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Tasmania's tourist industry has grown, the island still has some of the world's most productive soils, respects its resources and has cultivated one of the finest, most surprising, fresh-food larders on the planet.
Périgord truffles, award-winning cheeses, Huon Valley saffron, leatherwood honey and olive oil - 100,000 olive trees have been planted on Tassie. Order a seafood platter and it will include wild abalone, lobsters, Atlantic salmon, sea trout, blue mussels, scallops, smoked eel, salmon caviar, sea urchin roe, octopus and squid. Its unpolluted Southern Ocean offers delicious catches of bluefin and yellow-fin tuna, blue eye (travalla), orange roughy, blue grenadier and pink ling, among others, while its farmed salmon is entirely free of impurities.
After Sydney, Hobart is Australia's second oldest city. My first impression was of a quaint settlement huddled round the harbour but down around the wharf district many of the timbered structures have been converted into boutique hotels, smart apartments, elegant sushi bars and restaurants. Tempting menus offered the likes of salmon fillets, steamed pink-eyed potatoes, chilli lime compôte and lemon myrtle butter sauce.
Off Tasmania's southern tip lies Bruny island. Captain Bligh landed there in 1792 and planted Tasmania's first vines and an apple tree at the edge of what is now South Bruny National Park. Today, Tasmania - Apple Isle - boasts a million apple trees producing 500 different varieties.
Close to that historic spot, I dined on fresh oysters shucked at the table, served with ginger and Japanese soya, followed by succulent, Flinders Island lamb. Up north, close to Stanley, I feasted on abalone and salmon legally fished from the sea two hours earlier.