The Port Arthur Ghost Tour

The Port Arthur ghost tour is the Historic Site’s own: a 90-minute, lantern-lit walk through the settlement after dark, Wednesday to Sunday, A$35 an adult (November 2026). From October to March tours leave at 7 pm, about 8:15 pm and 9 pm; from April to September at 6 pm and 8 pm. You book it with the Historic Site, not with a tour company, and no day tour from Hobart includes it: they all leave Port Arthur in the afternoon.

The short answer

Book it directly with the Port Arthur Historic Site, for an evening when you have a car or a bed on the Tasman Peninsula: the last tour of the night ends around 10:30 pm in summer, about 90 minutes’ drive from Hobart. This page sells nothing for it, because there is nothing to sell: when this page was checked in November 2026, neither GetYourGuide nor Viator listed a ghost tour at Port Arthur or a transfer to it, and no operator page offered an evening coach from Hobart.

Times and tickets

Times from the Port Arthur Historic Site’s ghost tour page, November 2026. The page gives the middle summer departure as 8:20 pm in one place and 8:15 pm in another, and says times may vary: check the time for your date when you book.

Tickets are A$35 an adult and A$18 a child (November 2026), booked online with the Historic Site. A ghost tour ticket does not include daytime entry to the site, and the daytime ticket does not include the ghost tour. Arrive 15 to 30 minutes before your tour to check in and walk to the start point; the car park stays open until 10:30 pm from Wednesday to Sunday. Parking is free.

What it is like

A guide with a lantern leads the group for about 90 minutes and 2 km through some of the settlement’s buildings and ruins after the day visitors have gone, telling stories of unexplained events reported there. The Historic Site says documented ghost stories have been linked with Port Arthur since 1870. Whether you believe them is up to you; the walk itself is a way to see the ruins by lantern light and to hear about the people who lived and died there.

Practical points from the Historic Site: the tour runs in most weather, and umbrellas are not allowed, so bring a rain jacket and warm layers. It goes through dark, uneven heritage buildings and is not suitable for people with restricted mobility or for wheelchairs. For children, the site leaves the call to parents: it says the tour is popular with older children, but may not suit a child who is very young, very active or prone to nightmares, and anyone disrupting a tour may be asked to leave.

Getting there and back after dark

The Historic Site is 95 km by road from Hobart’s waterfront, about 90 minutes’ drive each way. With a car, drive down in the afternoon, eat on the peninsula and drive back after the tour, or stay the night nearby.

Without a car it is hard. The one public bus, route 734 run by Tassielink, leaves Hobart once a day in the afternoon (3:45 pm on weekdays, 3 pm at weekends and on public holidays) and reaches Port Arthur at 5:28 pm or 4:38 pm, which does get you there for an evening tour; but its only bus back to Hobart leaves Port Arthur at 6:13 am on weekdays or 8:02 am at weekends. Taking it means a night on the peninsula. The day tours from Hobart leave Port Arthur in the afternoon, and Pennicott Wilderness Journeys’ day bus leaves at 4:45 pm.

Doing the day and the evening

The site entry is valid for two consecutive days, so one way to do both is a day at the site, a night on the peninsula and the ghost tour in between. Without a car that is hard: the day tours from Hobart leave in the afternoon. How long to allow at Port Arthur sets out what fits in a day.