978-978 Travel Guide

The Wesley Uniting Church at 56 Melville Street, Hobart, is one of Tasmania's oldest churches still in use. Its predecessor was a Wesleyan Methodist place of worship: construction of the church began in 1837, growing out of a Methodist chapel site offered by local merchant David Lord, and it stands among the most historic Methodist buildings in Australia. In 1977, with the national union of denominations, the congregation joined the Uniting Church in Australia. The dignified early colonial church architecture and its long faith history make it a heritage landmark worth pausing at in Hobart.

The Wonders of Wynyard Exhibition and Visitor Information Centre sits on Exhibition Link in the centre of the north-west Tasmanian town of Wynyard, sharing its building with the local visitor information centre and open free of charge. Its centrepiece is the internationally recognised Ransley Veteran Car Collection, displaying more than 14 early motor vehicles, including one of the oldest surviving Fords in the world, with remarkable coachwork and mechanical detail. Alongside the vintage cars the centre presents local and regional historical artefacts and houses a small shop selling souvenirs — a natural stop on any drive along Tasmania's north-west coast.

The Tarkine (takayna in the local Aboriginal language) is a vast wilderness of about 450,000 hectares in north-west Tasmania, protecting Australia's largest, and the Southern Hemisphere's largest single tract (world's second-largest), of temperate rainforest. Forest, wetlands, sea-misted dunes and mountains coexist here, sheltering ancient myrtle beech and huon pine plus more than 60 rare, threatened or endangered species of flora and fauna, along with significant Aboriginal heritage. It is bounded by the Arthur River to the north and the Pieman River to the south. Short walks from the Arthur River area and the Philosopher Falls track lead deep into the interior.

Triabunna is a small coastal town on Spring Bay in eastern Tasmania, about 1.5 hours from Hobart and 2.5 hours from Launceston on the Tasman Highway (A3). It is the official gateway to Maria Island National Park: a passenger ferry runs daily from Triabunna's wharf to Darlington (a 30-45 minute crossing). The town retains its fishing, seafood and processing heritage, and the old woodchip-mill site known as Spring Bay Mill has been reimagined as a cultural venue. Maria Island's convict probation-station ruins are part of a World Heritage property, and the island is home to wombats and other wildlife.

The Don River Railway (also known as the Don River Roundhouse) is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit heritage railway and museum at Don, near Devonport in Tasmania. Founded in 1973, it began running trains in November 1976, carrying on the tradition of the former Melrose line that opened in 1916 and closed in 1963. Today vintage trains run on about 3 km of track along the east bank of the Don River out to Coles Beach, while the on-site museum showcases Tasmania's largest collection of heritage steam and diesel locomotives, carriages and rolling stock.

Longford is an English-style country town in Tasmania's Northern Midlands, set beside the Macquarie River and with origins in early-19th-century colonial settlement. The historic heart is lined with Georgian and Federation-era buildings, crowned by Christ Church (1839), one of Tasmania's finest colonial Gothic churches, set in a notable arboretum planted in the 1830s with the ambition of holding a specimen of every tree mentioned in the Bible. The surrounding countryside is home to the World Heritage-listed Woolmers Estate (famous for its National Rose Garden) and Brickendon, a farm established by William Archer in 1824 and still run by his seventh-generation descendants. Longford is a must-stop on Tasmania's Heritage Highway.