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 There's
an otherworldly quality to Tasmania , with its gothic landscape of rain
clouds and brooding mountains. This was a prison island whose name, Van
Diemen's Land, was so redolent with horror that when convict transport
ended in 1852 it was immediately changed. Yet the island has another,
friendlier side to it too, with distances comprehensible to a European
traveller - it's roughly the size of Ireland - and resonant echoes of
England: cream teas, old-fashioned B&Bs and amiable, homespun people. In
winter, when the grass is green, the gentle and cultivated midlands,
with their rolling hills, dry stone walls and old stone villages, are
reminiscent of England's West Country. Town names, too, invariably
invoke the British Isles - Perth, Swansea, Brighton and Somerset among
them. It's a "mainlander's" joke that Tasmania is twenty years behind
the rest of Australia, and it's true that in some ways it is very old-fashioned,
a trait that is by turn charming and frustrating. However, things are
changing fast: with a new arts festival and a literary festival, the
island is keen to promote itself as a cultural centre, and most towns
now have internet access thanks to federal government funding.
Tasmania is the closest point in Australia to the Antarctic Circle, and
the west coast is wild, wet and savage, bearing the full brunt of the
Roaring Forties. Inland, the southwest has wild rivers, impassable
temperate rainforests, buttongrass plains, and glacially carved
mountains and tarns that have been linked to create a vast World
Heritage Area . This region - crossed only by the Lyell Highway -
extends from the South West National Park, through the Franklin Lower
Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, and across to the Cradle Mountain-Lake
St Clair National Park, providing some of the world's best wilderness
walking and rafting. It's the stage for frequent and dramatic conflicts
between conservationists and the logging and mining communities, but is
still one of the cleanest places on earth, and a wilderness walk, where
you can breathe the fresh air and drink freely from tannin-stained
streams, is a genuinely bucolic experience.
A north-south axis divides the settled areas, with the two major cities,
Hobart , the capital, in the south, and Launceston in the north. The
northwest coast , facing the mainland across Bass Strait, is the most
densely populated region, the site of Tasmania's two other cities,
Devonport (where the Bass Strait ferry docks) and Burnie , and several
other large, conservative towns. Tasmania's central plateau , with its
thousands of lakes, is sparsely populated, though full of weekender
fishing shacks. The sheltered, mostly flat east coast is the place to go
for sun and watersports activities; it has plenty of deserted beaches,
safe for swimming, set against a backdrop of bush-clad hills.
Don't expect boiling hot weather in Tasmania. It rarely gets above 25°C,
even at the height of summer, and the weather is notoriously changeable,
particularly in the uplands, where it can sleet and snow at any time of
year; the most stable month is February. However, with the ozone layer
thinning every year the UV rays are particularly strong and in the
middle of a summer day can burn unprotected skin in fifteen minutes.
Wear plenty of sun screen and a hat. Winter is a bitterly cold time to
visit unless you choose the more temperate east coast; wilderness walks
are best left to the most experienced and well-equipped at this time of
year.
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