Tasmania
Hobart Region

The city of Hobart is unique offering all the amenities of a thriving city only minutes from a wide variety of natural beauties. Situated on the west bank of the Derwent River the city in many ways retains the flavour of a small town with a leisurely pace and a population of 160 000. One of the most beautiful capitals in the world, Hobart is set under the towering peak of Mount Wellington and has a deep water port rivaling Sydney Harbour.

Founded in 1804 by Colonel David Collins, Hobart is the second oldest city in Australia. It grew out of the first settlement on the island at Risdon Cove, eight kilometres up river, which was founded in 1803 and abandoned five months later for the present site of Hobart. Ridson Cove remains today much as it was 190 years ago and is an unique tourist attraction.

There are many fine examples of Georgian and Victorian architecture, including, Salamanca Place which has a terrace of wharehouses dating back to the whaling days of the 1830's. Nearby Battery Point, the original seamens quarters of the city and Maquarie and Davey Street offer more than 60 buildings classified by the National Trust.

History
Australia’s second-oldest city after Sydney, Hobart has managed to escape the clutches of developers, and its early architectural heritage is remarkably well preserved – more so than any other antipodean city. In 1803 Lieutenant John Bowen led a party of 24 convicts from Sydney to settle on the eastern shores of the Derwent River at Risdon Cove. 

A year later Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins arrived, with about three hundred convicts, a contingent of marines to guard over them, and thirty or more free settlers including women and children, and founded Hobart Town on Sullivans Cove, 10km below the original settlement and on the opposite shore. 

Collins went on to serve as Lieutenant-Governor of the colony for ten years. For the first two years, food was scarce, and settlers had to hunt local game, creating an early culture based on guns that was later to have terrible effects on the Aboriginal population. 

The fine deep-water port helped make the town prosperous, and a merchant class became wealthy through whaling, shipbuilding and the transport of crops and wool.

 The period between the late 1820s and the 1840s was a golden age for building, with the government architect John Lee Archer and the convict James Blackburn responsible for some of Hobart’s finest buildings. There’s a wealth of colonial Georgian architecture, with more than ninety buildings classified by the National Trust, sixty of which are on Macquarie and Davey streets. Battery Point, a village of workers’ cottages and grand houses set in narrow, irregular streets, has hardly changed in the last 150 years.

Around Hobart

South of Hobart is picturesque channel, orchard and island country. The D’Entrecasteaux Channel region and the Huon Valley form Tasmania’s premier fruit-growing district, which once exported millions of apples to England; since the UK joined the European Community, however, two-thirds of the apple orchards have been abandoned. The region is also heavily forested, and around Geeveston magnificent forests are still logged. Hartz Mountains National Park and the Picton River are easily accessible to the west of Geeveston. 

As you head down the coast, caves, thermal springs and an operational railway are all accessible en route to Cocle Creek, the southernmost point you can drive to in Australia, with foot access along a track into the South West National Park. Offshore, across the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, Bruny Island – Truganini’s birthplace – has deserted beaches and coastal bushwalks. To the north, you can head inland to New Norfolk and on to Mount Field National Park, while to the east lies historic Richmond, and, on the Tasman Peninsula, the old penal settlement at Port Arthur.

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Maps
wpe181.jpg (175249 bytes) Tasmania, incl. Flinders and King island

wpe8A.jpg (303685 bytes) Hobart, incl. Mt.Field NP, Port Arthur and Freycinet NP