Travel: A family road trip across Tasmania as a way to reconnect with nature and each other
With its crisp air and stunning scenery, Tasmania is ideal for a multigenerational family holiday, with adventures to suit every age group and palate
Six years ago, fresh from a Tasmanian adventure, I sang its praises at our Sunday family lunch of dhansak and kebabs—a Parsi tradition. My then four-year-old niece, seemingly preoccupied with her meal, was actually soaking in my talk about spectacular locales, wide skies and soul-stirring seafood.
“Tasmania stands apart and not just geographically. It ranks amongst the world’s prettiest places," I had proclaimed. And she never forgot.
So when a family road trip to Australia was being planned in 2024, she voted for “the part that stands apart" to be included.
And that’s how the five of us—my sister, her husband, my now 10-year-old niece, my 80-year-old mum and I—find ourselves standing at the rail of the Spirit of Tasmania as it glides into Devonport. We chose the overnight ferry from Geelong, on the mainland, to Devonport over a flight because this was 10 hours of comfortable cabins, hearty meals, buzzing bars and open seas compared to the crowded bustle and boredom of a flight. Around midnight, I had taken my niece out to the deck, Bundaberg rum and hot chocolate in hand, respectively, and pointed out southern sky constellations that light pollution in cities have long hidden from our view.
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Tasmania is shaped like a heart, and Devonport sits in the top cleft. Our plan is to drive from Launceston to Hobart on the A3 that goes down the east coast. It’s touted as Tasmania’s most stunning drive, and I know this is no idle boast because I have driven it twice before.
The fact that Tasmania is so isolated leads to a conversation about its history. To sum up, in 1642, while the Taj Mahal was still getting its final flourishes in Agra, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who had set sail from Jakarta that August, sighted Tasmania’s west coast from his ship on 24 November. He named it Van Diemen’s Land after the governor of the Dutch East Indies. Over the next century, European nautical celebrities like James Cook, William Bligh and Tobias Furneaux stopped by, mostly at Bruny Island in the south of Tasmania, thinking it was just a corner of mainland Australia. It took till 1798, when Lieutenant Matthew Flinders circumnavigated it, to prove it was an island. He named the strait between Tasmania and mainland Australia after his ship’s surgeon, George Bass.
Its isolation made it a convenient place to ship convicts, and by 1853, 74,000 convicts—a vast majority from Great Britain and Ireland and some transferred from New South Wales and other British colonies—had been transported here. Van Damien’s Land struck terror in the hearts of the sentenced because, for all its beauty, the treatment meted out to felons was brutal. Escape meant almost certain death in the surrounding savage wilderness or being dragged back to suffer even greater torment. Tasmania was their prison and final exile.
By 1856, Van Diemen’s Land had become infamous when it came to attracting settlers, so the island got a rebrand. Tasmania—same stunning scenery, less penal colony stigma.
In Launceston, 100km to the east of Devonport and Tasmania’s second largest city, we take the chair lift across Cataract Gorge. Wallabies are foraging near our disembarkation point. The sight takes me back to my first visit to Australia, when I spotted a kangaroo and reacted with enthusiastic glee. The locals, of course, were very amused. Since then, I’ve trained myself to respond to marsupials with the composed nod of a seasoned Attenborough. But today, surrounded by my family’s unfiltered delight, I allow myself to join the hopping hysteria with abandon.
Also on that first trip, 20 years ago, I had solitarily celebrated my 32nd birthday at the splendid Stillwater Restaurant in Launceston. A call from home in the middle of a juicy steak had made me wish I was sharing the delight of that meal with familiar faces. Today, that wish was fulfilled because Stillwater still stands at 2, Bridge Road, Launceston. I revisited the Scotch fillet while the rest went for the crispy skin Scottsdale pork belly.
Carrying on east from Launceston for 182km, we arrive at the powder-white beaches and red rocks of the Bay of Fires on the east coast. I have seen this bay and its beach more through the lens of my camera, since my priority was capturing great pictures. Today, we have a picnic on the beach and I realise that this is the first time I’m truly appreciating the Bay of Fires.
Standing on the red rocks, my niece guesses the bay gets its name from the fiery stone. A solid theory, but in truth, Captain Tobias Furneaux unimaginatively named it in 1773 after spotting Aboriginal fires flickering at this beach.
The 140km drive south from Bay of Fires to Coles Bay is a soul-lifting symphony. The A3 weaves through misty forests of fern, then bursts into ocean views. We glide past quiet seaside towns named Beaumaris, Scamander, Falmouth—each charming, each eliciting calls for a lunch stop. I ignore them all because I know what’s coming.
The Lobster Shack in Bicheno comes up after 103km. This restaurant is perched above a dramatic deep ocean ravine called the Gulch. Sara and Marcus, the couple who own the Lobster Shack, had their first date at Stillwater in 2015, and now serve lobster caught by Marcus just metres from the deck of what is arguably the best dining location in Tasmania. We dive into garlic butter lobster, crumbed scallops, Tasmanian oysters and crispy calamari.
That evening we arrive in Coles Bay, the gateway to Freycinet National Park and one of Tasmania’s oldest parks. It is a place of secluded beaches, black cockatoos and Bennett’s wallabies. The park’s Wineglass Bay is the star of Tourism Tasmania’s brochures. Though very pretty, the name hides a grim past. In the early 1800s, whalers turned the waters of this bay crimson with the blood of whale carcasses. The bay resembled a glass of red wine—hence the name.
The most fun we have as a family on our Tasman trip is the next morning out on the open sea in two-seater sea kayaks with a guide from Freycinet Adventures. All of us, 8-80 years, get into the kayaks and set off.
Seating is low in our two-seater kayaks, and we paddle across waters so clear I feel I can touch the marine life. We start at Muir’s Beach, just off the Esplanade at Cole’s Bay and glide beneath pink granite mountains called The Hazards and past pristine beaches before paddling across the open sea. It is a beautiful day with a gentle breeze and my niece, who is the crew of my kayak, breathless and grinning, calls it “the best fun in the sea ever".
As our road trip winds down, we roll into Hobart, Tasmania’s charming capital and Australia’s second-oldest city. We’ve timed our arrival for the Saturday Salamanca Market, knowing my mum would love it. Stalls overflow with organic goodies from sizzling sausages, handmade soaps to hardbound books from my childhood and small-batch gin, and we picnic on the nearby green, soaking in the lively, local buzz.
Tomorrow, we’ll part ways, the four of them flying to the Gold Coast to carry on with their Australia adventure and me with the car on the ferry back to Geelong, onwards to Melbourne and then Mumbai.
Tasmania’s sweeping landscapes, crisp air, pristine beaches and fantastic food did more than please the senses, they brought a lightness to our step. Between starry ferry nights, sea kayaking, lobster feasts and winding coastal drives, we laughed more and talked more.
The wonder never waned. Every detour brought a new delight. The lure of Tasmania is that it goes beyond just being beautiful. It richly rewards when explored slowly, by road, and together. For families across generations, it’s the perfect place to reconnect—with nature, with wonder, and with one another.
Rishad Saam Mehta is a Mumbai-based author, travel writer and budding travel video maker.
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