The drive from Cradle Mountain to Launceston was only 2 hours but brought a total weather change as we traversed the mountains – we’d left the Wild West and entered the more reliable (but perhaps less dramatic) East. Once we’d descended, the terrain became more Devon-like with rolling hills and cattle farms and the winding roads eventually joined a dual carriageway – the only main road in Tasmania.

Launceston

Now us West Country folk know that the proper pronunciation is ‘Lawn-ston’ but in these parts it’s ‘Lawn-cess-ton’ or even ‘Lonnie’ – Tasmania’s 2nd biggest town, first settled by Europeans in 1806 making it one of Australia’s oldest cities. Nowadays it’s famous s a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, recognised for its vibrant food & wine scene, but we’d argue that it’s far more famous as the venue of a recent one-off Down Under Foo Fighters gig in the most unlikely place – at the time their only 2026 visit to Australia (they’ve since announced that they’re coming back in November). OMG, if we could’ve been here on January 24th without totally screwing up the rest of our Australia plan we would’ve been – but it just wasn’t sensible and so we arrived in Launceston a couple of weeks after Dave Grohl & Co had left 🙁

Mantra Charles Hotel was a reasonably priced and well rated place near the CBD – its former life as a hospital was apparent – comfortable enough but a little sterile (hardly surprising).

Launceston itself had lots of lovely houses set on hillsides leading down to the Tamar River, a compact central area and lots of street-side cafes and restaurants. The main tourist attraction in the city itself is Cataract Gorge, a beautiful natural space just a mile or so from the centre. We strolled around and across the suspension bridge but didn’t bother with the chairlift as (1) it was coming up on closing time and (2) we might have been embarrassed to have exceeded the weight threshold for the 2-seat units and been forced to take a car each!

As nice as Launceston was, the reason for coming to this part of Tasmania was the wine and the nearby Tamar Valley is renowned for producing high class examples, particularly sparkling, whites and Pinot Noir. Steve was Dessie Driver as he doesn’t much like most white wines or Pinot NoirWe drove through the valley to reach Swinging Gate Vineyard, a boutique family-run place with glamping pods set amongst the vines. Sitting in the sun overlooking a marvellous view, Debbie sampled a variety of their wines, including some unusual ones and things we’d not tried before. All very pleasant but Tasmanian wines aren’t cheap so needed to be really good for us to purchase a bottle, and the only thing that stood out was a Frontignanc – the bouquet indicated a very sweet wine but it was actually dry – bizarre but quite delicious so we bought a bottle. You’d be mad not to buy a bottle of SOMETHING here as, unusually for vineyards that charge for tasting, the tasting fee is waived if you purchase.

We relied on Chat GPT to choose our next vineyard and it singled out Iron Pot Bay for it’s fabulous views over the river. We’re really not sure where Chat GPT got its information from – there was definitely no river view! But we were very glad we’d been pointed in this direction as the winery doesn’t show up on any of the tourist maps and was a hidden gem. Another family owned and run business, it appeared that a bloke who worked in oil and gas, had spent many years in the USA and was probably absolutely loaded, had bought a vineyard for his wife and daughter. The daughter had gone on to study Viniculture & Oenology in New Zealand and was now making exceptional wines under her own label Ashli Rose as well as the Iron Pot Bay brand. Ashli’s mum Julianne was obviously very proud of her daughter and of the wines she produces, and expertly led us through a tasting of 9 wines – from sparkling through to dessert wine, and everything in between. We liked most of them but the standout was a Semillon with very distinctive grassy notes, so a bottle of that was added to the bag.

Our lunch destination was the premier winery of the region Josef Cromy – a stunning location and renowned restaurant. Well we have to treat ourselves every now and again! Sadly we didn’t have time to do a full wine tasting, but the Chardonnay that Debbie sampled with lunch was very nice indeed, as was the food.

On our way to the East Coast we stopped at House Of Arras, another Tamar Valley winery that a bloke in the tourist information centre had recommended for their award-winning fizz. We were disappointed to find that tasting was strictly by appointment only, but luckily they were just about to start a 45-minute tutored session and had 2 seats available. This was a fancy tasting of expensive wines, but did cost A$35 per head which wasn’t redeemable against purchase. A very knowledgable & enthusiastic (but slightly irritating) lady talked us through the range, history, production methods, winemaker, terroirs, awards – very educational and some lovely wines. Of course Debbie liked the most expensive one best, and Steve agreed – what the hell, it was Valentine’s Day so a bottle of pink fizz was added to our stash and we left armed with that and a couple of recommendations of places to visit on our East Coast journey. We were rather p*ssed off on stopping at a BWS later that day to find the same fizz £20/biottle cheaper than we’d paid at the cellar door though!

The first recommendation was Pub In The Paddock, near our East coast destination, and reached after a lovely drive (popular with bikers) through scenery which reminded us very much of the Lake District and with most place names being English (Weymouth, Bridport, Swanage – obviously settlers from Dorset in these parts, and even Derby). The pub is a Tassie institution, one of the oldest in Tasmania, with beer called ‘Piss’ which Steve apparently enjoyed and a resident beer-drinking pig named Priscilla!

St Helens

Another English name, but this East Coast town was far nicer than it’s Lancashire counterpart! Hotel accommodation was limited and crap-looking and Air BnBs were extortionate, so we opted for a cheap and cheerful cabin on a caravan park Big4 Tassie Getaway which was well located and well enough equipped for us to cook ourselves a couple of delicious dinners with local Tassie steak and salmon to accompany the wines we’d purchased in the Tamar Valley.

St Helens is a pleasant little town set on the Georges Bay sea inlet, dotted with fishing and sailing boats and loads of black swans. The real attraction of this area is The Bay of Fires, gorgeous white sand beaches, the clearest blue sea, and rocks coloured with vivid orange lichen – absolutely stunning. This is where the Air BnBs are and it quickly became obvious why they were so pricey – a simply gorgeous location. We only made it as far as Binalong Bay, had a couple of hours sunning ourselves on the beach and then a couple more eating pizza and drinking beer at a cafe overlooking the beach and soaking up more of the glorious view. There are worse ways to spend a mid-February Sunday afternoon.

Freycinet National Park

Just an hour and a half South of St Helens, we made a stop at the 2nd recommendation from the lady at House of Arras – Craigie Knowe Wines. Apparently their reds were more to our taste than the usual Tasmanian Pinot Noir offerings so Steve had a tasting of their complete range – it was Debbie’s turn to be Dessie. He actually found a Pinot Noir that he liked more than usual, but it still didn’t wow him, nor did the Cabernet Merlot blend, but shockingly the Rose did! So we’ll have a bottle of that please, and lunch for 2, which was fabulous Korean-fusion served in a marquee (or ‘big white tent’!).

We’d splashed out a bit on the accommodation near Coles Bay – Whale Watcher 2 was a beautiful little house overlooking the sea, with glorious views from the balcony, and just a 5 minute drive from the National Park. It was tempting to just sit on our balcony and enjoy the view, but there were apparently better vistas within the national park.

Wineglass Bay is the famous lookout, but we didn’t fancy the hour and a half return walk, involving a significant climb which might have been a struggle for Steve, in gale force winds gusting at over 50 knots. And we were hungry and had our eye on a vineyard lunch. So instead we explored the Cape Tourville area – from where we got a spectacular coastal view reaching down to Wineglass Bay – and Honeymoon Bay where masses of wild mussels clung to the orange lichen-coated rocks adjacent to a beautifully clear emerald sea.

We’d spotted Devil’s Corner vineyard the previous day and it looked great as a lunch spot, so we returned. Firstly to sample some wines and Debbie quickly twigged that she could have both the 5 wine ‘standard’ paddle AND try the premium wines for comparison with a 3 wine ‘choose your own’ paddle – result – 8 decent portions of wine for about £18. In a shocking turn of events, she actually preferred the A$40/bottle Chardonnay to one almost twice the price and bought a bottle. We also very much enjoyed the Reisling and Rose, didn’t like the Point Noir (no surprise) and loved the Syrah. But it was £40/bottle, we can get far better for that price, and we had no time to drink it anyway as we were flying out of Tasmania the following day. Lunch was a casual but amazing seafood pop-up at the vineyard – Fishers of Freycinet – Debbie ordered just a prawn and avocado cocktail (bloody delicious) and hoped that Steve would share his ‘Fishmans Catch’ with her – local fish (gummy shark, wow), grilled scallops, panko crumbed calamari, deep fried oyster, prawn slider, chips and tartare sauce. Utterly delicious 🙂

This area is gorgeous and we wish we’d stayed longer, but we probably couldn’t have afforded to, and anyway we had a plane to catch. But we did have a late evening flight so had a full day to catch up on what we missed while in Hobart…

Port Arthur

One of Australia’s most powerful historic sites – a former penal colony set dramatically on the Tasman Peninsula which housed repeat offenders from Britain and the colonies from 1830-1877 and new a beautifully preserved UNESCO World Heritage site with ruins, gardens and spectacular harbour views. Sadly it is also the site of the 1996 massacre of 35 people, one of the worst mass shootings in modern history.

The site was huge, dramatically set, very beautiful and certainly made us think. We were a little rushed for time as we’d not managed to get up and out that morning as early as planned, so only had about 3 hours at the site – a full day would’ve been far better.

And just like that our Tassie adventure was over – we loved the island, probably our favourite part of Australia so far (and honestly unlikely to be beaten), and could’ve easily spent another couple of weeks there. But our flight to Melbourne was booked and so we headed to the airport, tried to guess why there were loads of blokes in white shirt, dark trouser combo. We reckon Big 4 consultancy or IT, one of them told us it was a religious convention. And we got into arguments about Debbie’s hand luggage being 1Kg over allowance (and Steve’s 1Kg under) – yes, she could choose to wear some of the clothes but was only ‘allowed’ 3 layers – bloody jobsworth made us move stuff into Steve’s bag and then gave us both the ‘OK’ tags, before we promptly moved everything back to the correct bag. Gotta love Jetstar – Australia’s answer to Ryanair….