Lake Country on Tasmania’s High Plateau

Overview

Central Plateau is a big, open subalpine landscape in Tasmania’s interior, known for its moorlands, scattered tarns and broad sweep of high country on the northern edge of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. It sits between Great Lake to the east and Walls of Jerusalem National Park to the west, and its sheer number of lakes and lagoons has earned it the name the land of a thousand lakes.

What stands out here is the sense of space. Much of the plateau is treeless or only lightly wooded, so the country feels wide and exposed, with water appearing almost everywhere across the landscape.

Highlights

The defining scenery is water on a grand scale: small glacial tarns, larger lakes and the Nineteen Lagoons spread across a high, windswept plateau. On clear days, the outlook stretches a long way, and peaks associated with the Overland Track can be seen from parts of the area.

The landforms are just as distinctive as the lakes. Many of the tarns were shaped by glacial action between about 8,000 and 20,000 years ago, and near Lake Augusta there are alpine lunettes, or sand dunes, formed after the last glacial period. They are unusual enough to give this part of the plateau a character that feels quite separate from other Tasmanian high country.

Best Time to Visit

Summer and early autumn are generally the most straightforward times to appreciate the plateau’s open country, lakes and long views, especially when the higher ground is more accessible and the moorlands are free of winter snow and ice. That said, this is a high-altitude place, so even in warmer months it tends to feel cooler and more exposed than lower parts of Tasmania.

Winter brings a starker version of the landscape, with frozen water and snow giving the plateau a very different mood. If you enjoy alpine scenery, that season has its own appeal, though the country looks and feels much harsher.

Plants and Animals

Central Plateau supports a rich mix of alpine and subalpine life. Pencil pine grows here, including around Pine Lake, and this ancient Tasmanian conifer is one of the most distinctive plants of the highlands.

Animal life ranges from wombats, spotted-tail quolls, wallabies, ringtail possums and long-nosed potoroos to a good spread of birdlife, including yellow-tailed black cockatoos and Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles. The lakes and wetlands are also important in their own right, with aquatic invertebrates that include unique and endemic species such as mountain shrimp and burrowing crayfish. Across the broader Central Plateau region, the natural values are especially significant for their flora, fauna, wetlands and geoconservation features.