Launceston Travel Guide

The Art Gallery refers to the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania, one of the city's main public cultural institutions. Its collections and displays focus on Tasmanian art, natural history and local history, covering paintings, craft, specimens and relics that together present the city's past and natural environment. Besides art galleries, it also has astronomy and science displays, making it suitable for families. The venue is generally free to enter and lies in the city centre, reachable on foot, so it is a good way to spend an hour or two learning about Tasmania's culture and history while in Launceston.

The Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery (QVMAG) is Northern Tasmania's leading museum and one of Australia's largest regional museums, spread across two Launceston sites: the Museum at Inveresk (formerly 19th-century railway workshops, now natural history and history displays with a planetarium and blacksmith's/coal displays) and the Art Gallery at Royal Park (2 Wellington Street). Its collections cover Tasmanian art, history and natural science, with highlights including the long-running First Tasmanians exhibition, the relocated Guan Di Temple, and a Tasmanian tiger specimen. General admission is free.

The Beaconsfield Mine and Heritage Centre in the Tamar Valley gold-mining town of Beaconsfield records two very different but equally striking chapters of local history. In the 1870s the discovery of gold here triggered a rapid boom and made the district a major Tasmanian goldfield. Then, on Anzac Day 2010, a collapse trapped two miners almost a kilometre underground for fourteen days before they were rescued before a watching nation, while a third miner died. The centre uses objects, footage and underground equipment to tell both stories, and includes walkable old mine workings and a heritage trail — a field lesson in Tasmanian mining history and the evolution of mine safety.

Seahorse World and Platypus House stand side by side at Beauty Point on the eastern shore of the Tamar River estuary, and together form one of northern Tasmania's most popular family attractions. Seahorse World uses clean estuarine water to display dozens of seahorse and seadragon species, with breeding and conservation exhibits where you can see male seahorses carrying their young. Next door, Platypus House keeps platypuses and echidnas, with talks explaining the unusual habits of these egg-laying mammals. Both are visited on guided tours pitched at families, and afterwards you can walk the Tamar riverbank and look out at the aquaculture rafts and passing boats.

The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) is Launceston's principal cultural institution and one of the largest regional museums in Australia. It has two sites: the Royal Park building covers art, history and natural science, while the Inveresk site occupies former railway workshops and focuses on science and industrial heritage, keeping steam locomotives and workshop equipment in place. Collections include Tasmanian Aboriginal material, colonial art, natural history specimens and extensive industrial archives. Permanent and rotating exhibitions cater to all ages, most galleries are free, and it works well as a wet-weather option or half-day cultural outing.

Tasmania Zoo sits beside the West Tamar River north of Launceston. A family-run zoo set among forest, it is best known for its Tasmanian devil conservation and breeding programme. It keeps koalas, wombats, wallabies, emus and other Australian native animals along with some exotic species, with areas for close observation and interaction, and scheduled keeper talks including devil feeding and pelican feeding. Smaller and slower in pace than a big city zoo, with commentary from a keeper's point of view, it suits families with children for a relaxed half-day and is a convenient window onto the conservation status of Tasmania's own species.