The Tarkine

I’ve heard of the Tarkine. I’m not certain I knew where it was in Tasmania, and if I had any pre-conceived notions about what it was, they were almost certainly wrong. Today was our journey through some of the Tarkine, and what a glorious day we had to do it.

The Tarkine seems to be an area of largely wilderness country to the north of Macquarie Harbour and to the west of Cradle Mountain. To make generalisations in characterising it would be to make a mistake, and to assume it is all wilderness would be similar folly. It is in the news and people’s minds because it is the next green frontier – at the point where the worlds of development and conservation collide. It is wilderness because the land is largely inhospitable – windswept because it cops the brunt of the roaring forties making landfall, wet, because it gets up to 3m of rain each year, and although it is drier in summer, it can rain pretty much most of the time, and it does. It is also unsuited to agriculture of any kind. Indeed there are apparently only two operating farms in western Tasmania.

However, the Tarkine is Tasmania’s mineral country. A wide variety of rocks from many different geological ages has brought forth tin, gold, copper, silver, lead, cadmium, tungsten, coal, iron and probably some others I have forgotten. As the values of these commodities has waxed and waned, so too has the interest in exploiting them over the past 140 years. To mine successfully in this inhospitable climate, remote from both manpower and markets, requires men with resolve and a worthwhile return. The fact that shafts were sunk 1000 feet deep into solid rock highlights the dreams of the investors.  As technology has advanced, the value locked up in the Tarkine can again be commercially exploited. The value of it remaining wilderness is harder to calculate, and it is just that calculation that will fuel the fight that will inevitably evolve.

 

Zeehan was a mining town setup in the mid 1800s. Any mining in the area is now currently dormant, but there is sufficient civic pride to maintain the town, and more importantly for us, a thriving mining and cultural museum setup in the old Zeehan School of Mines and Metallurgy. I saw it in the early 90s and it was on my must see list. Today it has vastly expanded, now occupying many of the buildings in the main street, including the police station and courthouse, masonic lodge, Gaity Theatre, and also now an underground mining display, steam trains and mining equipment, blacksmith, old cars and other sundry memorabilia from the the glory days of Zeehan. It justified much more time than we could spend.

From Zeehan it was north to Corinna. It is in the heart of the Tarkine, at the crossing of the Pieman river on the fatman ferry, a 2-car cable driven ferry. Unfortunately for us, the road to the north west is now closed due to a land slip which has taken out a section of road, and so we had to head more easterly into more civilised country. However, the Tarkine country was as varied as it was spectacular. Changing from bare buttongrass plains, to towering, forested mountains, lush steep river country, bare white rock and old, dead forests, every turn (and there were plenty of them) offered a new vista.

Through Savage River, a current mine, I think for copper, but may have been zinc, or even iron, and into Waratah. Not sure of its reason for being, but probably a service town. For us, a town attempting to attract tourists with a cheap but well-appointed council caravan park on the lake and neat attention to history.

 

Thinking seriously of taking advantage of this window of glorious weather to head up into the high country of Cradle Mountain tomorrow.