Natural beauty meets absolute peace at this riverside retreat in Tasmania

Where: Riversdale Farm, Swansea, Tasmania

How much: From $590 (low-season) to $890 a night

Seventh-generation Tasmanian Mathew Routley felt lucky when he bought Riversdale Farm - an old sheep-grazing property on the banks of the Swan River - in 2019.

It was Routley's lifelong ambition to work more harmoniously with nature. He established a 340-hectare regenerative beef farm and then, this year, launched an off-grid sustainable living experience with Swan River Sanctuary, a lodge that lies about 10 minutes' drive north of Swansea on Tasmania's east coast.

We are alone, no human in sight, just Hereford cattle grazing beside a river sculpted into landscape. We sip away amber sunsets on a wide verandah watching the slow current that glides, eventually, into Moulting Lagoon Conservation Area, a large wetland of extraordinary beauty at the northern end of Great Oyster Bay at the rim of Freycinet National Park.

We cannot take eyes off this river beneath our feet. It's fringed by a thick pelt of green, the accidental conservation of gullies noisy with birdlife and thick with yellow-blossomed acacia trees.

This intimately comfortable "lodge" sits on the brow of a hill. Style leans slightly towards "ranch" with vintage rug, leather sofa, snake skin and bleached driftwood piled on the mantelpiece of a river stone fireplace. It's simple but smart design powered by the elements - eco-savvy living for six guests - with panoramic views through huge windows.

White settlers have farmed these lands for generations, through good times and bad, vestiges of the old world retained in an eclectic mix of furnishings. An 1860s dining table flips with hidden lever into a pool table and a gargantuan Bohemian chandelier crowns the main room with metallic stag horns. It's a brilliant adornment.

Our host makes a polite request to leave boots at the door. From the hallway, past two bedrooms into a living space - a natural trilogy of shell, wood, stone - there's another eye-catching marvel in a towering wall of pearly abalone armour stacked row upon row towards a high vaulted ceiling.

The finishing touch is a warm hug of macrocarpa wood that wraps throughout the retreat into bedrooms and bathrooms and, upstairs, to the master bedroom with in-room stone bath. It wouldn't be right to leave this place without lying sluggishly in sudsy water while fixated upon the sprawling country out of another picture window. Off-grid living means finding warmth in ways that don't consume power so bedrooms don't have heaters but they're cosily warm with wool rugs and hot water bottles.

An open kitchen will satisfy most culinary enthusiasts and an in-house chef can be arranged, but we head for the least conspicuous eatery in Swansea: the 1980s-built red-brick Waterloo Inn.

Afterwards, there's a Scandinavian-esque cube for recovery of body warmth in the wood-fired sauna (at extra cost), or we could go black bream fishing. Instead we play at being creatures of habit in Bicheno, about 40 minutes' drive away, checking out the wine bar and the second-hand shop, conversing with fisher folk about life at sea. When the day is done, back at the lodge, we gaze at the moon in a crystal night sky.

Breakfast with birds in this perfect position beside a river. Proximity by car to the coastal sweet spots of Swansea and Bicheno with cold climate vineyards along the way (Milton, Devils Corner) and a salty dozen from Melshell Oyster Shack at Dolphin Sands.

Explore more: swanriversanctuary.com.au

The writer was a guest of Swan River Sanctuary.