Tasmania Loop: East Coast to Cradle Mountain - maui

Nine nights and 1,391 kilometres in a loop from Hobart in a campervan, around Tasmania by way of the east coast and Cradle Mountain.

Port Arthur comes first out on the Tasman Peninsula, the best preserved convict site in Australia, where some twelve thousand men were held over nearly fifty years and the ruins now stand in parkland. Maria Island follows offshore, a national park with no cars on it, reached by ferry and populated by wombats.

Freycinet comes next, where pink granite peaks stand above Wineglass Bay, then the Bay of Fires, whose name comes from the Aboriginal fires Tobias Furneaux saw from the sea in 1773 and whose boulders are covered in orange lichen. Launceston and Stanley follow across the north, the latter under the Nut, a volcanic plug rising from a spit of land. Cradle Mountain comes next, with the Dove Lake circuit below it, then Strahan on the wild west coast and the Gordon River.

The camper and the day-by-day plan come from maui, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. Ten days for 1,391 kilometres is a comfortable pace and Tasmania rewards it, since the distances are short and the weather changes fast. The island is a good deal cooler than the mainland and the highlands get snow outside summer, so the packing matters. The Maria Island ferry and the Gordon River cruises both need booking, as do the Cradle Mountain shuttles, which run in place of private vehicles to Dove Lake for most of the year. The loop format avoids a one-way relocation fee.