Things to do in Hobart

Culture · Berriedale, 12km north of the CBD

David Walsh's subterranean museum cut into a sandstone cliff on the Derwent — the largest privately funded museum in Australia and the reason a lot of people know Hobart exists.

Local tip: Take the ferry from Brooke Street Pier rather than driving; the approach up the river and the climb through the sandstone is the whole experience and the car park is not. Tasmanian residents get concessional or free entry on presentation of ID, which is worth setting up as soon as you have a Tasmanian licence.

Nature · Directly behind the city, 20 minutes by road to the summit

A 1,271-metre dolerite-capped mountain rising straight out of the suburbs, with an organ-pipe cliff face, snow in any month and a road to the top.

Local tip: The summit is often twenty degrees colder than the city and can be in cloud when Hobart is clear — check the webcam before you drive. The best walk is the Organ Pipes track from The Springs, which is halfway up, mostly level, and gives the cliff face without the summit's wind. Take a jacket you think you will not need.

Landmark · Waterfront, walking distance from the CBD

A row of 1830s sandstone warehouses on the harbour, a Saturday market of about three hundred stalls, and behind it the intact colonial village of Battery Point.

Local tip: The market is genuinely good and genuinely crowded — go before nine. Then walk up Kelly's Steps into Battery Point and around Arthur Circus, a ring of 1840s cottages around a green that most visitors never find because it is one street off the route.

Nature · 35 minutes south plus a 20-minute vehicle ferry

A long double island of cliffs, white beaches, a fur seal colony and a concentrated run of oysters, cheese, whisky and honey producers.

Local tip: Book the ferry in advance in summer or you will queue for hours. The Neck lookout at dusk is where little penguins and short-tailed shearwaters come ashore between roughly September and February — stand still, use no white light, and do not walk on the dunes.

Culture · 90 minutes south-east

A convict penal settlement that is a UNESCO World Heritage site, on a peninsula of three-hundred-metre sea cliffs, blowholes and the Three Capes walk.

Local tip: Port Arthur is also the site of the 1996 massacre that produced Australia's gun laws, and there is a memorial garden on the grounds; locals will not raise it and neither should you. Do the site in the morning and drive the Tasman Arch, Devils Kitchen and Cape Raoul coastal stops in the afternoon — they are free and equally extraordinary.

Nature · South Hobart, 10 minutes from the CBD

Two Victorian reservoirs in a bush reserve on the lower slopes of kunanyi, with picnic grounds and the entrance to Hobart's mountain-bike and walking trail network.

Local tip: This is where Hobart actually goes on a Sunday, and almost no visitor has heard of it. The trail network from here connects most of the way up the mountain, and the reserve is a ten-minute drive from Salamanca — one of the shortest city-to-real-bush transitions of any Australian capital.