SIMON WESTAWAY – Actor

I’m in the Tarkine Wilderness in Tasmania and I’m staring at a map! It’s not something I do, what with ‘Sat Nav’ and GPS in every late model gadget. Its a good ole’ map with latitude and longitude and a legend and grid markings, There’s a model number informing the rescue services - if the game changes, they all know where I am.  How they will get here is another matter – there’s not many roads – its pretty much all undiscovered crown land.

Crown Land is owned by all of us isn’t it?   This remote untouched wilderness, one of the last temperate rainforest stands in the world is 60 million years old!   Cook’s Ship ‘The Endeavour’, made of oak, was a seedling when the trees in front of me were young saplings. Australian dinosaurs lived here once and later the indigenous Tarkiner people.Their ancient middens on the Tarkine coast are reminders of  thousands of years of undisturbed living.

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A D9 Dozer (a bulldozer with a large blade it the front) cut an exploratory track through here six years ago, the evidence it left behind is heartbreaking, This area is fragile and old, Trees 400 to 600 years stand proud – myrtles, eucalypts, celery top pines.  Old man ferns by the hundreds thrive as nature intended below the dappled canopy. The Huskisson River, wild and pristine, seen by only a handful of persons, flows undammed and uninterrupted an hour or two’s walk away.

I’m here for an ’Into The Blue Writers and Meditation’ course, hosted by Tarkine Trails, a group of people who care passionately about raising awareness about this extraordinary place. In our intelligently designed low impact camp, nestled in the moss covered wonderland, I’m reminded of  Banjo Patterson ‘s ‘ visions splendid’ and ‘wonderful silence deep’.  Black Cockatoo’s punctuate the sound of air moving through the wind swept canopy above me. Its a long way to the top – I don’t think that’s what AC/DC had in mind,

I am informed by my Tarkine guide Trev, that this area may still be logged – a  60 million year old wilderness brought down for toilet paper and wood chips, with mining exploration and a 23 million dollar tourist road posing an immediate threat. I accept that for some, driving the latest SUV to a car park to see the giant   600 year old Myrtle, a waterfall and some ancient mega fauna may be as close as they are going to get, but there have to be far less invasive ways to enter a place like this.

The wind carries a unique cry  – the Tarkine needs conservation action!  It is now a contender for world heritage listing but the movement needs support. These former tree hugging greenies set up Tarkine Trails to illustrate the potential of eco tourism in this area and to give it the value it deserves. Visitors from all over the world have traveled with them on a range of walking trips through the old growth forest and along its spectacular coastline.  Tapping into an international tourist market of people who want to make a difference as they travel, is just one part of the campaign.

Cradle Mountain and the Franklin are great Tasmanian success stories! Getting those ‘little buggers’ out of the trees would have been very tricky, but thank god for them. Integrity has a higher value in a place like this.  The time is ripe for another success story in the Tarkine and I aim to be a part of it. My boots are going to get muddy if D9”s are the future!

As you can see my New Years trip to Tassie was more than a little life changing, but I must leave you with this important question:

Sleeping bag

Sleeping bag cover

Why do you never fit with each other!

Simon Westaway is an Australian Actor and Voice over Artist

If you want to visit or help the Tarkine:

Tarkine Trails: www.tarkinetrails.com.au

Tarkine Coalition: www.tarkine.org

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