Where are the apples?

What distinguishes Tasmania from the Australian states and territories on the mainland is its greenery.   Australia is generally a very dry continent, but Tasmania, apart from several inland areas and Flinders Island, gets adequate rainfall, making Tasmania the wettest state in Australia.  Visitors say Tasmania more closely resembles New Zealand over a thousand miles away than it does other states of Australia.  Unfortunately, where it resembles the mainland is in its crappy soils.  Tasmania has its own collection of wildlife which developed independently to the animals on the mainland.  The most famous is the Tasmanian devil, who in real life looks nothing like he does in the Looney Tunes cartoons. A facial tumor disease has been spreading rapidly through the devil population since 2005 and killing most of them off.  The bulk of travelers in Tasmania are other Australians from the mainland, and the preferred means of shacking up is camping in a tent in one of the state's 19 national parks or just out in the middle of nowhere.  The nightlife outside the state capital of Hobart (and even within it) is quite subdued by mainland standards.  Foreigners looking to par-tay and do a sleazy Aussie seduction find better hunting grounds in Sydney and Brisbane.  Furthermore, Tasmania, with its roads veering off in multiple directions and its sporadic island-wide transport, doesn't lend itself to skint backpackers getting around easily.   Owning or renting a car is a must here.  The best months to visit are during the Australian summer and early autumn, between December and March.  Even then, it can get chilly at night.  When I visited from mid-February to mid-March, I froze my behind on more than one night, expecting the weather to be similar to Melbourne.   A low temperature sleeping bag should've been brought along, and it wasn't.  Visit in the winter and it will become very cool and wet, not the ideal conditions for trekking on the 2,000 km of world-class Tasmanian walking tracks. Tasmania is attempting to carve out a niche for high-end produce.  Raspberry farms, wineries, boutique cheese shops, homemade ice creams are all the rage nowadays.   Emaciated refugees come to Tasmania to fatten up before being deported.