low shack on 40 acres, with will cost money. Don’t even think exported due to the modest output, river frontage and a secondary about it unless you fall in love with equal the best Australian wines two-bed timber dwelling, going for a fine “colonial” or “heritage” available. A$195,000. Basic shacks in rural sandstone house, maybe on a Look at the map of Tasmania, or areas, like small building plots by wine estate. Tassie as it is familiarly known. The the sea, can be had for A$75,000. Closed tender, or “expressions island is shaped like a rough Our own favourite place is Bruny of interest” are the norm for selling triangle, and according to John Island, its north and south halves outstanding properties such as Huizing at Bluedge Property in joined by an isthmus. Bruny has a Lennonville Orchards on North Hobart, the premium spot, secret, serene, sea-filtered Bruny, a 312-acre cherry farm with pricewise, is Sandy Bay, just south atmosphere. There is nothing a timber homestead dating from of the capital city. This is because much here apart from beautiful big 1835 and its own beach. I wish… building is limited by hills and it is trees and pastures — and a Ordinarily, the mechanics of close to town. promising cheese operation, and purchase are uncomplicated. You A four-bedroom house with pool, an oyster farm. make an unconditional contract: sea view and aircon would cost you The 500 inhabitants include “I’ll take it now.” Or you make a around A$1m. (Always divide by some reclusive incomers. The ferry conditional contract, and do the two for the rough sterling crossing from Bruny is only 15 usual searches, and risk the equivalent.) minutes, and you can be back into 48‑Hour Clause. This means that if A house at the end of the world The most important town after Hobart and its foodie glories in half someone makes a higher offer for Hobart is Launceston in the north. an hour. A few miles south from your Tassie dream, you have 48 On the Beach. I must have “destiny” and “serendipitous We went home to England, Although Hobart is Paris in the ferry port, outside classy hours in which to match it — or remembered Nevil Shute’s novel unions”. got married, and began comparison with Launceston, the Woodbridge (stop at the withdraw, in tears. when, nine years ago, at the end Inside the house, the glass immediately to plot our return. I Tamar Valley is lovely and produces Peppermint Bay restaurant), there of a trek in the central highlands, seemed to intensify the phoned Helen and proposed that great wine, and property on the are 39 acres of pasture and bush Þ USEFUL WEBSITES my girlfriend and I saw a house sunlight. Strangely suspended we take a six-month lease. north coast as a whole is about 30 going for A$650,000. www.bluedgeproperty.com for sale on a shelf of coastal by the light, I followed Helen Whether impressed by our per cent cheaper than the south. If greater remoteness is what www.realestate.com.au dunes. It was a single-storey into “the solarium” and “the karmic connection or by a want A great area for somewhere to you long for, drive through building made from Canadian verandah café” and then of other offers, she agreed. At build a holiday house would be on uninhabitable mountain and forest cedar and glass, and through the through clumps of boobyalla to the end of six months we would the Freycinet Coast, which starts lakelands to Strahan on the west glass I could see a rock. the deserted beach, where I make a decision to buy or not. with Swansea town and the coast, with Cradle Mountain on Nothing prepared me for the had an improbable vision of In the last fortnight of our stupendous Nine Mile Beach, then your right and Wild Rivers vision of the Freycinet Peninsula children scampering into the lease, my father had flown to extends round to Coles Bay and on National Park on your left. on that March morning, or the waves. Less than an hour later, Tasmania with the express to the Freycinet Peninsula and its There are hiking trails round dense colour of its granite: we were bidding her an purpose of persuading us not to startling pink granite mountains, here that no car has smoky and compact like a emotional farewell. sink our savings into a two- . One-and-a-half hours ever penetrated. watercolour pigment. I knew We had no family connections, bedroomed beach house at the north-east of Hobart, this is a Buy as many acres that I was gazing at the most no friends, no reason to linger, end of the world. relatively expensive area. Parcels of as you can, to protect beautiful place I had seen on but I could not stop thinking of On the morning after his virgin land on the Nine Mile Beach, your panoramic views. Earth, a conviction that all the view from the window out to arrival, I came upon him subsequent experience has the peninsula. By the time we standing barefoot on the strand. served to deepen. arrived at our B&B that evening His eyes were nailed to the We knocked at the door. on the road to Hobart, we were horizon and I could have sworn did you know… Helen, a middle-aged woman in seriously considering the that there were tears in them. a lavender sarong, told us she possibility of the house — and “I… have… never… been… had built the house with her Tasmania — becoming a anywhere… more… beautiful.” husband, a retired radio destination as well as an escape. We telephoned Helen. We executive who was now ill and There was a message at the would buy the house. Þ Tasmania boasts the oldest needed to be nearer to a convict-built B&B from Helen. continually licensed public hospital. She was an artist and She just wanted to say that she NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE house in Australia — the Bush photographer — the house was saw herself in us, how rare it was The author’s most recent novel, Inn at New Norfolk, which dates hung with her vast red to feel such a connection to Secrets of the Sea (Harvill/ back to 1825. The island also moodscapes — and as she led us strangers, and that there were Secker), is set in Tasmania. He is has CaptionAustralia’s caption oldest caption working on an impromptu tour of the no accidents in life. Oh, and did also the author of a history of live theatre, the Theatre Royal rooms, she chattered about we like the house? the island, In Tasmania (Vintage). in Hobart (1834-1837). FOOD AND DRINK TASMANIA SAVOUR A GLORIOUS LARDER REPORT BY CAROL DRINKWATER THE FERTILE LAND OF THIS UNSPOILT PARADISE PRODUCES A TRULY MOUTHWATERING MENU

ourists come with unpolluted Southern Ocean offers potatoes, chilli lime compôte and one shirt and a £10 delicious catches of bluefin and lemon myrtle butter sauce. note and leave yellow-fin tuna, blue eye (travalla), Off Tasmania’s southern tip lies having changed orange roughy, blue grenadier Bruny island. Captain Bligh landed neither — the words and pink ling, among others, while there in 1792 and planted Australia’s cool-climate wine of “Electric Eric”, its farmed salmon is entirely free Tasmania’s first vines and an the Hon Eric Reece, of impurities. apple tree at the edge of what is While Australia’s very first fizz is the soft, elegant Jansz Velo and Bream Creek. If you are Tasmanian Premier After Sydney, Hobart is now South Bruny National Park. vineyards are buried beneath 2004 Rosé. Jansz was established a Cabernet Sauvignon person, during the Sixties Australia’s second oldest city. My Today, Tasmania — Apple Isle — Sydney, some gnarled vines of by a champagne house in the go for the remarkably ripe and Seventies. first impression was of a quaint boasts a million apple trees Australia’s second oldest 1980s but now produces fine Bream Creek 2005 Cabernet Xenophobic, yes, but in 1974 he settlement huddled round the producing 500 different varieties. vineyard can be seen in the New sparkling wines under Australian Sauvignon. The greatest dry built Wrest Point, Australia’s first harbour but down around the Close to that historic spot, I dined Town area of Hobart. This was ownership (Yalumba). Riesling is Holmoak 2005 T legal casino, and laid the wharf district many of the on fresh oysters shucked at the planted in 1823 by Bartholomew Tasmania’s best red this year Riesling but not far behind are foundations of the island’s tourist timbered structures have been table, served with ginger and Broughton, a remarkable convict is the Burgundy-like Stoney Rise Bay of Fires (both 2006 and industry. Until then, Aussies converted into boutique hotels, Japanese soya, followed by who eventually came to own a 2006 Pinot Noir, which won 2005), Waterton Vineyards dismissed Tasmanians as smart apartments, elegant sushi succulent, Flinders Island lamb. substantial amount of property. “Wine of Show” at The 2006 Riesling and The Wine “retarded bloody buggers, bars and restaurants. Tempting Up north, close to Stanley, I Due to its cool climate, some Tasmanian Wine Show 2008. Society 2007 Riesling. inbreds with two heads”. menus offered the likes of salmon feasted on abalone and salmon local winemakers like to think of Other top performing Pinots, all Those who enjoy a sweeter, Although Tasmania’s tourist fillets, steamed pink-eyed legally fished from the sea two Tasmania as “the champagne of 2005s, include Ese Vineyard, but very classy Spätlese style industry has grown, the island still hours earlier. In France, the black the southern hemisphere” but it will love Frogmore Creek FGR has some of the world’s most truffle grows symbiotically with offers some of Australia’s finest 2006 Riesling (“FGR” stands for productive soils, respects its TRAVEL TIP the oak. In Tassie, the truffières Pinot Noirs; Rieslings with more “Forty Grams Residual”). Roslyn resources and has cultivated one are producing these black jewels finesse than anything grown Estate 2007 Sauvignon Blanc of the finest, most surprising, beneath oaks and hazelnuts outside Germany’s Mosel; would give most Marlborough fresh-food larders on the planet. and world-leading chefs are Sauvignon Blancs that are wines a run for their money, It produces Périgord truffles, eulogising them. challenging New Zealand’s best. while Campania Hills 2006 award-winning cheeses, Huon Tailor Made Travel offers a On a recent visit I fell into The best sparkling wine is Unwooded Chardonnay Valley saffron, leatherwood selection of gourmet-inspired conversation with a red-whiskered generally agreed to be Arras, demonstrates the potential of honey and olive oil — 100,000 itineraries, including a six-day chap who ran a harbourside made by the giant BRL Hardy this verdant isle to produce a olive trees have been planted. package featuring the best in marine chandlers in Hobart where Group. In fact, some rate it as the Chablis style. Order a seafood platter and it gourmet cuisine and award- metal-framed and wooden lobster best Australian fizz of all. Under TOM STEVENSON might include wild abalone, rock winning wines from £2,375. pots were stacked high. I asked if the same ownership is Bay of lobsters, Atlantic salmon, sea FlightsCaption with caption Qantas caption from £809. he’d rather live on the mainland. Fires, which has a stunning blanc Þ For your chance to win a trout, blue mussels, scallops, 0800 988 5915; www.tailor-made. “Rough as guts there,” he de blancs tucked away for special Tasmanian wine is a top tipple fabulous prize from Jansz, smoked eel, salmon caviar, sea co.uk; [email protected] grinned. “You’ll see, mate, it’s release in 2010. But the hot-tip go to telegraph.co.uk/tasmania urchin roe, octopus and squid. Its paradise here.” How right he is.

ID:17798126 size:6.495 by744.18 ***TOURISM TASMANIA TASMANIA events BE PART OF THE ACTION REPORT BY MARK CHIPPERFIELD TASMANIA’S DIARY IS PACKED WITH SPORTING EVENTS. THERE’S ALSO A THRIVING ARTS SCENE AND A HOST OF FOOD FESTIVALS. HERE’S A TASTE OF WHAT’S ON…

APRIL JULY environmentalists and outdoor Expect a vociferous crowd when Festival of Voices (July 3-6) in types. The inaugural event is being Aussie Rules teams Hawthorn Hobart is Australia’s only festival held at the Wrest Point Festival and Adelaide take to the field in entirely devoted to choral music. Theatre in Hobart: www.tiaff.com.au Launceston (April 13). Tickets: Or head north to the Devonport www.ticketmaster.com.au. Sport gets Jazz Weekend (July 24-27), which OCTOBER more bizarre at the B&E Rotary covers all genres from trad to Keen gardeners should not miss Duck Race in Launceston (April contemporary. And those with a the Spring Tulip Festival (October 19), a charity event involving sweet tooth should not miss the 4-5), in Hobart’s Royal Botanical 3,000 ducks. Meanwhile, the Chocolate Winterfest (July 13), at Gardens, with live music, dance, annual Tasmanian Heritage the small fishing port of Latrobe, in food stalls and other attractions. Festival (April 1-30) is hosted by the northwest of Tasmania. The Great Tasmanian Oyster Riot the Tasmanian National Trust (October 18-19) in Barilla Bay (www.heritage.tas.gov.au) AUGUST showcases the very best the ultimate challenge Catch some mid-winter footie Tasmanian oysters, plus other MAY action when AFL giants Hawthorn regional produce. Further north, If you are an adventurous type, muddy forest and along dirt running along the pure white Some of Australia’s best surfers and Brisbane Lions clash at Aurora Tasmania’s second-largest city taking part in the Mark Webber tracks no wider than your hips. sand of Wineglass Bay, I was in a congregate at the tiny fishing Stadium in Launceston (August 9). hosts the Launceston Blues & Challenge might be the Luckily, the scenery is so permanent state of awe. Mark settlement of Scamander for the Bookings at www.ticketmaster.com.au Roots Festival (October 24-26). “holiday” for you. I competed in staggeringly beautiful that it is Webber is keen for more British East Coast Classic (May 11-12). Tasmania is the hop-growing 2007, a gruelling six-day race easy to forget the pain. It is the participants to compete in the For a full programme of SEPTEMBER capital of Australia. No surprise, consisting of hauling my body perfect playground for the next Mark Webber Challenge in Tasmanian surfing events visit Tasmanian International then, it should host the country’s around 400km of Tasmania’s Challenge, set up by Formula November 2008. If you think you www.surfingtas.com.au. Adventure Film best beer event — the Hobart most demanding terrain. One driver Webber in 2003 to or your company are up for the Festival (September Beerfest (October 25). The first day saw me and 59 marry his love of the outdoors challenge, contact paul@ JUNE 19–21) will bring other competitors kayak 5km, with the chance to raise money markwebberchallenge.com or visit The Antarctic together NOVEMBER trek the equivalent of a half for charity. www.markwebberchallenge.com for Midwinter Festival adventurers, Tasmania gets into summer mode marathon over a mountain the While scaling the jagged peaks more information. (June 20-27) marks filmmakers, with the annual Bass and Flinders size of Ben Nevis and cycle of Cradle Mountain, paddling on the winter solstice Boat Festival (November 29-30). 55km across bogs, through the serene Barrington Lake and JUSTIN GOULDING with exhibitions, films, The event, at York Cove in Hobart, lectures and a gala includes yacht racing, displays and dinner. wine tasting. For lovers of the port city bustling with activity, both kids’ activities. Not to be missed is JANUARY grape, the Royal Hobart nautical and gastronomic. Top of Taste of Tasmania (December Wildside MTB (January 19–22) is International Wine Show the tree is the gruelling Rolex 28–January 3), a showcase of the Australia’s premier mountain bike (November 28) offers the chance Sydney to Hobart ocean yacht island’s food, wine and beer. For competition. It follows a 140km to sample almost 3,000 wines, race (from December 28). The music fans there is the Falls course and is open to recreational plus a chance to meet arrival of the yachties coincides Festival (December 30–January 1), and competition level entrants. winemakers and critics. with the Hobart Summer Festival a Glastonbury-style outdoor event Register at www.wildsidemtb.com (December 28–January 6) at the held on the state’s picturesque DECEMBER Sullivans Cove precinct, with street east coast. See www.fallsfestival.com Þ For a full list of events in 2008 Hobart’s busiest month sees the theatre, live music and various for this year’s programme. visit www.discovertasmania.com/gb WILDeRNeSS TASMANIA

eND OF THe WORLD got round to deciding what to itself from a single plant for at chop down or build on the virgin least 43,000 years and possibly RePORT BY JAMES STEWART tracts in the west and southwest 135,000 if carbon-dating of of their state. Nor will they fossilised leaf fragments is FeW PLACeS ON eARTH BOAST because Unesco s thumbs-up accurate. Few places on Earth are created five national parks under as pristine as the World Heritage the banner of the World Heritage Area. Even at Cradle Mountain, of birds wakes you when you SUCH SPeCTACULAR WILDeRNeSS Area, one of the largest the area s premier wilderness anchor overnight on board the TRAVEL TIP conservation reserves in Australia playground where daytrippers luxury cruiser MV Discovery or whose 1.38 million hectares easily outnumber hikers, you can charter yacht Stormbreaker, and hey ve built a shackled to its penal past while represent a fifth of the state s make daywalks into areas that feel you can have a morning dip while lookout so you other states raced towards area. Not bad for a little island at like pockets of Eden. platypuses trace Vs across the can watch the modern malls, suburbs and shiny the end of the world. Even more impressive is the river s glassy patina. It s a pure Tailor Made Travel offers a sunset at Arthur glass towers. But since 1982, In places the Tasmanian World cool, temperate rainforest with its wilderness experience without any selection of eco-wilderness River. While the when Australia s largest mass civil Heritage Area has the rugged endemic myrtle, sassafras, laurel, hardship. You can buzz peaks of experiences including a sun drags the protest halted a dam project that looks of a super-sized Scotland. In celery-top pine and leatherwood. the Southwest National Park in a three-night stay at Cradle sky sizzling into would have flooded the wild others such as the Western The only place you ll find anything seaplane and be back for dinner of Mountain Lodge from £154 the sea on this Franklin River, mainlanders have Arthurs Traverse, whose remotely similar is in Chile. It fresh ocean trout from Macquarie including breakfast. Flights side of the world, come to the conclusion that a lack razorsharp ridges sawtooth the seems improbable until you realise Harbour. You can nibble gourmet with Qantas from £809. it rises on the of development is no bad thing. horizon in the Southwest National the two used to be neighbours and cheeses from King Island and 0800 988 5915; www.tailor-made. other over Patagonia. Between Out of the Franklin campaign, Park, it beggars description. that the forests of the World slurp the best wines in Tasmania s co.uk; [email protected] you and South America there s came a realisation that the state s George Bass, the first man to sail Heritage Area are relics of the cellar as you pootle through the nothingT but the Southern Ocean, wilderness was its greatest asset. around Tasmania, had a go in primeval jungle that cloaked the rainforest aboard a steam train, or flailed by the Roaring Forties into Few places in the world do 1798. Having gawped at supercontinent of Gondwana. have a gourmet picnic in a clearing heaving swells that finally wilderness like Tasmania. When mountains that bucked and reared Talk about conservation down having arrived by 4WD converted explode on either side of you as an application for World Heritage behind mile upon mile of deserted here and your timeframe to run on a pioneer railway. dId you know waves up to 10 metres high. status landed on Unesco s beach, Bass acclaimed the wild stretches 50 million years. Elsewhere the World Heritage Look south and there are only doormat in 1982, Tasmania s west coast among the foremost Unless you have the stamina Area is growing. In September last a few specks of land before you wilderness ticked seven of the 10 of the grand and wildly and a spare 10 days to race rapids year the Australian Senate hit Antarctica. Just in case you boxes for inclusion; more than magnificent scenes of nature. It on the Franklin River, the west unanimously agreed to nominate were in any doubt, there s a sign: Venice, the Pyramids, Machu abounds with peaks and ridges, coast entry point to the the Tarkine for inclusion. A blank Þ Tasmania has the highest End of the World . Picchu, the Serengeti, Victoria gaps and fissures . Tasmanian World Heritage Area is space in the northwest corner of flowering trees in the world. The end of the world was how Falls or any other World Heritage The Southwest National Park is Strahan. David Bellamy got the map, buffeted by what is Swamp gums grow to 100m the rest of Australia used to see Site. The nomination was another so remote that you either have to arrested when he set out from this officially the cleanest air on Earth, and can be readily seen in the Tasmania. It was the ill-starred upshot of the Franklin campaign. hike in for at least seven days on pretty harbourside village for the the Tarkine s empty coastline is forests of the south-east. runt of the Lucky Country, At the time, Tasmanians hadn t the exhausting but utterly Gordon River during the 1982 and where those massive Southern exhilarating mudfest of the South 1983 protests. Nowadays Ocean swells crump, having Þ Some Huon pines are Coast Track, or squeeze into a everyone s at it, albeit with the travelled halfway around the believed to be more than Cessna at Hobart airport and fly to blessing of the law and in state-of- globe. From Arthur River you can 2,000 years old, and a stand of Melaleuca. With a population of the-art catamarans rather than journey on a charmingly old- male Huon pines, estimated to two and that only part-time it aluminium dinghies. fashioned cruiser into an be more than 10,000 years can t even call itself a one-horse Having blasted across untrodden rainforest that the old, has maintained itself by town. But there is wildlife. Heaps Macquarie Harbour six times the World Wildlife Fund in 2004 called vegetative reproduction. of it, including some of the size of Sydney s you ease into a a world beyond human memory, strangest and rarest species waterway that snakes deep into a living link with the ancient super- Þ You can explore the west known to science. The only chatter the Franklin Gordon Wild Rivers continent Gondwana . Last year coast of Tasmania by pedal, in summer comes from however National Park. Huon pines that TV network Channel Nine named led by expert guides, staying many of the 200 orange-bellied were saplings when Christ it Australia s best-kept wilderness in comfortable B&Bs, with parrots on the planet have delivered parables are reflected in secret but the marketing men experienced Tasmanian survived to breed. Nearby a water that s stained the colour of don t seem to have cottoned on cycling operator Island Paradise: camp amid lush landscapes, above and top, or take the train, inset modest thorny shrub called King s Coca-Cola by vegetative tannin. yet. Being at the end of the world Cycle Tours: lomatia has quietly been cloning The dawn chorus of thousands has its advantages. 14 | | SATURDAY, APRIL12, 2008 TASMANIA ADVENTURE AWESOMELY BIG ADVENTURES

“I’m taking it as a heavily wilderness. On one memorable I NEEDED NO a sea-eagle hitched a lift on a REPORT BY disguised blessing from the river occasion a quoll, a rare short- thermal. It was just one more RICHARD MADDEN god,” I replied stoically. “After all, sighted marsupial with a tail like a magical moment in the story of if he was out to get me he had his cat, strolled through our REMINDING OF HOW one of the world’s great FROM DIVING TO RIVER RAFTING, chance yesterday.” campsite. Not only had I never wilderness destinations. My thoughts spun back to the seen a quoll before but up until LUCKY WE WERE TO BE A few days later, after a TASMANIA IS A DREAM LOCATION FOR events of the previous day. Our that moment I have never even weekend spent recovering from raft was being swept towards the heard of one. EXPERIENCING THIS the rigours of the Franklin, I Gordian Gate, one of the Later the same day, in a found myself perched awkwardly LOVERS OF THE GREAT OUTDOORS Franklin’s many treacherous moment of wilderness magic, we UNIQUE WILDERNESS on the side of an inflatable rapids ending in a four-foot watched mesmerised as a duck- dinghy as we prepared to dive on vertical drop. I ducked just in billed platypus slipped from the the Eaglehawk peninsula south- y dreams the banks of the Great Ravine time to avoid the branch of a river bank into the translucent east of the Tasmanian capital, that night at the heart of the Franklin- dead tree dealing me the same red-gold of the river right in front Hobart. The site was reputed to were peculiar Gordon wilderness. As sleep fate as the decapitated corpse of of our raft. be one of the world’s best and vivid. washed over me, I felt as if I was my dream. Memories of a first expedition temperate water dive locations We had staring up at the sky from the Despite its dangers and thanks down the Franklin merge into We gathered in the afternoon and I was curious to discover reached the bottom of the river. I dreamt I to modern equipment and one another like the mercurial sun on a boulder-strewn bend in whether the reality lived up to mid-point was a mourner at a funeral and, the guides’ in-depth knowledge flow of the river itself. the river carpeted with the white the hype. of our rafting in a ritual which shocked only of the river, safe expeditions One of the most memorable buds of flowering tea-tree “It’s a mecca for dolphin, whale M expedition when I recalled it over breakfast, down the Franklin are a routine was our campsite at Rafter’s shrubs. On the far bank the and seal watchers,” Mick Baron, down the the corpse was decapitated and occurrence. Basin where we emerged bleached trunks of fallen trees co-owner of the Eaglehawk Dive Franklin River and our group its blood daubed over my face. Personally, I was in no doubt from the Great Ravine a few tossed aside by the flood looked Centre, had told me earlier. of 10 paddlers had retired “The river can have a very that the rewards heavily hundred yards downstream like the fossilised skeleton of a But Mick didn’t need to convince early to the warm embrace powerful effect on people,” outweighed the discomforts from The Masterpiece, a series mammoth; upstream, the broken me of the magic of his dive of our sleeping bags, the roar said Brett, our senior river guide, and I needed no reminding of of rock gardens and small slab known as The Biscuit was patch. On the previous day of the torrent still drumming in with a laugh. “Any idea what it how lucky we were to be waterfalls seemingly created cast into delicious soft focus by a he had taken us on a magical our ears. We were camped on meant?” experiencing this unique by a Zen master. sunlit gauze of mizzle; overhead warm-up dive to a giant SPORT TASMANIA

did you know… THERE’S A LOT OF TROUT ABOUT

ÞThe waters surrounding Tasmania harbour have the greatest proportion of endemic marine species anywhere in Australia. From the fastest growing plant in the world, giant kelp, to the bizarre- looking Leafy Sea-dragon, Tasmania’s waters are famous the world over for their unique biodiversity. Þ Shipsterns Bluff on the Tasman Peninsula, once known as Devil’s Point, is the most feared surfing spot in the world.

Before 1864 there were no trout Nirvana head to that far side of fat trout greedily to the surface. in the southern hemisphere. Fish the world. Most miss Tasmania Any fishing itinerary should TRAVEL TIP eggs, even less live fish that and lose themselves in the Alpine include: survive only in cool, clean water torrents of New Zealand but in Þ The Western Lakes: a high took unkindly to a journey that doing so they are missing a trick. plain mottled with water. Here lasted three months and sailed Tasmanian trout fishing is you stalk the margins looking for them slowly through the tropics. Australia’s best kept secret. feeding trout. A two-pound fish is Tailor Made Travel offers a But a native Australian living in A thin coastal plain in the north a small one. There are many two, wide selection of adventure London — James Youl — finally rises steeply to a 3,500-foot-high three, four times that size. experiences, including a worked out how to do take them plateau which then slopes gently Þ Arthur’s and Great Lake: on four-day Freycinet Expedition there. With pine boxes, moss and all the way to the southern coast. Great Lake particularly, the locals which includes kayaking and ice, he established trout in It is covered in lakes of all sizes, will rave about the “shark walking, from £469. Flights with Tasmania and in doing so he from the Great Lake which is 50 fishing”. It’s not for sharks, but Qantas from £809. opened to the world a new miles in circumference, to the for trout that feed like them, 0800 988 5915; frontier of trout fishing. many small lagoons — some no surfing white-capped rollers, Exciting: Tasmania lends itself to amazing pursuits, such as white water rafting www.tailor-made.co.uk; Our native brown trout took bigger than a football field — that framed by light. with Water by Nature, far left; rock climbing, above; and diving, below [email protected] better to their new home than make up the Western Lakes. Þ Brumby’s Creek: the most any fishermen — a breed not There are enormous brown trout complicated and difficult trout immune to wishful thinking — in all of them. And in such fishing in Australia, Brumby’s is a could have dared imagine. Within abundance too. maze of interconnected lagoons, underwater kelp forest in nearby of a congregation, strange And then, all too soon, a few years, stories of vast The vast Derwent river system creeks and channels, like a Deep Glen Bay. ungodly beasts flitted by: a Mick was leading us back through catches of enormous trout were drains south to Hobart but all Hampshire chalkstream might But that was yesterday. Now porcupine puffer fish; a feather the maze of underground seeping through from the New over the island there are have looked like 2,000 years ago we were about to dive the duster worm; and schools of chambers and passageways, World to the Old. And it’s been innumerable steams and creeks, (though bizarrely Brumby’s is a legendary “Cathedral Caves” in bullseye fish. pausing as he went to show the same ever since. from mountian torrents to man-made creek). Waterfall Bay. Then the chamber narrowed us the huge rib structure of a Every year a steady stream of mazy, pastoral rivers where Mick took us meticulously and the light became darker as dead whale. anglers on the road to fishy blizzards of grasshoppers bring CHARLES RANGELEY-WILSON through every stage of the dive we glided along in an eerie light, a But one last surprise was in before leaving the safety of the strange form of underwater store. Two huge beams of light boat. Where to wait for each vertigo threatening to take hold. illuminated our progress and I felt other, what to expect and what A few minutes later and we as if I was looking out through a to do when we arrived at “The reached the point of no return: giant underwater skull. Catacomb”. the entrance to The Catacomb. “Now you see why it’s called The Catacomb? Suddenly the By this stage I would have Skull Cave,” said Mick later with on course for fantastic golf full realisation that this was my followed Mick into the a chuckle. first-ever cave-dive hit home with underworld and clearly so Back on the boat again in Two types of people pack their a vengeance. would the rest of us. AOK signs bright sunshine, euphoria washed golf clubs to take with them on But then at last we were in the all round. over us. “And now for the main holiday, the golfer-tourist and the water, descending the shot-line In the end, it wasn’t even scary. event,” announced Mick as we tourist-golfer. Until recently, to about 80 feet. Finning close The reflections from the guffawed indulgently, assuming Tasmania was perfect for the behind Mick we swam through a encrusted walls of the cave he was joking. latter; a beautiful island with cave entrance under the cliffs. provided an all-engrossing light But no. The weather had been some lovely little courses but And then it struck me. I really display to the soundtrack of the kind and there was a rare short on the serious stuff. was flying down the nave of a calming rumble of our exhaled air opportunity for an expedition That has now changed cathedral. On a level with the bubbles. Even an unexpected to Pillar Rock for a dive with dramatically. Suddenly, with the stained-glass windows with the encounter with a baby endangered Australian fur opening of the magnificent aisle far below me, shafts of light draughtboard shark didn’t seals… but that, as they say, is Barnbougle Dunes, a world-class speared into the depths. Instead faze me. another story. course near Bridport on the north coast, Tasmania has become a “must” destination for any golfer visiting Australia. Barnbougle is a piece of golfing perfection. Bordering the Bass Strait, it was designed by arguably the finest golf architect currently working, Tom Doak, and Tasmania, at Bothwell, Ratho is the green fee into an honesty wanders through ancient dunes the oldest course in the southern box. Swansea, for example, is on that have given it the instant feel hemisphere. This is for true an east coast promontory of something centuries old. connoisseurs, for you have to surrounded by sea; Elderslie lies And talking of instant, as soon play with hickory clubs which can deep in bucolic countryside; and as it opened, Barnbougle Dunes be hired at the course. The do not on any account miss went into the world’s top 50 fascinating Australasian Golf Sheffield, a lovely undulating courses as rated by Golf Digest, Museum is also at Bothwell. course with great views over the unprecedented for a magazine But perhaps the greatest glory countryside — stay at the Eagles rating a course thousands of of golf for the Tasmanian tourist Nest, a wonderful lodge that has miles from its US readership. lies in the little nine-holers. views of Mount Roland. The course has glorious holes Take Tasman Bay, for instance, You would struggle to find a as well as fabulous walks — no a gorgeous spot situated better day’s entertainment motorised buggies here. You can above Port Arthur. The views anywhere in golf, but then that stay in the club’s own from this clifftop layout are is true these days of so much accommodation and eat great sensational. that Tasmania has to offer to food in a clubhouse that caters Tassie’s nine-holers are not both the golfing-tourist and the for golfers, not posers. great courses but great places to tourist-golfer. Meanwhile, in the middle of play, usually trusting you to feed david davies 16 | | SATURDAY, APRIL12, 2008