Tasmania (Northern Region)

Marrawah
From Smithton the Bass Highway cuts across the northwest corner to the rich farming settlement of MARRAWAH on the west coast. Situated on the top corner of the West Coast Marrawah is a small village surrounded by rich farming land and scenic coastline. There are great places to camp at Green Point, and Arthur River, 15km to the south provides excellent fishing and is a great place for collectors of driftwood.

Thirty kilometres along the way, a 1500-metre trail leads through a swamp at the grumpily named Dismal Swamp Nature Reserve. Marrawah itself has a small store, and the Marrawah Tavern serves plain but filling meals. Greenpoint Beach, which has been voted one of the three best surfing beaches in Australia, is 2km from Marrawah and has a small camping area.

Apart from that, there’s self-contained accommodation at Glendonald Cottage on the Arthur River Road. The curve of Ann Bay here is shrouded by the hump of Mount Cameron West to the north. Three kilometres north of this bluff, at the end of a long exposed beach, is the most complex Aboriginal art site in Tasmania: rock carvings of geometric or non-figurative forms cover slabs of rock at the base of a cliff. Aboriginal carvings at Mt Cameron West show a remarkable similarity to carvings in Central Australia.