Walking the Fern Glade Track, Marakoopa Cave

Photograph of creek flowing under ferns and over mossy stones.

The Fern Glade Track is a short walk through rainforest near Mole Creek, Tasmania, Australia. It follows Marakoopa Creek to the mouth of Marakoopa Cave.

The Fern Glade at Marakoopa Cave should not be confused with the Fern Glade Great Short Walk along the Emu River in Burnie, the Fern Glade at Fern Tree on Mount Wellington or the Ferndene fern glade in the Dial Range, Penguin.

Getting there

The Fern Glade Track lies within the Mole Creek Karst National Park, so visitors will need a current National Parks Pass or to buy a ticket for the Marakoopa Cave tour.

To reach the start of the walk, we drove along Liena Road, then turned south onto Mayberry Road and followed it to the Marakoopa Cave ticket office. A car park here gave access to the north end of the Fern Glade Track. Another 500 metres beyond that was the car park for Marakoopa Cave itself, and the south end of the track. All roads and car parks were sealed.

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Walking in Honeycomb Cave, Mole Creek

The karst landscape of Tasmania’s Mole Creek area is famed for its caves. One of the most accessible is Honeycomb Cave.

Caves are not safe places, and the open nature of Honeycomb Cave can be deceptive.  In June 2015 a visitor to Honeycomb Cave suffered a serious fall.  Watch the ground and do not step anywhere you cannot see clearly.  Do not go out of sight of daylight if you are not a trained and equipped caver.

Getting there

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Walking to Westmorland Falls

Photograph of waterfall between tree ferns.

Westmorland Falls flow off the Great Western Tiers, south of Mole Creek, Tasmania, Australia. The falls are short but picturesque and surrounded by rainforest.

Parts of the walking track to the falls were destroyed by floods in January 2011. Replacement work in 2013 included a new bridge and lookout platform. The bridge survived further floods in 2016 but the lookout platform did not. A replacement platform was built further downstream.

These photographs show the state of the track as it was in January 2015. As of January 2017, the repaired track was about 1.8 kilometres long (3.6 kilometres return).

Getting there

Westmorland Falls lie within part of the Mole Creek Karst National Park, so visitors will need a current National Parks Pass.

The simplest way to navigate to the falls was to drive to Mole Creek, then turn south onto Caveside Road (sealed). We turned west onto Wet Cave Road (unsealed), south at Honeycomb Cave, and then it was a short drive uphill to the Westmorland Falls car park.

If you are approaching from Launceston and are familiar with the area, turning onto Caveside Road at Chudleigh may be more scenic.

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