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Parks in Hobart: Guide to Best Green Spaces
Discover Hobart's best parks and outdoor spaces including kunanyi/Mount Wellington, Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, and riverside reserves within the city.
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Hobart's parks system is remarkable in its proximity to wilderness: the Wellington Park and kunanyi/Mount Wellington are literally at the city's back door, the Derwent River foreshore reserves are excellent, and the world-class national parks of the Freycinet Peninsula and the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area are within two to three hours. Hobart is one of the world's most park-proximate small capital cities.
kunanyi/Mount Wellington and Wellington Park, the Wellington Park behind Hobart (free access, 13km from the CBD) provides the most dramatically positioned city-adjacent wilderness of any Australian capital city. The Organ Pipes dolerite columns, the summit snow in winter, the Pinnacle's 1,271-metre height, and the walking track network from the city (Pinnacle Track, Springs to Pinnacle, Radford Track) provide genuine mountain hiking accessible from central Hobart.
Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (Queens Domain, free, daily) are the oldest botanical gardens in the southern hemisphere outside of Sydney, established in 1818. The Japanese Garden, the rose garden, the subantarctic plant house, and the heritage glasshouses provide excellent free botanical garden content in a setting overlooking the Derwent River and the Queens Domain bushland.
Cascade Gardens and Cascades Female Factory, the Cascade Gardens (behind the Cascade Brewery) and the Cascades Female Factory historic site (free external access) are excellent free heritage and garden destinations in South Hobart, with the brewery's heritage buildings, the brook, and the mountain backdrop providing a distinctly Hobart experience.
Freycinet National Park, for a day trip (2.5 hours east of Hobart), Freycinet National Park's Wineglass Bay and the Hazards beach walking track provide some of the world's finest coastal national park landscapes. The park has a modest vehicle entry fee; walking access is free.
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