Maria Island Walk: Hiking across Tasmania's 'Noah's Ark' island

I'm reading a book called Tracks, Scats & Other Traces because where I am right now – in a safari tent, in the middle of a forest, kilometres from the nearest human (who isn't part of my group) – learning how to determine native animals by their droppings seems like bona-fide bedtime reading.

I'm hardly camping – I just ate a three-course meal of fresh-caught seafood matched with Tasmanian wines around a big table in a heated room cocooned by gum trees – but then, I'm not exactly at a hotel either. My (shared) toilet doesn't flush, it's of the composting variety – and my (shared) shower comes courtesy of a metal container (with a nozzle) of warm water, set on a string pulley that I position just above my head.

But in the exclusivity stakes, this place is seven-starred. I haven't seen another person since we were dropped off by boat within a calm-water bay on the narrow isthmus connecting the two parts of this island. The reason I'm keeping the flaps of my tent zipped tonight has nothing to do with other people, it's just that the Tasmanian devils round here tend to get inquisitive with new arrivals.

I'm part-way through a four-day walk across Maria Island, 20 minutes' boat ride off Tasmania's East Coast. For the first two nights of the walk I'll be staying in wilderness camps tucked away in national park. For the final night, we'll sleep in a restored historical house within the World-Heritage-listed former convict settlement of Darlington.

When I arrive at Camp One – not far from our drop-off point – I'm so close to the ocean on the island's wilder east coast that I hear each wave break on the shore from inside my tent. Designed to be dismantled in 24 hours with almost no environmental footprint, the camp is connected by a series of narrow walkways through the forest. At dusk, when I return from a swim in time for pre-dinner sunset drinks, the walkways are a highway of bolting wallabies and pademelons.

But then, Maria Island is dubbed Tasmania's Noah's Ark for the animals that live on it. An island sanctuary for endemic species and introduced animals like Tasmanian devils, it's the best place on Earth to see them in the wild. In my tent, I'm a part of the food chain: I fall asleep to a pair of possums fighting over who gets to sleep closest to me.

Next morning we hike along a beach on the isthmus' sheltered western side, past grassy headlands and along five pretty bays with calm blue water. Then we're lead on a secret trail through scrub and round a corner to find Camp Two, 100 metres above a horseshoe-shaped bay with sand the same colour as snow. We're hiking an average of 12 kilometres a day, though there are options each day to spend more time in camp.

Next morning I'm surprised to find Darlington – the island's only settlement – is only a few kilometres hike north of our secret spot. It's hardly a metropolis, mind you, just a collection of preserved buildings left over from the 1800s, set among pastures mowed short by dozens of passive wombats.

I'm staying in the island's grandest property – the newly restored 1880 mansion of Maria Island's most eccentric former resident, "King" Diego Bernacchi. After the convicts left this place, Maria Island was mostly uninhabited till King Diego turned it into what many Tasmanians suspected was his secret Italian colony. He built a grand Swiss chalet-style hotel, created one of Tasmania's first wineries and wined and dined the Tasmanian premier, convincing him to name the settlement San (Saint) Diego in his honour.

It's a heck of a place to celebrate our last night, particularly after the toughest hike of the tour: an 11-kilometre shuffle through cloud forest and past rocky obstacles to dolomite columns 600 metres high which offer views over everywhere we've walked these past three days.

Sunset drinks are waiting, served by guides on a verandah looking over Darlington to the mainland beyond. Dinner's a three-course affair, then there are drinks round an open fire in the den. My bed's soft and new, but sleep comes slowly: I miss my devils and possums and pademelons and the sounds of them living beside me in the forest.

THE DETAILS

FLY

Fly to Hobart with Qantas, Jetstar or Virgin, The Maria Island Walk will pick you up from your hotel.

STAY

Arrive the night before pick-up and sleep in a new 70-square-metre apartment on the edge of Hobart's waterfront from $400 a night. See institutpolaire.com.au/pages/stay

TOUR

The four-day walk includes all meals, alcohol, accommodation and guiding and transfers to and from Maria Island and starts at $2700 a person (twin share), $4700 (single). See mariaislandwalk.com

MORE

discovertasmania.com.au, traveller.com.au/tasmania

Craig Tansley travelled courtesy of Maria Island Walk.