Bird River Western Tasmania

February 2, 2020

The Bird River has been on my radar for a very long time and I finally got out to see it over the Australia day long weekend.

Tasmania’s magnificent Bird River

The walk is accessed from Queenstown, and includes roughly an hours drive on mostly unsealed roads. The final 5 km is very narrow and recommended as 4 wheel drive only, mainly because in order to pass oncoming traffic you will need to get off the road and the side of the road is quite soft.

Bird River Tasmania. Beautiful mossy greens and fast flowing water. What more could a photographer want!

The walk takes you all the way to the abandoned mining town of Pillinger in around 90~120 minutes. Pillinger is in fact also accessible by boat from Strahan. The most picturesque (in my humble opinion) is the area closer to the car park however ie the first 40 minutes or so of the track.

The view from the bridge right at the start of the walk.

The highlight for me was the leatherwood trees, which were in full bloom and the air was filled with the beautiful frangrance that is famously captured in Tasmania’s unique leatherwood honey. The bees were in a frenzy too – one of the commercial honey producers has some hives near the car park and things certainly seemed to be busy there! Hopefully its a good year for the honey producers!

Leatherwood (Eucryphia lucida) tree in full bloom at the start of the track

Leatherwood (Eucryphia lucida) flowers

Fun fact about the leatherwood – apparently there was a fairly strong push to make it Tasmania’s floral emblem, but it lost out to the Blue Gum. Leatherwood seems much better to me!