Czeching Out Tasmania

The Tasman peninsula is renowned for its spectacular walks, mainly the coastal cliff walks that line its beautiful capes. Further inland however, there’s this little adventure in the woods, Clarks Cliffs. It’s an 8km walk through thick eucalypt forest that is at times tranquil and other times rather challenging. On the day we ventured into the woods, the sun was cracking the rocks and well into the 30s. I was glad we were going to be in the shade.

We were the only people on the trail that morning, which sounds wonderful and romantic but the reality is……spiders. The trail was lined with webs hanging from almost every tree and with the trail being a narrow one, getting a web to the face was inevitable. The solution? Twirling a big stick in front of you and waving it around like Harry Potter’s wand, “Webius Begonius” would probably be the spell we chanted, if we were actual wizards.

The trail gets pretty squirrely at times requiring you to stoop, bend and contort under and over tree branches. Coloured ribbons thankfully mark the way as without them you’d be the needle in a haystack of forest. Where a tree has fallen (and many of them have) the track simply diverts around it, making the trail probably far longer than it usually would be.

As I mentioned before, it was a scorcher of a day when we did this walk but Gemma had done it a few months before in the pouring rain and it was quite muddy going. She also dropped her phone at the cliffs so if you’ve got a metal detector and some ropes, there’s a free (slightly used/damaged) phone up there if you want it 🙂

To get to Clarks Cliffs, drive onto the Tasman Peninsula and head for Port Arthur along the A9. Head onto the Nubeena Road (B37) and continue along here for almost 5km and you’ll see a sign for Clarks Cliffs along the Fire Tower Road. Drive on up the road for another while, past a few properties, including a quirky looking place selling fruit and you’ll reach the start of the walk. Don’t forget your twirling stick 🙂