Make time for Tasmania

Stressed hedge fund managers and pop idols whose singles sink faster than the Titanic no doubt dream about escaping to places like Flinders Island. As well as long, white sandy beaches the island comes with fabulously evocative names: Trousers Point Beach and Killiecrankie Bay are names that can make you stare at a map and wonder what’s there.

If you happen to have released a stinker of a song lately you might be thankful to know it’s easy to get acquainted with this get-away. The flight from Launceston to Whitemark takes just 40 minutes or on a Monday you could put your car on the ferry out of Bridport and take this slow boat to the island.

Flinders Island is the largest (about 70 km long by 35 km wide) of the 52 islands in the Furneaux Group in eastern Bass Strait. Around 900 people live here. Farming and fishing are important industries but this island retains its own call of the wild. The mutton birds returning from their sojourn to the Arctic still delight in the long, deserted beaches as much as any visitor.

The waters off the island are rich with fish and shipwrecks (65 of them). Some may have been caused by the wild coast as much as the first European inhabitants, the Straitsmen, who reportedly dabbled in piracy. The welcome these days is far friendlier, which is just as well as there is plenty to do.