Derwent Valley And Central Highlands Guides Attractions Events in Tasmania

Bothwell is the gateway to the central highland and was settled by Scottish pioneer farmers in the early 1820s. It has wide open streets, and lovely 19th century buildings. As you would expect it sits on the Clyde River, where Australia’s first herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle grazed, and, of course, the first golf course was laid, in the mid-1830s. Today you can play Ratho’s nine holes and visit the Australasian Golf Museum.
Walking round the town is to walk back in time - more than 50 colonial cottages, houses and official buildings (the town’s first library opened in 1837) cluster around the trees and grass of Queens Park. Bothwell is a good base for fishing or exploring.
Bothwell is on the A5, 73 kilometres (45 miles) northwest of Hobart.

Derwent Bridge is on the road to and from the west coast (Highway A10), 2.5 hours’ drive, 186 kilometres (115 miles) from Hobart. It has your basic travelling needs covered – accommodation, petrol station and a wilderness pub.
Derwent Bridge is a good place for an overnight stay, a stop-off on your way west or east, or to use as a base when exploring Lake St Clair-Cradle Mountain National Park just five kilometres (three miles) away. This area is also renowned for its fly fishing and there are dozens of nearby lakes to choose from.

The Derwent Valley takes its name from the mighty river that rises at Lake St Clair and includes rich farmlands, rural settlements named by Scots and Irish settlers, and rugged escarpments and forests.
It’s a valley of tough pioneers, explorers, bushmen, dam builders and bush rangers. Their stories begin in the historic town of New Norfolk, with its fine collection of heritage buildings. Look for Australia’s oldest Anglican church, the quaint toll house by the bridge, and the Oast House Museum, where the scent of hops still lingers on. Further on are the Salmon Ponds where the first brown trout were hatched in the late 1800s. Today, their descendants provide some of the world ’s finest fly fishing in Tasmania ’s many lakes, rivers and streams.
Beyond historic farming settlements of Hamilton and Ouse, the highway climbs into the highlands, crossing rivers where power stations harness the boundless energy of falling water. It reaches the stark beauty of the Central Plateau where 10,000 years ago glaciers scraped the rocks bare, carving the cliffs and digging out the bed of Lake St Clair, Australia’s deepest lake.
Turning off the westward highway, your route travels through to the lake country, where once a thick ice cap blanketed the land. Today, a myriad lakes, all teeming with trout, sparkle across the plateau. Largest of all, the Great Lake stretches from the fishing settlement of Miena to Breona in the north, where the partially unsealed road begins to descend through tall forests with cascading waterfalls.
Descending south-eastwards from Miena, the landscape gradually softens, and the place names reflect a European heritage - Nant, Cluny, Dennistoun - and Bothwell, a stately town on the edge of the wild country. It was Nant that John Mitchel, the Irish journalist and member of the Young Irelander political group, was housed until he escaped with the help of the New York Irish..

Hamilton is a pretty town on the Clyde River about 74 kilometres (45 miles) northwest of Hobart.
Prospect Villa and Garden, not far from Hamilton, is an amazing example of what a talented and dedicated gardener can do working in an extremely dry landscape. The home is early Georgian sandstone and the garden a series of romantic garden “rooms” abundantly planted and set in a classic design with long vistas through the garden to focal points and panoramic views.
Look out for the charming, Old School House. Convict built in 1858.
The area was settled by Scottish farmers and you can still crofter cottages along with grand old farm houses, including one that is a craft gallery alongside cosy bed and breakfast homes. Hamilton developed as a transport hub and by the 1830s was operating a number of breweries and a roaring illegal spirits trade. The early settlers had big visions and the street foundations reveal the town they dreamt of establishing.
The stories of the town’s lively past are told in the Hamilton Heritage Centre. It’s a quieter place now, but not too quiet - you can fish (Meadowbank Lake is close by), swim, play tennis, go water skiing, and you’re surrounded by beautiful countryside to explore.

This is the destination description for Interlaken

The deepest freshwater lake in Australia (190 metres/623 feet), Lake St Clair was scooped during several glaciations over the past two million years.
The Lake forms the southern boundary of Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park and the finishing point for the Overland Track, one of the world’s best multi-day bushwalks. During summer and autumn (fall), rangers offer a variety of activities such as walks, talks and slide shows for adults and children.
There a number of short walks from the Interpretation Centre around the shores of the Lake at Cynthia Bay (Cynthia Bay is named for the Greek goddess of the moon). Some of the most spectacular walks take three to four hours or overnight – such as the walks to Shadow and Forgotten lakes. A pantheon of dolerite mountains – Mt Olympus, Mt Orthys, Mt Byron and Mt Ida surround Lake St Clair; at the southern end is a drowned moraine – the tumbled rock remains after the glaciations.
The Aboriginal people of the area called the lake Leeawuleena, meaning sleeping water.
Most of Australia’s mammals are nocturnal but at dusk or dawn around Cynthia Bay you are likely to see two species of wallaby – the Bennetts or red-necked wallaby, and the small more timid Tasmanian pademelon. And sometimes wombats and quolls head out after dark; echidnas and platypuses are also common around Cynthia Bay. Birdlife such as black currawongs, strong-billed and black-headed honeyeaters and the yellow wattlebird can be seen and are found only in Tasmania.
Try fishing, boating or the ferry service travelling the 18 kilometre length of the lake, and meet bushwalkers completing the Overland Track.

This is the destination description for Miena

Mt Field National Park is Tasmania’s most accessible national park (90 minutes’ drive west of Hobart on the Rivers Run route or B61) with a diverse glacial landscape showing the island’s geological links to Antarctica. The rocks you walk are at least 170 million years old and the plant life includes giant swamp gums, snow gums, myrtle, sassafras, King Billy pine and Australia’s only endemic deciduous tree the fagus or beech. If you are visiting in late April early May the forests that surround Tarn Shelf are a riot of gold red and orange.

Russell Falls, with its three-tiered drop, is the most visited spot in the Park. You can climb an easy path to the top of the Falls and then continue on to the Tall Trees Walk. Mt Field National Park is home to many of Tasmania’s unique animals such as platypus, echidna, spotted-tail and eastern quoll, Tasmanian devil, bandicoots, wombats, possums, bettong pademelon and much more. The last Tasmanian tiger, on show in the old Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart until 1936, was trapped in the nearby Florentine Valley in 1933.

The visitor centre features interpretation displays, shop and a bistro. Picnic and camping facilities are nearby. Access to the alpine area is via the Lake Dobson Road, which climbs for 16 km through a succession of forest types to reach Lake Dobson and its walking tracks.

Free day and nighttime activities guided by Park Rangers are available during Tasmanian summer school holidays.

Settlers from Norfolk Island established this town on the banks of the River Derwent in 1807 when the Island’s prison was closed. Early townspeople planted hundreds of poplar trees, which in autumn turn bright gold.
The town with its population of more than 5,000 has one of Australia’s last village squares. It is the centre of the hop-growing area and there are several old oast houses (kilns) along the roadside. They aren’t used today but their elegant shapes give valley a deep sense of its history and some have been lovingly converted.
New Norfolk has many old buildings, including one of Australia’s oldest inns, the Bush Inn, and Australia’s oldest Anglican church - St Matthews (1823).
New Norfolk is 20 kilometres (12 miles) north-west of Hobart.

Tarraleah was once home to hundreds of hydro electric workers building one of Australia’s first hydro-electric schemes in Tasmania’s central highlands. Today, the whole town of 1920s and 1930s wooden homes has been restored as an elegant wilderness resort.
Tarraleah means Forrester kangaroo in the language of the local Aboriginal people, and the site is host to an enormous range of Tasmanian flora and fauna. It is quite possible to see platypus and quolls, wallabies, wombats, Tasmanian devils and echidnas wandering around the town all on the same evening, and some say the Tasmanian tiger is also about.
The town’s central Lodge, built in the 1930s for the Hydro engineers and company directors, has been restored to the elegance of its early days when money and craftsmanship were no object. The Art Deco building now houses a contemporary and luxuriously comfortable nine bedroom small luxury hotel – a showcase of Tasmanian art and craft.
The town’s cottage, hand built by Tasmanian craftsmen in the 1930s, have also been restored as self-contained one to three bedroom holiday cottages.
Tarraleah is 114 kilometres (70 miles), or two hours’ drive, northwest of Hobart on the A10 Highway between Hamilton and Lake St Clair. Geographically it is 20 kilometres from the physical centre of Tasmania, right on the edge of the World Heritage Area – Franklin Gordon Wild Rivers National Park and Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. Look out for the huge water pipes which “tumble” down the side of a valley near the chalet.
The weather in the central highlands is often wild and woolly, and because of the slightly higher elevation it is cooler in the summer and winter. So remember to bring a warm jacket and wet weather gear.