Tasmania Western Wilds: Lake Pedder to Cradle Mountain - Apollo

Six nights and 950 kilometres in a loop from Hobart in a campervan, into the south-west wilderness and up the west coast.

Strathgordon comes first at the end of the road into the south-west, beside Lake Pedder, which was flooded for hydroelectricity in 1972 after a campaign that effectively started the modern environmental movement in Australia, and the drive in runs through button grass plains with nothing built on them.

Lake St Clair follows, the deepest lake in Australia, then Strahan on the west coast with a stay day, where the Gordon River cruises go up into rainforest that has never been cut and the harbour is several times the size of Sydney’s. The Cradle Mountain area comes next, with the Dove Lake circuit below the mountain, then Wayatinah on the Derwent on the way home, a hydro village in the middle of the highlands.

The camper and the day-by-day plan come from Apollo, 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. Seven days for 950 kilometres is a slow pace, which the west deserves: the roads are winding, the weather comes off the Southern Ocean and the distances look shorter on the map than they drive. The Cradle Mountain shuttles run in place of private vehicles to Dove Lake for most of the year. Strathgordon has fuel and a lodge and very little else, so stocking up beforehand is sensible.