Maria Island lies just off Tasmania's east coast, and Darlington is the little settlement on its sheltered north-western shore where convicts, officials and later Italian entrepreneurs left their mark. No cars are allowed on the island and no one lives there permanently, so what you find is a quiet bay, a scatter of Georgian buildings and a lot of wildlife. You reach it by passenger ferry from Triabunna on the mainland, and the crossing takes about half an hour.
The settlement began in the 1820s as a penal colony for convicts who had reoffended in the colony, and the surviving buildings date from several phases. The probation station phase, in the 1840s, was part of the British system of reform through labour and separation, and the brick barracks, the commissariat store and the cottages are among the buildings that make up the Australian Convict Sites World Heritage listing. Later, in the 1880s, an Italian businessman, Diego Bernacchi, tried to turn the island into a centre of silk, wine and cement, and his plans left behind an old cement works and a few historic houses before failing.
The island's wildlife is the real show. Forester kangaroos, Bennett's wallabies and wombats graze on the grass around Darlington, often entirely unbothered by visitors, and Tasmanian devils were reintroduced to the island in 2012 as an insurance population. The Painted Cliffs, sandstone formations striped by iron minerals, are a short walk along the shore at low tide. Rides here are on foot or by bicycle, since the island is car-free, along gravel tracks that lead to the Fossil Cliffs and up Bishop and Clerk, a rocky peak.
Park the motorcycle at Triabunna, where the town has fuel and cafes, and book the ferry in advance in summer. Wind and sea conditions can cancel sailings, and the weather changes quickly, so carry waterproofs.