Heritage Highway

infoCentral Tasmania Info

This Highway tells a thousand stories of convicts, bushrangers, farmers, writers and painters. The long open valley you travel between Tasmania's two major cities, Launceston and Hobart, was first used by Aborigines for hunting, then settled by European farmers within the first decades of colonisation. You will travel through Georgian villages that were once overnight stops for travellers in horse-drawn carriages.

The town names tell a story of homesick settlers and visionary explorers, English Town, Epping, Ross, Pontville and Jericho, Mangalore and Nile. Today, the road follows the routes pioneered in 1807. Those first explorers took eight days to traverse the island. Soon afterwards, the fastest horse-drawn coaches completed the journey in 15 hours, changing horses every 10 miles.

These days, you can drive from Launceston to Hobart in a couple of hours - but if you do, you'll be missing some of Tasmania's most gently beautiful country scenery, and bypassing the State's best-preserved colonial towns and villages, where sandstone church spires overlook English trees of oak and elm, Georgian cottages line the quiet streets and stone bridges are reflected in leaf-dappled water.

You will hear the inspirational stories of people who went before, the convicts who shaped the enduring stone for bridges and churches; the bushrangers who swept down on unsuspecting travellers; and the farmers and graziers who opened up the new land, making their fortunes from bushels of wheat and bales of wool. You'll see their stories and their legacy, and you'll meet the Tasmanians who now proudly preserve the memories and heritage of the past.

Central Tasmania, TAS Accommodation


Destinations within Central Tasmania

Other Central Tasmania Destinations
Bothwell Campbell Town Kempton
Oatlands Ross

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