Hobart and the Derwent

Australia'S Second Oldest City, A Working Harbour Under Mount Wellington With Sandstone Warehouses At Salamanca Place, A Saturday Market, And A Contemporary Art Museum Across The River That Reshaped How The City Is Visited · Hobart, Tasmania

Hobart is Australia's second-oldest city, built on the Derwent estuary below Mount Wellington in Tasmania's south. The waterfront still works as a harbour - fishing boats, Antarctic supply ships and the yachts that finish the Sydney to Hobart race each Boxing Day - rather than existing only for visitors, and the sandstone warehouses behind it at Salamanca Place are genuine 1830s stores rather than a recreation. Salamanca Market fills the street with stalls every Saturday morning, and nowhere in the city replaces it on the other six days. Across the Derwent, a short drive or a fast catamaran from the waterfront, the Museum of Old and New Art sits underground in a sandstone cliff and changed how the whole city is visited when it opened in 2011. Mount Wellington rises directly behind the city to over 1,200 metres, with a summit road that is often closed by snow, ice or wind in the cooler months and worth checking before driving up. Hobart rewards a slow few days: the harbour in the morning, Salamanca on a Saturday, MONA across the water, and the mountain when the weather allows it.

On the Derwent estuary below Mount Wellington in southern Tasmania, from the Hobart waterfront to Salamanca Place, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Hobart has no single opening pattern: the waterfront precinct and Salamanca Place restaurants run daily into the evening, but Salamanca Market itself is Saturday only, roughly 8am to 3pm, and the street reverts to ordinary parking and cafes for the rest of the week. MONA is open most days but closed on selected weekdays in winter, so check before crossing the river. The Mount Wellington summit road closes at short notice in snow, ice or high wind, sometimes for days at a time, and the pinnacle shelter is the only cover at the top. Hobart airport is about 20 minutes east of the city, and there is no passenger rail anywhere in Tasmania.

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