Alpine Country on the Edge of the Central Plateau

Overview

Mersey Forest sits in Tasmania’s inland north-west, south of Mole Creek, where the roads climb into the high country around the upper Mersey catchment and the northern edge of the Central Plateau. This is a landscape of reservoirs, river valleys, buttongrass plains, wet forest and exposed alpine country, with Lake Rowallan and Lake Mackenzie among the best known names in the area. Parts of the broader Mersey Forest and Lake Mackenzie country also connect with the margins of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

Highlights

The real character of Mersey Forest is in its shift from lower forested valleys into open upland country. Around the higher ground near Lake Mackenzie, the scenery becomes distinctly alpine, with rocky slopes, tarns, peatlands and broad treeless plains. In the wider district, the Mersey River system and the chain of large impoundments give the area a spacious, wind-shaped feel that is quite different from Tasmania’s coastal parks.

This is also a place where the northern rim of the plateau shows its geological muscle. Nearby country around the upper Mersey and the approaches to Walls of Jerusalem is marked by bold escarpments, high tablelands and a sense of elevation that comes from being on the threshold of Tasmania’s central highlands rather than deep inside a single enclosed valley.

Best Time to Visit

The warmer months, from late spring through autumn, are usually the easiest time to appreciate Mersey Forest’s higher country, when alpine vegetation is more accessible and the contrast between forest, moorland and open plateau is at its clearest. Conditions can stay cool at elevation even in summer, while winter brings snow and a much starker look to the landscape.

Plants and Animals

Mersey Forest includes a mix of wet forest, moorland and alpine vegetation communities. In the Lake Mackenzie area, fire-sensitive alpine and subalpine vegetation has been a major focus of ecological work, including pencil pine, sphagnum peatlands, alpine heathland and sedgeland. These communities are part of what makes the area ecologically distinctive, especially where the country rises into the Central Plateau’s colder, wetter environments.

The broader high-country setting supports wildlife typical of Tasmania’s inland plateau and forest margins, although the most notable official detail for this specific area centres on its vegetation values rather than on a single standout animal species.