Today, you can still find them - some are gentrified, others less so - and they are a great place to go to meet up with the locals, to hear good bands, or just sit quietly over an ale or wine and a pub meal.

Take a guided pub tour of Hobart’s historic waterfront pubs – or you can just follow your instincts. Within 20 years of settlement Hobart boasted of 50 pubs for its 10,000 inhabitants.

In Launceston you can head off and walk from pub to pub on a self-guided tour.

To help you with your self-guided tour, Steve Hyde and Howard Smith have done the research for you. Their book, Pubs of Tasmania: in Search of the Holy Grail, takes you to every one of Tasmania’s 307 pubs, and lets you in on their secrets: pub accommodation, pub trivia and history, what’s on tap and much more.