The West Coast Wilderness Way

This self-drive itinerary includes villages settled by Scots, World Heritage listed wilderness, ingenious railway engineering, and mining pioneers. The drive links the three World Heritage Areas of Cradle Mountain, the wild rivers of the Franklin and lower Gordon River and the wilderness that surrounds Lake St Clair.
Lake St Clair is Australia’s deepest freshwater lake (167 metres), surrounded by mountains matching their legendary namesakes – Achilles, Thetis, Ossa, Olympus and The Parthenon.
The drive passes through the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, and some of the largest remaining tracts of temperate rainforest in the world then spirals into Queenstown with its compelling barren lunar landscape, the result of historic mining practices.
Farther on, vast Macquarie Harbour dwarfs the fishing village of Strahan – gateway to the Gordon River. Macquarie Harbour is also the location of Sarah Island, Tasmania’s first and harshest convict prison.