Except for the rich beef, dairy and vegetable-growing land along the northwest coast, the western half of Tasmania is an untamed area. The wild west coast , densely forested and battered by the rough Southern Ocean and the Roaring Forties, its shores strewn with huge dead trees washed down from the southwest's many rivers, would probably still be uninhabited if it weren't for the logging and mining industries. This part of the island is very densely populated (by Tasmanian standards), and the Bass Highway , which skirts the northwest coast, passes through two unattractive industrial cities, Devonport and Burnie . Rocky Cape National Park and the town of Stanley (originally built by the Van Diemen's Land Company - VDL - which still owns the northwest corner of the state) are the most interesting places for visitors.

 

Just south of Stanley the highway turns inland to Smithton , marking the beginning of a thickly forested region and a logging heartland. The Bass Highway ends at the tiny settlement of Marrawah , on the west coast (popular with surfers), where it meets the Western Explorer road, which runs south to sleepy Arthur River and then through the Arthur Pieman Protected area to Corinna , where the road heads east via Savage River and Waratah onto the A10 (Murchison Highway). Alternatively, you can continue south wards, taking a barge across the Pieman River (daily 9am-7pm; $11 car, $5.50 bike; tel 03/6446 1170) and then heading on to Zeehan (on the C249) and Strahan (on the B27), on the vast Macquarie Harbour . To reach Strahan on sealed roads, you have to go back to Marrawah and then to Somerset on the northwest coast, from where the Murchison Highway heads south through a copper- and lead-mining backwater. On the way you pass Queenstown , which has been subject to an ecological disaster; its surrounding rainforest has been destroyed, and in its place are bare and chalky hills.

Strahan sits on the edge of the southwest wilderness , an area of rugged coastlines, wild rivers, open plains, thick rainforest and spectacular peaks - the wettest part of Australia after the tropical lowlands of north Queensland. It's mostly inaccessible, except to very experienced and well-prepared bushwalkers, but cruises leave from Strahan to go up the Gordon River , offering a glimpse of its magnificent scenery. Some years ago, a plan to dam the Gordon River below the point where it joins the Franklin River put Strahan at the centre of a struggle between environmentalists and the state government. Eventually the federal government stepped in, and, following a landmark High Court ruling in 1983, the whole of the southwest - including the South West National Park , the Franklin Lower Gordon Wild Rivers National Park and the adjoining heavily glaciated Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park - became a vast, protected World Heritage Area , occupying twenty percent of the land area of the state. From Queenstown, en route east to Hobart, the Lyell Highway provides limited access to the mainly inaccessible Franklin Lower Gordon park, and to Lake St Clair at Derwent Bridge .

It's worth finding a copy of the excellent and comprehensive booklet, Tasmania's West Coast , from a tourist office before you head west.