On a hike or walk through the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, tourists can see the country’s lakes and mountains up close. Photo by Penny/Pixabay

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Tasmania is famous for the turquoise bays of Freycinet National Park on its eastern coast. Photo by xiSerge/Pixabay

Aside from its beautiful beaches, Australia isn’t known for breathtaking scenery. Except, that is, for Tasmania — the island only 150 miles off the continent’s southern coast.

What makes Tasmania so special is the variety of geological features crammed into an area comparable in size to West Virginia. That means it’s a relatively short drive to see empty beaches, craggy mountains, rugged gorges, scenic rivers, pristine lakes and crescent bays.

Since the island is mostly undeveloped, the drives from one stunning destination to another cross a countryside of rolling hills, quaint villages and fields of sheep and cattle.

This past April, my wife, Katherine, and I toured Tasmania’s east coast and central plateau on an all-too-short weeklong drive through the Tasmanian countryside.

I adapted quickly to driving on the “wrong” side of the road, on the “wrong” side of the car — the dearth of traffic helped. My biggest challenge was resisting the urge to sneak a peek at the views unfolding on both sides of the road. The fall colors (it’s autumn there in April) made the views even more dazzling.

Our one-week tour took us to Hobart, the capital city; Cradle Mountain in Lake St. Clair National Park; Launceston, the second-largest city in Tasmania; St. Helens, a coastal town; and Freycinet National Park. It was a week of one highlight after another.

Scenic walks and hikes

Tasmania’s natural beauty is its main draw, and the best way to experience this is to get out of your car and go for a walk or hike.

My favorite hike was the 3.7-mile trail around Dove Lake at Cradle Mountain. It’s described in the park brochure as “moderate” — which means it’s not easy, but it’s doable for a reasonably fit senior.

Much of the trail follows a boardwalk winding through the rainforest on one side of the trail, with views of the lake on the other. The rainforest was thick with moss, ferns, grasses, reeds and Fagus trees, the only deciduous tree in Tasmania, which had turned gold in the crisp, autumnal air.

Cradle Mountain and other crags loomed over the lake as rainbows emerged from the mist, then faded away.

Other hikes included a short but steep climb to a viewpoint overlooking the cerulean waters of Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park, ringed by one of the most beautiful beaches in Australia, and a walk along an almost deserted beach on the Bay of Fire near St. Helens.

In Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, and Launceston, one of Australia’s oldest cities, we wandered up and down narrow streets lined with well-preserved examples of 19th-century Victorian and Colonial architecture.

We especially enjoyed strolling through Salamanca Market and Battery Point in Hobart and the central business district in Launceston.

Culture and history

Hobart is home to one of the most idiosyncratic museums in the world, the Museum of Old and New Art, or MONA, for short.

It’s hard to reconcile the idea of a world-class avant-garde museum in a city as small and remote as Hobart, but there it is, on a scenic bluff overlooking the River Derwent.

The passion project of David Walsh, a local boy who made good as a professional gambler, MONA is whimsical, disturbing, self-consciously outrageous, immersive, provocative, silly and futuristic.

Its wide-ranging collection includes a word waterfall, a lady’s lounge that only women can enter, and a wall of decidedly un-erotic plaster cast vaginas.

One of my favorite pieces was a room of monitors displaying abstract, computer-generated images and word strings, reminding me of the proverbial monkey typing at random for an infinite amount of time — who would supposedly eventually reproduce the complete works of Shakespeare.

Aside from their architectural significance, the walks in Hobart and Launceston also illuminated Tasmania’s colonial history and roots. For example, Battery Point was the site of an 1818 gun battery to protect the town from real and imagined nautical threats.

Wine, cruises and wildlife

Tasmania is also renowned for its food and wine, and we took every opportunity to indulge. Most notable were the oysters, often only a couple of hours from the sea.

My wife, the wine expert in our household, raved about the wine she sampled and said it was among the best she has ever had.

In Launceston, we took a one-hour boat cruise (cataractgorgecruise.com) along the Tamar River, past the historical wharves and the seaport, then glided silently below the sheer cliffs of Cataract Gorge, just a short walk outside of the city.

Tasmania won’t rival Africa, or even the United States, for wildlife, but most of the fauna that roams its hills, mountains, and forest is fascinating and unique.

Katharine and I admired the wallaby, a diminutive and cuter version of its cousin, the kangaroo.

We also saw a couple of hedgehog-like wombats, which are even smaller and cuter than wallabies, and lots of black swans, abundant in Tasmania.

Thankfully, we saw no snakes, which are as venomous in Tasmania as they are on the mainland. Apparently, they want as little to do with us as we with them.

Encounters with Tasmanian devils are also rare. Primarily nocturnal, they are the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial. We could have seen them if we had signed up for the After Dark Feeding Tour at the Tasmanian devil sanctuary at Cradle Mountain (devilsatcradle.com), but to be frank, we were too pooped after our Dove Lake hike to venture out after dinner.

If we had more time

Besides the After Dark Tasmanian Devil Feeding Tour, we would have also tried some easier hikes at Cradle Mountain. In Launceston, we might have taken a short walk into Cataract Gorge to see the gorge from the top of the cliffs.

For a different perspective on Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park, and one that would have required far less effort, we could have taken a boat cruise (wineglassbaycruises.com.au), or if we wanted to splurge, a helicopter tour (freycinetair.com.au).

It is only 60 miles from Hobart to the Port Arthur Historic Site, the former penal colony on the coast where convicted British criminals arrived in Tasmania in the middle of the 19th century. The Convict Trail, as the route to Port Arthur is known, is both historic and scenic.

Bruny Island, where “dramatic landscapes are matched by great produce” (discovertasmania.com.au), is just a 30-minute drive and 20 minutes by ferry from Hobart.

One week was just not enough time to do Tasmania justice. I’m not sure I’ll get back there again, but if I do, it will be for at least a week and a half or two — enough time to take more hikes, eat more oysters, check out the Tasmanian devils, and just sit back and gaze at the spectacular scenery.

If you go

Round trip airfare from Washington-area airports to Hobart is about $1,600 on United and Qantas with two stops, including one in either Sydney or Melbourne.

We booked all our hotels on hotels.com and stayed at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Hobart for $161 a night; the Cradle Mountain Hotel for $249; the Mantra Charles Hotel in Launceston for $124; the Panorama Hotel in St. Helens for $124; and the Freycinet Resort for $272.

We ate most of our breakfasts and dinners at the hotels, where the food was quite good to excellent. In Hobart, we had a first-rate breakfast at the Harbour Lights Café and snacked on oysters at Pearl and Co. on the waterfront at Victoria Dock.

For more information, visit Tourism Tasmania at tourismtasmania.com.au, which partially sponsored the Mankins’ trip.