The PERFECT 7-Day Tasmania Road Trip Itinerary

Just south of mainland Australia lies one of the country's most underrated destinations, the island state of Tasmania. Known for its raw natural beauty, dramatic coastlines, and pristine wilderness, this is a place where adventure meets tranquility. We spent seven days exploring the entire island, starting from the capital city of Hobart and making a full circle around Tasmania. Along the way, we hiked the rugged cliffs of Cape Hue, climbed to the top of Mount Amos for a view over the world-famous Wineglass Bay, wandered through the fiery red boulders of the Bay of Fires, and trekked across Cradle Mountain to reach the summit of Hansen's Peak. We'll also take you to the magical Russell Falls, hidden deep within Mount Field National Park, and finish our journey watching the sunrise over Mount Wellington, the perfect way to end an unforgettable week on the island. After landing in the capital city and picking up our rental car, we immediately drove an hour and a half into Tasman National Park to tackle the first hike of our journey, Cape Hue. We're about to head off on our four-hour journey over to Cape Hue. Now in this area, there are actually three different capes. You have Cape Hue, Cape Rowell, as well as Cape Pillar. Now these three actually combined make a pretty crazy multi-day hike that you could do. Now we're warm day hikers, so today we are just heading over to Cape Hue. It's gonna be four hours, 4.4 kilometers one way, 400 meters in elevation gain, a lot of force. But don't worry, the elevation gain is primarily all stairs, so it's nothing too crazy. It is unfortunately a little bit gloomy today, but hopefully once we get there, the views open up just a little bit. At about the hour, hour and 15 mark, here is where the views finally start to open up. This is where you're going to start to see all the crazy rock formations that you're kind of looking for when you visit these capes. We're at the final stretch right now. We do need to head uphill. We did actually climb downhill quite a bit, lost a lot of elevation, but now we have to climb up and then finally we'll reach Cape Hue. After one final push to the top, we took in the beauty of these cliffs. It was humbling seeing the white waves crashing into the vertical stone pillars that ascended 200 meters above the sea. Often, we would look back and see the narrow trail that we took along the cliffs to remind ourselves just how small we are in comparison and admire the diverse landscapes of the cape. From the viewpoint, you can look straight down to a standalone pillar called the Totem Pole, among the many dolerite stacks carved straight into the cliff. On our way back to the trailhead, we had our first wildlife sighting. Several adorable wallabies were munching away right on the footpath as we quietly watched them in their natural habitat. Tasmania is a haven for wildlife and I had a mission to see wombats in the wild. We'll share soon enough where exactly we think is a great place to spot them. The next morning, before we checked out of the Louvre Hotel in the small town of Eagle Hawk Neck, we woke up quite early to visit a nearby attraction, the tessellated pavements. This rare geological phenomenon made up of siltstone was formed about 300 million years ago by the earth's movement, which resulted in something called jointing. A pretty common occurrence, but because of its proximity to the ocean, salt crystals found their way into the eroding the stone into these perfect rounded square shapes like loaves of bread. Before reaching our next major spot, we briefly checked out two attractions. Tasman's Arch is a captivating natural bridge with a gaping view of the ocean through it. Next was Devil's Kitchen. It was intense to watch the strong white waves spring against the small gap. This area wasn't particularly tremendous, but the ocean views more than make up for it. The best part, both of these spots are a very short walk from the parking lot. We made it over to our next spot, which is in the little town of Baceno, and the reason that we're here is because tomorrow we're going to be heading over to Frissinet National Park in order to catch one of the best views on the entire island of Tasmania. Now the hotel that we're staying at is called Beachfront Baceno Hotel, which we believe is definitely a step up from our last stay. Now we don't want to just waste our time sitting in this hotel room, we do want to go and check out one of the beaches here, which we also heard has some of the whitest sand on the entire island. We'll have to go and verify that. We can confirm the sand really is that white and powdery soft as we sank our toes right into it. We walked along the shores, careful to avoid the water only because of how chilly it was, despite its color being so invitingly turquoise. On the southern side of Redbilt Beach, we found granite boulders that were layered with bright orange and red hues. These rocks give Tassie's east coast its signature look, thanks to the lichen that grows on the granite outcrops. There's a specific area along the coastline in which it's most prominent, which we'll visit in the next little bit. The next morning, well before the sun made its appearance, we drove an hour into Frissinet National Park. It is a very early start to the day. As you guys can see, it is pretty much pitch black outside, but we are really excited to head off and explore Frissinet National Park. Specifically, the hike that we're doing today is going to be up to Mount Amos, which is going to give us one of the best views of Wineglass Bay. It's going to be quite epic because we are hoping for a decent sunrise, but we're not starting off too early to really experience sunrise up there, mostly because this track has a rock scramble. After this 15-minute easy path, we're going to be scrambling quite a bit and we didn't want to do it completely in the dark, especially because early, early morning, the rocks are quite dewy and that can mean slippery and dangerous. Okay, so let's be real. The Mount Amos hike isn't exactly a walk in the park. As we've said, you'll need to use your hands a bit, but that's not the worst part. We were super lucky that it was a dry morning, so no dew was on the boulders. If there's even a tiny bit of water on rock faces, it can get super slippery and dangerous. There is an alternative if you're not feeling Mount Amos. The Wineglass Bay lookout consists of a track that's fairly easy to navigate for almost anyone and still gives you an amazing view, but if the conditions and your comfort levels are favorable for Mount Amos, as you'll see, the views are absolutely breathtaking. We managed to reach the summit shortly after sunrise and the golden glow over Wineglass Bay and the surrounding mountains was nothing short of amazing. Even though we only saw four other people at the summit while we were here, Mount Amos isn't a singular section, but a vast hilltop with 360 degree views. It allowed us to get some quiet time as we peered out to the many bays, including Coles Bay on the other side of the view. After the trek down, which was a lot easier in daylight, we drove up to the final section of the eastern side of Tassie through the iconic Bay of Fires. Our final area for the adventures on the eastern side of Tasmania is going to be the Bay of Fires. It's such a long stretch along the northeast coastline of Tasmania and it's known for its signature red orange rocks as well as pristine white sand beaches. We got a bit of a taste of it when we were at Buccino at Redbills Beach, but here it's just continuous. There's so many places to stop at as well and we're starting off with the most popular area, Benalong Bay. The Bay of Fires is a massive stretch along the east coast with tons of cool spots to visit like Cozy Corner, The Gardens, or Suicide Beach, so make sure to take your time and explore it all. Plus there are some fantastic swimming spots along the whole coastline, usually right by the campsites. Heading to the northern side of Tasmania, we'll reach what is arguably the most popular area, Cradle Mountain National Park. This is our first wildlife sighting of the day. The mama and the baby. Wait a minute, you just left the baby. Don't forget your child. We started our morning over at Dove Lake here in Cradle Mountain National Park. We were hoping to catch a bit more of a sunrise. The colors were just okay, but we did have a nice glow over the mountains. Specifically, we were hanging around the boat shed, which is this really big photography spot now. It was really cool to get some photos there and I think we got some pretty good ones. But we're here at Cradle Mountain to do some hikes. That's what it's known for. We are going to be trekking on later, but for the morning time we did want to see if we could spot some wildlife. Because what we heard is that early in the mornings as well as later in the evening is the best time for you to go and see wildlife. Specifically, what we're looking for are wombats and apparently the spot to see them is called Ronnie Creek and from the lake it's a mere like half an hour walk. On these boardwalks it was really not that bad. So we are here right now. We're gonna keep our eyes peeled. Hopefully we see them. Sadly, we didn't see any wombats. We spent maybe like two hours trying to look for them and they just weren't out just in hiding. We did see a couple of chicken-like birds chasing each other. Some wallabies on the trail and in meadows as well. But wombats, I don't know. They just don't want to see us today. We are heading back to Dove Lake now to start our trek. The trek that we're going to be doing is going up to Hansen's Peak. Now this trek is going to be about three hours long. It is considered challenging with about 400 meters in elevation gain. Now this one is also less visited. It's not as popular as some of the other hikes. Some great options you can do here in Cradle Mountain, as Lauren had mentioned, there are a ton of hikes. But the three most popular I would say is the first one. The easy hike will be going around Dove Lake itself. The Dove Lake circuit is about two to three hours long. Very minimal elevation gain. You just enjoy the view as you walk around the lake. Next you have Marion's Lookout. Now this one is going to be the same level as Hansen's Peak which we're going on right now. If you really want to push yourself, you can head all the way up to Cradle Mountain itself. That was going to take six to eight hours. It is an entire day so just be ready for that. We've got Lake Hansen to our left, Dove Lake on our right, and Hansen's Peak is that monster up there. I'm not very excited for the steep climb up but the views are amazing. The bird's eye view of Dove Lake is so pretty because the clouds are really reflecting on the calm water now that the wind is no more. And if you wanted to continue on the path you totally could. This will take you down to Lake Rod doing a full circuit or you could do the circuit going up to Cradle Summit down to Marion's Lookout and back to Dove Lake where we started. We weren't going to give up on seeing the wombats so early the next morning we drove back into the park. This time we decided to walk up a different route from Rodney Creek towards the Valtheim Chalet. There's a forested area east of the chalets and just as we were about to give up and head back to the car we saw an adorable wombat crossing in front of us. Definitely the cutest bucket list item to check off and we left Cradle Mountain grinning with satisfaction. Before we continue our road trip towards some waterfalls we wanted to share a little hidden gem. After Cradle Mountain we stayed in the small town of Tula right on the shores of Lake Roseberry. In the morning the lake was perfectly calm creating a pristine reflection with light fog. If you're looking for an area to stay on your way out of Cradle Mountain we highly recommend Lake Roseberry. We're off to explore some waterfalls starting with Nelson Falls. It's a really short flat path 20-minute return from the parking lot and right now we're walking through these really gorgeous mossy woods. We're really excited to see what the waterfalls look like. I think for today we have three planned in total. After two and a half hours of driving we made it to the Mountfield National Park which is one of the first national parks in Tasmania. This is where we're going to go see the last two waterfalls we wanted to check out. There are actually three in the area. There's Russell Falls, Horseshoe Falls, and Lady Barron. We're only going to do the two because to get to Lady Barron and back it's a two and a half hour walk but to do Russell and Horseshoe it's only 45 minutes return. In terms of waterfalls on the island Horseshoe Falls and Russell Falls come up quite a bit when we search for places to in Tasmania but unfortunately they were a little bit disappointing. Tasmania has so much to offer in terms of natural beauty but we do think that waterfalls are not one of them. With our final morning in Tasmania dawning we drove up to Mount Wellington for sunrise. Thankfully the conditions were just right and we got to witness the colors explode across the morning sky. A week was nowhere near enough to explore all the beauty of Australia's underrated island but we hope this travel guide can provide some insight on its untouched scenery and how to start planning your trip to Tasmania.