Hartz Peak
The one to give a whole day to. It climbs into the alpine country of Hartz Mountains National Park, above the treeline and out of the valley altogether.
Hartz Mountains National Park Parks Tasmania
Slow down.
No wifi. No television. That’s the part people write about.
Time to slow down
Nothing to plug into, and nothing you need to.
Hunter was built for people who came here to be outside. Three cabins on thirty-six acres of bushland at Glen Huon, spaced far enough apart that you can spend a whole weekend here without seeing another person.
There is no wifi and no television in any of the cabins. It reads like a subtraction until you are sitting in one. In three years of reviews, almost nobody mentions the thing that is missing. What they write about instead is the mist coming off the river at breakfast, the light going gold over the hills at six, the black cockatoos, the rain on the skylight above the bed.
There is mobile coverage in parts of the property, depending on your provider and where you are, so switching off stays a choice rather than a condition. Take the call if you need to take the call. Most people find they have stopped reaching for the phone by the second morning.
The bath
A long bath, and nowhere else to be.
Every cabin has a deep stone composite bath set hard against the full-height windows, angled so the valley does the entertaining. Run it in the afternoon and you will still be in it when the light goes. There is no reason to get out and nothing waiting for you when you do.
“Some places hold you differently. This was one of them. The bath was a ritual, the light through the windows something I kept returning to, and falling asleep under stars felt like a quiet gift… We left slower and more restored.”
Further afield
There’s more valley beyond the deck.
Most guests never leave the property, and that is rather the point. But if you want a day out of it, the Huon Valley has walking tracks, forest and a bit of local flavour worth the drive.
Hikes and walking trails
Franklin Forest Walk
Tracks through a patch of forest looked after by the people who live beside it, down at Franklin on the river.
Franklin Friends of Franklin Forest
South Cape Bay Track
Out through Southwest National Park to a beach on the Southern Ocean, about as far south as the road will take you.
Southwest National Park Parks Tasmania
Mount Misery
Unkindly named, and better company than that suggests. A climb with the valley laid out behind you on the way up.
Trail notes on tasmania.com
Billy Brown Falls
A waterfall walk in the hills west of the valley, and the closest of these to the cabins.
Track notes on AllTrails
Echo Sugar Loaf
Reached by way of Randalls Bay and Mickeys Beach, so the coast is part of the walk rather than the reward at the end of it.
Via Randalls Bay Track notes on AllTrails
Day trips and activities
Tahune Adventures & Airwalk
A steel walkway out above the forest canopy where the Huon and Picton rivers meet. The obvious half-day, and it earns it.
Book ahead through Tahune Adventures
Hastings Caves & Thermal Springs
Caves under the hills at the far south of the valley, with a warm pool to sit in once you are back above ground.
Hastings Caves State Reserve Parks Tasmania
Huon Jet
Jet boat runs on the Huon River, for the one morning of the weekend that is not meant to be restful.
On the river at Huonville
Ninapatina
Artisan pieces made locally, if you would rather take something home that was made somewhere near where you slept.
Local artisan shopping
The view
Instead of Netflix, the viewing was the valley.
The cabins face out, not in. Full-height glass along one wall, a deck past it, and thirty-six acres of eucalypt woodland running down towards the Huon River. Morning is mist lifting off the water. Evening is the light going long over the hills and the township coming on in the distance.
It is the same window every day of your stay, and it does not look the same twice.
“instead of Netflix the viewing was the valley with the changing light of setting sun over the hills and in the morning, the mist hugging the river and rising through the forest.”
Come and do nothing at all.
$569 a night, booked direct. The best price you’ll find anywhere.