THE WILD and rugged coast of Tasmania is somewhere many Australians don't even get to visit. Yet this tiny green island at the bottom of the world is fast becoming the place where luxury and landscape meet. Nowhere does his happen more dramatically than at Avalon Coastal Retreat a private modernist fantasy perched like a crystal box on the edge of the cliff looking out at Oyster Bay and Maria island. You want views? This is the place. The Luxury Travel Bible has rarely come across better anywhere in the world. Built of steel girders and glass by award-winning architect Craig Rosevear on the edge of the Freycinet Peninsula, Avalon Coastal Retreat lets the outside in; the sea and the sky and air and space are all around you.

Three bedrooms all with glass walls have queen sized Stuart Houghton made Tasmanian oak beds and there is even a bath made from local Huon pine. Luxury touches are found in the Bose surround-sound and Melle beauty toiletries and the fact that wetsuits, backpacks, boogie boards and a numbr of other grown-up toys and treats are all provided.

Staring out at the view is like looking at an ever changing artist's canvas as the sky streaks crimson at sunset or the sea is a smudge of grey and blue at dawn. You hardly need anything else to look at but when you do you'll find that modern art adorns the walls and sculptures are scattered in the garden.

If you can bear to leave all that beauty you can take an evening wildlife tour of Freycinet National Park and see quolls, wallabies, possums and Tasmanian Devils. Get out on the water and charter a boat to dive the Marine Sanctuary at nearby Bicheno or go fishing.

Or simply get the wind in your hair and sand between your toes and play beachcomber along the wild Tassie coast.