It takes quite a while to get to the North West Coast of Tasmania from Chudleigh and Launceston.
But it is definitely worth the drive to see the amazing landscape and countryside unfold, especially around Table Cape, Boat Harbour Beach, and Rocky Cape (not photographed unfortunately). This is a remote part of Tasmania.
We arrived on Friday afternoon to our Smithton base for the weekend, after a major diversion to Devonport to source the ‘world’s best’ chips. Fortunately we had just enough space in our car to ferry the XXL takeaway package to Smithton.
Our adventure on the Tarkine Drive - a tourist oriented driving tour that takes you through the heart of the beautiful Tarkine - started on the next day after a very leisurely brunch at our Airbnb.
The drive takes you through the second largest temperate Gondwana rainforest in the world, an area of immense cultural and environmental significance. Takayna, as it is known by the local Aboriginal people, is today an environmental hotspot, with loggers, miners and activists going head to head in the fight for its conservation.
What was astonishing to see as we started the drive was the amount of plantations, logging and farmland so close to - what should be - a world heritage area. Organisations such as the Bob Brown Foundation, are at the forefront of alerting international attention to what is being done in the shadows here.
It seems privilege, money, and sense of entitlement rule in what is a natural oasis in the north west and western part of Tasmania. Every year the Bob Brown Foundation (BBF) holds the Takayna Trail, an ultra race whose participants raise money for the right to run in the pristine environment, as well as to support the efforts of conservationists.
We were about to pack ourselves into one car in an attempt to take in the enormity of the Tarkine’s history, diversity, uniqueness, beauty and purity in one day. An ambitious feat and it was clear we weren’t about to see everything. While it wasn’t our first taste of the Tarkine, having done the Western Explorer from Marrawah down to Corinna and Mt Donaldson bushwalk on a previous Map of Tassie event, it was going to be a day rich in breathtaking short walks.
While the drive is marketed towards self-drive grey nomads and the like, there are more immersive ways to discover it such as on foot and by kayak, discovering the numerous waterways, beach and rainforest tracks that wind through its hundreds of thousands of hectares.
Its wild coastline is also easily accessible from Marrawah and Arthur River, linking destinations further south such as Corinna and the Pieman River, Strahan and Macquarie Harbour, and the remote southwest’s Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour.
Our first port of call for that day was Trowutta Arch, a collapsed limestone cave with a green sinkhole pool, surrounded by manferns and giant eucalypts. Arriving at the arch was both like stepping back in time and into another dimension - a cliche I know, but something you repeatedly experience in Tasmania.
At the trailhead to Trowutta Arch.
Interesting tree shape.
The track to the arch and sinkhole.
The sinkhole.
The arch in the background.
The arch above.
The sinkhole… there is a small track to the right that goes around this larger sinkhole to a smaller one.
Close up of the limestone.
The drive was going to take us to numerous sinkholes, but our next destination was the Milkshake Hills Regional Reserve, where we embarked on an easy hour’s return walk to the lookout with an amazing vista of the country we were in. Views could be seen all the way to the Bass coast, Stanley and surrounds.
Bearded tree on the Milkshake Hills lookout track.
Spider like roots.
Fungi at work.
On the way to the lookout, we passed through a rainforest with numerous mini mud volcanoes in (what I guessed) was the Julius River bed, which we realised were made by the endemic Tasmanian crayfish.
Crayfish mounds.
Further along we started the climb up and out of the rainforest, and could see the bare milkshake hills. As we looked back, it was easy to see where the river winded its path thanks to the dead trees that were crowded around the river. We wondered if their die off had been due to bushfire or some kind of toxin/poisoning, but the cause and the reason why the hills had been named after a milkshake, would remain elusive.
Native spring flower.
Dead trees along the river bed.
The first milkshake hill.
The girls give the thumbs up.
Above the rainforest, the hills and plains were covered in button grass, wildflowers, and a variety of natives. As we came back down, we did the short Julius River rainforest boardwalk, and then stopped at the car for a pit stop and snack.
We piled into the car again and headed towards Lake Chisholm, with a quick stop at one of many sinkholes along the way.
Sinkhole meditation.
The walk down to Lake Chisholm, yet another sinkhole, proved just how diverse each corner of the Tarkine is, packed full of hard fern undergrowth, native laurel flowering and wet eucalypt forest. For comparison Trowutta Arch had featured giant man ferns and sparse undergrowth.
The track in to Lake Chisholm.
Eucalypt forest.
It’s always about the trees. Check out the size of that base.
Lake Chisholm
Lake meditation.
Lake meditation.
These stunning locations and many more are virtually one after the other on the Tarkine Drive, which snakes through the rainforest at a 50kph pace, with views of the Arthur River now and again as you head towards Sumac Lookout.
Deb Hunter had told me about a bushwalk into an old activist camp she had been part of near Sumac Lookout. While we didn’t have time to stop and search for it, we did see the Arthur River far down below us, suddenly realising just how high we had driven up. As time was against us, we decided to make our way back to Smithton and our Airbnb.
The next morning we had to check out, and the drive back home was long, so we opted for a break at Dip Falls, instead of going back to Sumac Lookout to finish what we had started the day before.
Dip Falls is an amazing tiered waterfall with an impressive stepped basalt rock feature that the falls tip over.
Close by is a grove of ‘big trees’ - old ladies who stand proud as sole survivors of the once great eucalypt giants of Tasmania. Well worth visiting and paying your respects.
Morning sun streaming through the rainforest.
Stepped dolerite rock.
Dip Falls.
If you have the time to do the Tarkine Drive, the eastern end is a great place to start, and you’ll need more than 1.5 days to do it in, if you want to savour and appreciate the magnitude and magnificence of the region.
The weekend was too short, and it was rather sad to leave the lovely atmosphere of our Airbnb in Smithton. We had a great gang of girls and the drive definitely whetted our appetites for more Tarkine exploration, so hopefully we’ll be back! Thanks for the great time to all those who came along and enjoyed the ride.