Mole Creek Karst National Park

Introduction

Over 200 caves make up the Mole Creek karst system. The national park comprises a dozen separate blocks, creating a park almost as complex as the cave systems underground. In the early 1800s, farmers began clearing the bush on the lower edges of the Great Western Tiers, known as Kooparoona Niara to local Aboriginal people from the North Nation, and in the 1830s railway surveyors stumbled across a handful of the caves. By 1912 Marakoopa Cave was open to the public and this section of the park is now included in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Among its breathtaking features are gleaming crystals, pools with stalactites, underground streams, shawl and flowstone formations, the amazing Great Cathedral cavern and a most impressive glow-worm display. The King Solomons Cave tour, suitable for all ages and fitness levels, reveals a colourful 228-metre long cave with a fantastic range of formations including shawls, stalactites, stalagmites and calcite crystals known as King Solomon’s Diamonds. (Cave temperatures are around 9 degrees so shoes and warm clothes are recommended.)Look for rare white gums, and keep an eye out for wedge-tailed eagles and grey goshawks. Bats are found around cave entrances and pademelons, wallabies and wombats rustle through the bush. However, the most unique creatures live underground: spider-like cave harvestmen, cave beetles and cave pseudoscorpions are rare and vulnerable species found only here; and Tasmanian cave spiders belong to a group that may be the ancestors of modern spiders. There are short nature walks, and easy walks in the nearby Alum Cliffs and Devils Gullet state reserves.

Fact file

Camping

No camping

Location and access

74 km west of Launceston via B54 or Bass Hwy then B12; 23 km west of Deloraine

Park Information

• Park office (03) 6363 5182
• PWS Launceston (03) 6336 5312

Size

1345 ha

Where to Stay

Deloraine (03) 6362 3471
Mole Creek (03) 6363 1399

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Explore Australia’s National Parks

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