Southwest National Park

Introducing Southwest National Park

There are few places left on our lonely planet as isolated and untouched as the southwest wilderness. This is Tasmania’s largest national park, home to some of the world’s last tracts of virgin temperate rainforest; a place of ancient grandeur and extraordinary diversity.

The southwest is the habitat of the endemic Huon pine, which can live for more than 3000 years, and the swamp gum, the world’s tallest hardwood and tallest flowering plant. Around 300 species of lichen, moss and fern – some of which are rare and endangered – dapple the rainforest with shades of green; glacial tarns seamlessly mirror snowy mountaintops; and in summer, picture-perfect alpine meadows explode with wildflowers. Untamed rivers charge through the landscape, rapids surging through gorges and waterfalls plummeting over cliffs.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009