Iconic Cities and Rugged Road Trips - Melbourne, Sydney and Tasmania

Twenty days pairing two mainland cities with a full circuit of Tasmania, which is the part worth coming for and the part most itineraries skip.

Melbourne opens it with three nights, a private walking tour and an optional Yarra Valley tasting. Launceston follows by air for two nights, with the Tamar Valley vineyards, planted since the early nineteenth century.

Cradle Mountain gets two nights, reached via a wildlife sanctuary where Tasmanian devils are bred as insurance against the facial tumour disease that has devastated the wild population. The park is UNESCO listed, sits at the northern end of the forty-mile Overland Track, and includes Lake St Clair, the deepest lake in Australia.

Strahan follows for two nights on the west coast past Lakes Rosebery and Mackintosh. The Gordon River cruise from there goes out through Hell’s Gate into Macquarie Harbour and up into temperate rainforest where some of the Huon pines are two thousand years old, calling at Sarah Island, a penal station of the 1820s so harsh that convicts reportedly committed murder to be sent to Hobart for trial instead. Hobart then gets two nights, the departure point for Antarctic science expeditions, with Mount Field, Tasmania’s oldest national park, nearby. Freycinet closes the island leg with two nights before Sydney. Original Travel include the hire car, internal flights, accommodation, the cruise and tours, concierge access, a 24-hour helpline and carbon absorption through their own programme. International flights and most meals are separate. Prices run from 5,350 to 6,950 pounds per person. Tasmania is small enough to drive comfortably and wild enough that a fifth of it is under UNESCO protection, which is the argument for giving it eleven of the twenty days rather than the usual two.