Rainforest

Tasmania’s west receives most of the rainfalls of the country. The landscape is hilly – mountainous with some of the tips reaching over the treeline. In the valleys grows temperate rainforest, in the higher areas mostly wet sclerophyll scrub (Leptospermum etc.). The higher areas are dominated by buttongrass moorlands – and you can find there also some carnivorous plants :-) like Drosera auriculata, D. binata and Utricularia dichotoma. Really beautiful are those rainforests with their millions of different variations of green, their scents and all those shapes. It can only be a bit challanging to get there .. at least when it has been stormy the night before ..

In the rainforest there are interestingly trees which remind me on mainland Australia like those eucalypt trees. Then, there are also those beautiful tree ferns again (Dicksonia antarctica) which remind me a lot of New Zealand, although they also grow on mainland Australia. Funnily, in those rainforests grows also a lot of Nothofagus trees, here N. cunninghamii. Nothofagus grows with a lot of species in New Zealand were it is called Southern beech. Here it is called myrtle and exists only with two species, that one mentioned above and N. gunnii which forms with some other species like snow gums and pencil pines the treeline in the mountains. Those beeches are pretty special for most Australians, because they are deciduous trees – something which is quite normal for Europeans etc. but does not seem to occur on Australian mainland.

Nothofagus cunninghamii leaves

N. gunnii leaves. This small tree/shrub actually reminds me a lot of the mountain birches which form the treeline in Scandinavia.

 Pademelon

 Rainforest lodge in the former mining village of Corinna. The large forest areas of the west have long been the "wild west" of Tasmania, difficult to access and rich in minerals. There are a lot of adventurous stories of miners finding their way into the wilderness and working under difficult (wet and cold) conditions. Later on mining and logging became more industrial - and there were hard fights between nature conservists and those industries. Nowadays most of the western rainforests are protected and are on the world heritage list.

There are some tourist facilities but not a lot, which is quite nice. You can to things like walking and kayaking in calm and enjoy the nature ..