The Highlands

An easy drive from the lodge is Liffey Falls, arguably the prettiest falls in the state, nestled within a cool temperate rain forest on the slopes of the Great Western Tiers. Framed by the dominant species of Tasmania’s cool temperate rain forests – myrtle, sassafrass and leatherwood, the falls are understandably a popular spot among both Tasmanian’s and visitors alike. A nature walk leads from a picnic area near the car park down through forests of towering eucalyptus and tree ferns to the falls. A number of smaller falls are passed along the way.

The Liffey Falls State Reserve was included within the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in 1989, a tribute to the globally significant value of the region. The area reveals a rich human heritage and insights into the forces which shaped the landscape over the past 250 million years.

The Central Highlands is also home to several golf courses, including Australia’s oldest. The course at Bothwell (named after the last husband of Mary, Queen of Scots) on the Clyde River has been in continuous use since 1822, and is also a working sheep farm which has necessitated the rule that if you hit a sheep you can play that shot again.

Housing the Australasian Golf Museum – located at the Bothwell Information Centre with the largest collection of golf memorabilia in the Southern hemisphere.

Bothwell, settled by Scottish grazers in the 1820s, has retained its 19th-century ambience. With 53 classified buildings, some housing arts, crafts, old wares and collectibles, it is a place where bushrangers roamed and young Irelanders settled into a harsher lifestyle than they had ever dreamt of knowing. Local cemetery gravestones tell their stories of hardship and provide a focus for historians.

On the way to Bothwell, you may encounter an unexpected surprise on the side of the road – Stephen Walker’s bronze sculptures depicting highland life. Then just north a few hundred metres north, the Old Steppes homestead, another monument to a life gone by in the highlands and its pioneers.

At Derwent Bridge, a short drive from the Lodge, ‘The Wall in the Wilderness’ is Australia’s most ambitious art project to be undertaken in recent years. It is expected to take 10 years to complete and will eventually consist of 100 sculpted panels each three metres high and one metre wide.

This series of story panels as well as numerous three-dimensional works will be sculpted predominantly in timber, unlocking the history, hardship and perseverance of the people of the Central Highlands, Tasmania, paying homage to the individuals upon whose labour rests our own quality of life.

The murals are carved out of rare Huon pine and feature panels five metres high, telling the stories of pioneering development of the harsh Central Highlands, beginning with the indigenous people, to timber harvesters, to pastoralists, to hydroelectricity and mining.

A five-minute drive from Derwent Bridge is Lake St Clair, a magnificent natural lake at the southern end of the famous Overland Track in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Claire National Park. Here you can combine a ferry cruise with an easy lakeside walk.

Learn about Tasmania’s hydroelectric power stations, how the rivers and lakes are harnessed to create the cleanest energy in the world and produce two-thirds of Tasmania’s power. They then flow on to provide irrigation water for dairy farms, prime lamb production, cherries, hops and poppy crops. Waddamana Power Station opened in 1916 and is now a museum. You can also visit Tarraleah and Poatina Power Stations.