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The island of Tasmania is Australia's smallest and most southerly state. With no land to its west before Africa, and nothing but Antartica to its south, Tasmania can seem an isolated and forbidding place, lashed by cold winds and rain from the Southern Ocean. This was certainly the impression it gave many convicts who were transported from England to serve out their lives in the penal colonies established by the British in the nineteenth century.
However, there is another side to this island which today draws ever growing numbers of adventurous souls. The rugged interior holds some of Australia's wildest mountains, forests and rivers - wilderness to be compared equally with that of New Zealand or Patagonia. For others, the colonial heritage is of interest, as well as the common pleasures of resting in one of the world's more quiet and welcoming places. And although the winters are wet, the summers are filled with long hot days that can be spent lying on beaches of the purest quartz sand and clearest turquoise seas.
Take a moment to browse the pages here, and see what Tasmania has to offer the tourist and adventurer. There may be other places in Australia or the world that have longer beaches, older forests, higher mountains or more charming towns. But none will have all four of these, and all accessible within a day.
Hobart
Hobart is the Tasmania's capital city, and the second oldest city in Australia after Sydney. Founded in 1803, Hobart was an important strategic harbor for the British Navy. While other more remote areas of Tasmania were used as penal colonies, Hobart developed as a center for agriculture and forestry. Though the port of Hobart is less industrious today, the city is home to several major industries, the University of Tasmania, and the major financial and government institurions of the State. Hobart is a particularly beautiful city, streching out along either shore of the Derwent River as it opens to meet the Tasman Sea. The western shore is dominated by Mt Wellington (1100 m) with it's imposing summit cliffs known as the Organ Pipes. The Mountain and the River dominate Hobart, defining it's geography, climate, and recreation.
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