We wake up bright and early and leave Fawlty Towers and the 'town that time forgot' behind. As we drive out of town, we pass a tourist information board which says “Queenstown is like nowhere else on earth.” They got that about right. It does look pretty from the top of the hill though.

We drive the windy (pretty much every road in Tasmania is windy) Lyell Hwy in the early morning sunshine, wending our way across the countryside.

After a couple of hours drive we arrive at Lake St Clair, the other half of Cradle Mountain National Park. It is so early we interrupt a couple of wallabies breakfasting on the edges of the public area. Despite this, we are still not the first people into the park – another very enthusiastic couple beat us to that title. Second in doesn't seem so bad.

St Clair is usually the finishing point for the Overland track, so a lot of the walks here are a minimum of a day long. Since we have a flight to catch at 5pm, we opted for a few of the shorter walks through the local area, which give great views of the lake. We also take the opportunity to search for platypuses which apparently fish here, but we don't spot any at this time of day.

We continue our journey onwards. The friendly bottle-shop owner we met last night told us to look out for the “Hungry Wombat” for a great lunch, which is situated just after the “mighty Derwent Bridge.” We were expecting great things – what we actually found was a greasy spoon cafe (albeit with delectable-looking cakes) just after a mini-bridge. It barely qualified as a bridge to be honest. However, considering this was also the guy who described Hobart (population 200,000) as “The Big Smoke,” I don't really know why we were surprised.

It being a little early for lunch anyway, we decide to press on to Hobart. And what a good decision it was. The sun was shining as we enjoyed fresh fish with a glass of wine on the Elizabeth St Pier, overlooking the marina. Bliss. If this is an Aussie winter, then bring it on!

Glorious cold. Stepping down from the small plane onto Tasmanian tarmac was like jumping into a cool bath after a hot day. Except our 'hot day' had lasted 3 whole months. Sarah had got off the plane before me and was already halfway to the terminal. She looked back to see where I was and burst out laughing – I was standing still on the runway, arms outstretched, wearing a lunatic's grin and two layers of clothing, manically giggling at the fact that I was NOT SWEATING. Pure joy.

My expectations of Tasmania from somewhat limited research were that it would be a snowy wilderness of dense forests and gloomy port towns, within which mean-looking locals sat hunched over strong ales, spinning tales of Antarctic adventures and escaped convicts.

And this was exactly what Tasmania was like.

...two hundred years ago. Tasmania's heyday was the early 1800s. As one of the furthest outcrops of the English Empire it served as penal colony, a source of timber for furniture and boat production, a key hub for the whaling industry and was also one of the biggest apple exporters in the world. The docks in Hobart were a rolling maul of convicts, sailors, 'timber-getters', prostitutes, local merchants, recent free-men and the odd crusading Jesuit trying to offset the mayhem and moral turpitude.

By the 1850s gold had been discovered in nearby Victoria and the action shifted to the mainland. Wandering around the capital it doesn't feel like Hobart has ever really recovered. 'The Smoke' - as Tasmanians call it (eliciting stifled guffaws from Sarah and myself) – still feels like a small, slightly sleepy market town. Which is amazing really, given that it's one of the best natural ports in the world, is under an hour's drive from several immense national parks, 20 minutes from some great vineyards, and home to such an incredible history. I think that Hobart is simply a victim of its location – at the end of the earth.

At the moment, Hobart's tourist offerings seem to be limited to rely on a scattering of Georgian civic buildings, an art gallery and a number of seafood restaurants. Surrounded by predatory sea-gulls, we enjoyed a fantastic lunch of fish and chips by the Constitution Docks – where the Sydney to Hobart yacht race finishes on New Years Day. (Aside: As we ate, we heard a young American student telling her friends how amazing her meal was with the choice phrase: 'This is tasty as shit!')

Things are changing though. The number of people down-shifting and moving from mainland Australia to Tassie is on the up, as is tourism – mostly from mainlanders, but also from Asians and Europeans. Hobart seems like it's beginning to wake up to the commercial opportunities these off-islanders represent. The swanky cafes and art galleries of the Salamanca redevelopment at the base of Battery Point – the oldest settlement in Hobart – is doing well, as is the new 'Elizabeth Street Pier' complex of restaurants and apartments at the docks. We noticed a couple of other 'luxury lifestyle' projects going up as we strolled around the town.


From our stay, we feel there are still two critical barriers to Hobart's regeneration:

1.Opening hours. Sarah and I went out to find some food at 8 one evening, and every restaurant in town was shut. I know it's the off-season, but what gives?

2.Beer. It's incredibly expensive to drink in Australia, so if you are going to save up some money to buy a whole pint (to our surprise we learned that the standard measure in Oz is a 'Pot' – just over a half pint) you would hope that it would be worth it. Unfortunately the two Tassie local brews are pretty poor. Lusting after a real beer after 4 months of Asian lager, Sarah and I made our way pub-wards within hours of landing in Hobart. Sitting down in 'The Best Pub In Hobart' – Knopwood's Retreat in Salamanca – we therefore had high hopes for 'Cascade', which has been brewed in Hobart since 1832. After our first sip we thought the taps might be off. Cascade tastes like a watery, fizzier version of Budweiser. 'Boag's' from Lanceston in north Tassie wasn't much better. Chatting with some very drunk locals who had clearly been in the pub for some time, they recommended we avoid both of Tassie's home-grown beers completely and stick to James Squire ale (from Victoria) or better still, the wonderful Spanish wine that they had discovered a few hours back. Unfortunately by then we had no money left, so had to leave.