Tarkine Wilderness Tasmania

Tasmania’s heatwave continues and the coastal winds are still very gusty as we pull out of of the camp at Marrawah. We head south to Arthur River and go to a the Edge of The World Lookout. It got its name because from this point you would need to travel more than halfway around the planet, on the longest uninterrupted expanse of water (the Indian Ocean) before hitting land again in Argentina. Wow! We watch the tannin waters of the Arthur River spill into the sea. The wild waves have swept tree trunk sized logs of drift wood onto the rocks. 

A little further south we turn towards the east along the Tarkine Forest Drive. We were lucky to get spots at the small camping area at Julius River. 

After lunch we went for a walk along the board walk under the shade of the man ferns and the tall Leatherwood trees. 

Then returned to camp for the rest of the day.

Today we continued the Tarkine Forest Drive. As the cool change had come bringing some wet weather we opted for just stopping to have a look at just a few spots along the way. The Tarkine Wilderness Area is 447,000 hectares and is Australia’s largest tract of unprotected temperate rainforest. 

Our first stop was at the sinkhole which was absolutely enchanting with its dark waters ringed by bright green algae and ferns.

We continue the drive for another 21km to Tayatea Bridge which crosses the Arthur River. 

Next we turned off the bitumen to the Trowutta Arch. We walked 10 mins through a beautiful and interesting rainforest to a stunning collapsed cave that exposed a sinkhole covered in green algae. We were totally enthralled with the uniqueness of the place. 

From here we had to double back along the coast road as we could not fit on the ferry at Corinna, a ‘shortcut’ to go to Strahan. We stopped again at Smithton to fill up on food, fuel and dump. Just before Burnie we turned off and headed south to Ridgley to a $10 camp on a dairy farmers’ property adjacent to the bowls and sporting club and a small dam.