The Tasmania's West Coast is a 5-day, 700 km loop from Hobart by campervan. Any 2WD campervan is fine - it's rated easy. Best in Summer (Dec-Feb) or Autumn (Mar-May). Budget from about A$900 per person, plus roughly A$168 in fuel.
Some road trips ease you in gently. Tasmania’s West Coast is not one of them. Within a few hours of leaving Hobart the farmland falls away and the land turns wild - serrated peaks, button-grass plains, and rivers the colour of strong tea running out of a World Heritage wilderness that has never been logged, dammed or tamed. This is the raw, dripping, dolerite heart of the island, and a campervan is the perfect way to sink into it.
Five days is enough to do it justice without rushing. Two nights in the old harbour town of Strahan buy you a full day on the water, gliding up the mirror-still Gordon River past Huon pines older than the pyramids. Two more at Cradle Mountain put one of Australia’s most photographed peaks on your doorstep. The roads are all sealed, but they are gloriously, unavoidably winding - this is a drive to be savoured, not hurried.
Morning on a boat deep in an ancient rainforest, afternoon threading a mountain road past copper-stained hills, evening watching wombats graze beneath a jagged alpine skyline. That’s the shape of a day out here.
Why drive Tasmania’s West Coast?
Because nowhere else in the country packs this much wilderness into a single, easy loop. The Franklin-Gordon and Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair national parks form one of the great temperate wild lands on earth, and this route strings the very best of both onto a five-day thread that begins and ends at the same Hobart depot - one pickup, one drop-off, no relocation fees.
It rewards the unhurried traveller. Let the weather roll through, wait out the rain with a coffee in Strahan, and be ready when the cloud lifts off Cradle Mountain and the whole valley lights up. In a van, you are always in the right place at the right time.
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From A$900 per person for 5 days. Compare the main operators:
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Day by day
700 km total · about 11.5 hours behind the wheel across 5 days.
- 1
Hobart to Strahan
300 km · 4.5hLeave Hobart and follow the Derwent River west as the farmland gives way to serrated peaks and the tannin-dark rivers of the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. Break the drive at Nelson Falls, a twenty-minute walk through dripping rainforest to a curtain of water, then drop down to the old harbour town of Strahan on the edge of vast Macquarie Harbour.
Highlights Derwent Valley · Nelson Falls · Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park · Strahan
Stay BIG4 Strahan Holiday Retreat · from A$45/nightcheck availability
- 2
Strahan and the Gordon River
15 km · 0.5hTrade the van for the water today. A full-day cruise glides across Macquarie Harbour and through the treacherous, wave-battered channel of Hells Gates before slipping into the mirror-still Gordon River, where ancient Huon pines lean over reflections so perfect they seem painted. Step ashore on Sarah Island, a brutal former penal settlement now reclaimed by moss and silence.
Highlights Gordon River cruise · Hells Gates · Sarah Island
Stay BIG4 Strahan Holiday Retreat · from A$45/nightcheck availability
- 3
Strahan to Cradle Mountain
140 km · 2hClimb out of the harbour country into the lunar, copper-stained hills of Queenstown, a mining town ringed by mountains stripped bare more than a century ago. From here the road threads north through some of Tasmania's most scenic and remote high country before delivering you to the button-grass plains and glacial tarns at the foot of Cradle Mountain.
Highlights Queenstown · Lyell Highway · Cradle Mountain
Stay Discovery Parks - Cradle Mountain · from A$50/nightcheck availability
- 4
Exploring Cradle Mountain
20 km · 0.5hA full day beneath the jagged dolerite spires of the mountain itself. The two-hour Dove Lake Circuit is one of Australia's great short walks, tracing the shoreline as the peak shifts and reappears above the water; the fit and the brave can push on to the summit. Watch for wombats grazing the plains at dusk, and keep an eye out for the elusive Tasmanian devil.
Highlights Dove Lake Circuit · Cradle Mountain summit · Wombats & wildlife
Stay Discovery Parks - Cradle Mountain · from A$50/nightcheck availability
- 5
Cradle Mountain to Hobart
320 km · 4hOne last cold, clear morning in the mountains before the long, easy roll back to Hobart through the Central Highlands. Break the drive in one of Tasmania's beautifully preserved Georgian villages - Deloraine, Ross or Oatlands - where sandstone bridges and colonial storefronts make an unhurried lunch stop to close out the loop.
Highlights Deloraine · Ross · Oatlands