People & Places
From Hobart to Launceston
A quick round trip through some of Tasmania's towns and cities
Hobart
It might sound clichéd, but most people in Hobart walk around smiling. It's not something I imagined I'd ever notice about a place, but after day walking around the city, my cheeks were aching from grinning inanely at passers-by.
It's not hard to see why everyone is so happy, though. Hobart has the soothing, gentle rhythm shared by all coastal cities, and everywhere are the deft architectural touches of Victorian colonialism, with Mount Wellington (1.2 kilometres high) providing one of the most dramatic backdrops a city could have.
Hobart has a population of about 207,000, of which there are only 50,000 living in the City of Hobart itself. The city has enough restaurants and unique shops to hold your interest, and is by no means twee, but you could almost envision it as a sacharine Disney attraction: 'Hobart-land', where no-one litters and the houses look sweet enough to eat. Claremount, near Hobart, is the city's own version of Disney: the Cadbury factory has a whole town where the purple and yellow insignia is everywhere.
The biggest draw is the weekly market in Salamanca, full of traditional arts and crafts, locally farmed food, handmade goods, and the usual contingent of new-age goods. With a more urban feel, North Hobart is where most of the bistros and major shops are located. Its main promenade, Elizabeth street, is a close approximation of chic consumerism in Tasmania, but it's heartening to see that even the major shopping district there hasn't become faceless corporations.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Hobart, and Tasmania as a whole has some of the lowest property prices in Australia. People living in Hobart pay an average AUS$151 (£61) a week rent or mortgage payments of AUS$205 (£84) a week, and the average house price is AUS$200,000 (£81,000).
There is an international airport with flights to the UK, but in terms of internal public transport systems, buses are unreliable, and some routes only operate in certain months.
Launceston
The airport consists of a runway, a tiny departure lounge and a demented baggage collection system. It used to be that Launceston was just a stopover for travellers flying to the island. Now it has grown in both size and popularity.
The city is one of Australia's oldest and relics of the past are everywhere. The wide roads and large Victorian and Georgian-style block of buildings give a real sense of space after driving through the cobblestone villages and remote towns, like Richmond, on the way up from Hobart. The spaciousness extends into the residential areas of Launceston, like Inveresk, where the properties are usually large and detached with plenty of adjoining land.
There is more rural area surrounding Launceston than Hobart, which may indicate the possibility of expansion, though any building has to go through strict environmental planning laws. The homes are generally cheaper in Launceston, averaging about AUS$210,000 (£86,000) with flats at around AUS$131,000 (£53,500). The city has a large retiree population, brought from overseas and other areas in Australia due to the proximity to the mainland, the fact that the state is one of Australia's driest and the one of the three main public hospitals being located in Launceston.
Burnie
There is one cinema, about fifteen restaurants, four high schools and seventeen churches in Burnie. For those seeking a bustling environment, it might not be the ideal place to settle, but this city, with just fewer than 20,000 residents spread over the outlying areas, is not to be sniffed at. The city's setting is its greatest selling point. It is a few kilometres from Cradle Mountain (1.5 kilometres high), with quiet sandy beaches and ample forest to explore, as well blissful sunsets and plenty of community based events going on.
The weatherboard houses and handpainted shop signs add to that feeling of really having put the ceaseless pursuit of modernity on hold when you walk up the main street.
Freycinet and east coast
With some of the best weather in the state, and a host of small fishing villages scattered throughout, Tasmania's East Coast could be a smart choice for migrants who want to escape city living without being stuck in the middle of nowhere.
The whole East Coast is a short drive from Hobart, and offers some near perfect coastal idylls to choose from. The two largest towns in the east are St Helens and Bicheno, the latter is a fishing port that has scenery so beautiful it feels like you're living in an exotic painting. All the towns have good connections via highways, though again public transport can be problematic depending on the time of year.
Freycinet National Park and Coles Bay are just two of the places worth visiting, and are the main reasons why all the towns in the east look safe from the perils of over development.
At the most southerly point of the east coast, on the Tasman Peninsula, is Port Arthur, a former prison colony with a macabre history. The biggest tourist attraction in Tasmania, you can actually pay to be locked up for a night in the foreboding prison building.
West Coast
Wannabe Crocodile Dundees form a queue here, please. Rural Aussie towns, spit and sawdust pubs and huge swathes of forest that look as though no one has ventured in them for decades.
Zeehan is a classic mining town, with new identikit houses in uniform rows and the older, more interesting miner's homes giving an insight into the slog of everyday life hundreds of years ago. Worth a visit, if only because Grahame Green was moved to write a poem about the city after he arrived.
The other major town on the West Coast, and the centre of all its tourist activities, is Strahan. Built around Macquarie Harbour, Strahan is a pleasant, clean affair, boasting plenty of beaches and modern beachfront properties.
Tasmania would take little more than a day to traverse. No matter where you are, a complete change of scenery is just a short distance away. Long overlooked as a migrant destination, those who do take the time to discover this unassuming island state inevitably find something about it to love.
The landscape is unparalleled and the cities are marvellous, but the effect of the gregarious Tassies themselves takes the longest to wear off. I was grinning inanely at passers-by for months after I left Tasmania, but instead of smiling back like the Tassies, people just changed seat on the bus.
Read another article about Tasmania:
Introducing Tasmania
Search EmiLinks for Tasmania related sites
Register for your FREE emigration starter pack
Subscribe to Emigrate Australia newspaper. Read more ...