Maria Island
February 12, 2026
We checked out of our hotel in Triabunna and boarded an all-day cruise/tour to Maria Island (pronounced with a long I sound, although it was named after a woman who pronounced her name the traditional way—Australians like their own pronunciations). The entire island is a national park, car-free with historic ruins and abundant wildlife. There were 25 passengers on a small boat that took about a half hour to reach the island. Then we spent the next four hours circumnavigating the entire island in a clockwise direction. The weather was sometimes pretty choppy (Tasmania is quite windy we discovered), but we had some bright sunshine before a bit of rain moved in later in the day.
Here is the map that shows our route from Freycinet to Triabunna (yesterday), and the route to Hobart we will take after the cruise. You can zoom in to see details of Maria Island.
We saw some fantastic rock formations of all different sizes, shapes and colors. One of the first stops was called Fossil Cliffs. We also saw different types of albatrosses than we saw yesterday.
Above photos show our approach to the island and the areas around Fossil Cliffs.
The captain took the boat into a sea cave, one of many dotting the coast line. There were visible fossils in the ceiling. We stopped for mid-morning tea at a beautiful beach called Rieble Bay, reminiscent of Wine Glass Bay with blue/green water. As we came around the southern tip of the island, the seas became very rough and we only able to see one fur seal on shoreline rocks near Cape Peron.
These photos show the view from the cave and the areas around the cave.
The next photos were taken on the northern and eastern parts of the island, including the morning beach stop.
Here’s a map of the island showing
many of the places we visited
during our circumnavigation.
Here are some photos taken cruising around the southern tip of the island before lunch. It was very bumpy and photography was hard! You can see spray in some of the pictures.
From there, we cruised around the south of the island and then north to protected Shoal Bay, where we anchored for lunch. Here we saw two different species of rays in the water and some pademelons on the beach.
After lunch, we cruised by Painted Cliffs, which looked to be man-made, but were not. There were many visitors to the island walking along these cliffs.
We then docked at Darlington Bay, which is also where the public ferry to the island docks. This is the headquarters for the national park and has some information about the Island.
Maria Island is dedicated to protecting wildlife and has very few facilities for human visitors (camp sites and one “bunkhouse” along with the visitor center and restrooms being the extent). There are also historic ruins from prior occupants of Maria Island.
Our guide took us around for about two hours, walking through the Darlington convict settlement (another UNESCO site) which was used between 1825 and 1855 (so older than Port Arthur which we will visit later). There are also remains from some later development of the island: from the 1880’s, the Italian entrepreneur Diego Bernacchi constructed a hotel, a winery and a cement factory, all of which closed by about 1930. This is a view of the harbor with the park headquarters behind.
A close and farther view of the settlement to the left. Above, text
taken from one of the displays that
explains the convict system used here.
During our walk we saw several mother and joey wombat pairs, as well as more pademelons and pretty birds. These wombats were a little lighter in color and a bit smaller than the ones we saw at Cradle Mountain. We got better photos in daylight.
Clockwise, from upper left: wombat and joey, colorful flame robin, two pademelons, and a Cape Barren Goose. Below, one last wombat photo.
Above is the beach at Darlington just before we left the island.
After our guided walk, we got back on the boat and sailed for about a half hour back to Triabunna, where we got our rental car. We then drove about 90 minutes south to Hobart and checked into our centrally located hotel.
