Food and culture in Australia: 12 days through the south
Australia's food is in the south, and it is much better than its international reputation. Melbourne has the best coffee culture in the world and no serious rival. Tasmania grows and catches most of what the good restaurants on the mainland want. South Australia makes the wine.
- Duration
- 12 days
- Pace
- Moderate
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Mar, Apr, May, Oct, Nov
- From
- $4,080 per person
This route leaves out Sydney and the reef entirely, which surprises people. It is a deliberate choice: the tropical north is not a food region, and the twelve days go further when they stay in one climate band.
Who it suits: travellers who plan around lunch, and anyone who has been to Australia once already and wants a different country from the one they saw.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Melbourne. A hotel in Fitzroy or the city depending on whether you want restaurants downstairs or the river outside. Nothing scheduled.
Day 2: Melbourne on foot. A morning walking the laneways and arcades with a guide who actually cooks, through Degraves Street and the Block Arcade, into the Greek and Italian layers of the city and then into the Vietnamese one, which is the part most visitors miss. Queen Victoria Market at the end. Afternoon at the National Gallery of Victoria, whose Indigenous collection is the reason to go.
Day 3: The Yarra Valley. An hour out of the city into cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, with three producers rather than six, and a long lunch in the middle. We choose small growers, not the ones with coach parks.
Day 4: Mornington Peninsula. South instead of east: Pinot again but by the sea, a cheese producer, and the hot springs in the late afternoon. Or, if the weather is against you, a day in Melbourne with a cooking class and the Abbotsford Convent.
Day 5: To Hobart. Short flight south, about an hour and a quarter. Afternoon at Salamanca and the waterfront, and dinner at one of the small restaurants on the harbour that put Tasmanian produce on the plate with almost nothing done to it.
Day 6: The art museum. Mona, the Museum of Old and New Art, reached by the ferry up the Derwent, which is part of the experience. Give it most of a day. It is confrontational, it is funny, and it is the most interesting building in the country. Afternoon in North Hobart.
Day 7: Bruny Island. The ferry across and a day of oysters, cheese, cold-climate wine and smoked everything, with the Neck lookout in the middle and the southern coastline at the end. This is the single best eating day in Australia and we do not say that lightly.
Day 8: The Coal River Valley. Wine and whisky east of Hobart, Richmond’s convict-era bridge, and a First Nations-guided session on native foods, which changes how you read the rest of the trip. For travellers with four extra days we would instead build in the wukalina Walk, run by the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, which is the best cultural experience on the island.
Day 9: To Adelaide. Fly across, about two hours. Adelaide Central Market in the afternoon, which is the best fresh market in the country and is open late on the right days. Dinner in the East End.
Day 10: The Barossa. Old-vine Shiraz, some of it on rootstock older than anything left in Europe, plus the Germanic food culture of the valley that most visitors never notice. Three cellar doors, a butcher, a bakery and lunch that goes on too long.
Day 11: The Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale. Cooler, lighter wines in the hills in the morning, then down to McLaren Vale for Grenache and a coastal lunch. Or swap the whole day for Kangaroo Island, and we will tell you honestly that half its vegetation burned in the 2019 and 2020 fires and that it is still visibly regenerating.
Day 12: Departure. Adelaide is a small, easy airport. Morning free, then home or on to Sydney.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast, two internal flights, all transfers and a driver on every wine day so that nobody is counting glasses, the Melbourne food walk, the Yarra Valley and Mornington days, Mona entry and ferry, the Bruny Island day, the First Nations native foods session, the Barossa and McLaren Vale days with tastings and lunches, a day-by-day document with the restaurants we would book and the ones we would not, and a WhatsApp group with your specialist and our partners on the ground.
What we would change, and when
- Want Sydney in it? Add three days at the start and we swap Mornington for a Sydney Fish Market morning and a day in the Hunter Valley. It becomes a fifteen day trip and the price moves accordingly.
- Travelling in winter, June to August? Tasmania in winter is cold, dark early and quietly excellent, with Dark Mofo in June if the dates line up. Melbourne and Adelaide are unaffected. We would still build it.
- Vegetarian or vegan? Entirely workable here, more so than in most of Asia. The wine regions and Melbourne handle it well. Tasmania’s strength is seafood, so we rebuild that leg around the growers rather than the fishermen.
Related
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