Table Cape

Table Cape is the flat top of an extinct volcano, a plateau of deep red basalt soil standing about a hundred and eighty metres above the sea with cliffs on three sides, and its fertility made it farmland. Since the 1980s one family has grown tulip bulbs here commercially, and for two or three weeks each October the fields flower in blocks of red, yellow, pink and white with the ocean directly behind, an image that has become one of Tasmania's most reproduced. The farm opens to visitors during bloom, and the Wynyard Tulip Festival is held in the same window. A lighthouse of 1888 stands at the cape edge, open for tours, and a lookout gives the coastal view year-round.

What you actually see

• The tulip fields - blocks of colour on red volcanic soil above the sea.
• The lighthouse - the 1888 tower at the cape edge, open on tours.
• The lookout - the clifftop view along the northwest coast.
• The red soil - the deep basalt earth that makes the farming possible.

When to go

October for the tulips, whose exact peak shifts by a week or two each year with the season; the farm opens only during bloom. Outside October the cape is farmland with a lookout and lighthouse, pleasant but ordinary.

Honest expectations

The flowering window is short and unpredictable, and arriving outside it means bare fields. The farm charges entry in season and gets crowded. The cape is exposed and windy, and the lighthouse opens on limited tours.

Nearby

Wynyard is minutes south; Stanley and the Nut lie west along the coast.