Tasmania

Western Region

The western region of Tasmania is one of the most rugged and spectacular areas in Australia, much of which is included in Tasmania's acclaimed World Heritage area. If you enjoy bushwalking, the west coast and the mountains offer some of the most rewarding trails in the country. 

Try the 85km track from Lake St Clair to Cradle Valley or for the accomplished bushwalker the stunning 150km coastal track in the South-West National Park. Other attractions include exhilarating white water rafting and some of the best trout fishing in the World. 

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World Heritage Area
Up until the nineteenth century, the concept of wilderness was overwhelmingly that of a malevolent force, untamed by man. In the late twentieth century, especially for jaded inhabitants of the technologically swamped developed world, the image is increasingly becoming a benign one: the natural as opposed to the artificial, virgin forest as opposed to polluted streets, the spiritual versus the material. It’s the lure of this ideal of wilderness that attracts a certain type of traveller to Tasmania, to commune with nature at its most unspoilt. The state’s vast wilderness areas of the South West National Park, Franklin Lower Gordon Wild Rivers National Park and the adjacent Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair National Park make up the World Heritage Area, recognized by UNESCO.

In 1972 the flooding of the beautiful and unique Lake Pedder led to the formation, in 1976, of the Wilderness Society, which began a relentless campaign against the next plan for the southwest by the Hydro Electricity Commission (HEC), which was to build a huge dam on the Lower Gordon River that would efface Tasmania’s last wild river, the Franklin. Pro-HEC forces included the then Tasmanian Premier Robin Gray. Years of protests and campaigns ensued, but in 1981 the whole southwest area was proposed for the World Heritage list. The Franklin Blockade, organized by the Wilderness Society and led by Dr Bob Brown, began on December 14, 1982, the day the southwest officially joined the list – a fact the Tasmanian government was choosing to ignore.

For two months, blockaders from all over Australia travelled upriver from their base in Strahan to put themselves in front of the bulldozers at the site, in nonviolent protest. The blockade attracted international attention, notably when the British botanist David Bellamy joined in the protest and was among the twelve hundred or so arrested for trespassing. During the course of the campaign, the Labor government of Bob Hawke was voted in, and in March 1983, following a trailblazing High Court ruling, the federal government forbade further work by the HEC.

Local people who supported the “Greenie” protesters showed a lot of courage, in the face of antagonism within the community. Though the blockade itself had failed to stop work on the dam, it had changed, or at least challenged, the opinion of many Australians. Particularly on Tasmania’s west coast, communities and families were split over the Franklin issue, as resentment grew towards the mainlanders, who were regarded as denying potential employment to Tasmanians. Recent Wilderness Society campaigns have only added to these tensions.

A10 Route to the West Coast
From Somerset, a suburb of Burnie on the shores of Emu Bay, the A10 (called the Murchison Highway between here and the Zeehan turn-off) heads to Queenstown, in the heart of Tasmania’s west-coast mining area. This major route to the west coast is relatively recent; prior to 1932 the coast was accessible only by sea. Following the highway, after 10km you pass YOLLA, a picturesque little town surrounded by rich farming country; there are a couple of places here to fill up with fuel. 

A few kilometres past the Tewkesbury turn-off, the rural landscape ends and the road rises and winds through temperate rainforest to the Hellyer Gorge State Reserve. You can take a walk through spicy ferns and dense myrtle forest to the Hellyer River and back on a wide and easy track (20min return). Once through the reserve, you’re confronted with the shocking spectacle of a landscape ravaged by logging. By the time you reach the B23 turn-off west to Waratah, on the way to the Pieman River, the forest is beginning to reassert itself.

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Maps
wpe181.jpg (175249 bytes) Tasmania, incl. Flinders and King island