WOOLNORTH TOURS

Introduction to Woolnorth Tours

A visit to Woolnorth is a breath of fresh air – literally! Standing on the open grassy hills and headlands on the very far north-west tip of Tasmania, you’re officially inhaling big lungfuls of the world’s cleanest air.

Here at Woolnorth, face directly west and the only thing between you and South America is the vast, wild, untamed expanse of the Southern Ocean. The pristine air you’re breathing has been purified by nature on its unbroken 16,000-kilometre journey across the ocean before reaching Cape Grim.

All that fresh clean air that blows through these parts – the vigorous, exhilarating winds known as the ‘Roaring Forties’ – today powers a series of sleek, white ultra-modern wind farms dotted across the headlands like space-age windmills. A visit to the Woolnorth Wind Farm is a visit you’ll never forget.

Beyond its exceptional air quality and windy wow-factor, Woolnorth is a remarkable place shadowed by a fascinating – and often terrible – past that still reverberates today.

Known to the area’s original custodians as Temdudheker, Woolnorth is the site of one of Tasmania’s worst Aboriginal massacres. The atrocious act was carried out by personnel of the once mighty Van Diemen's Land Company, which was granted royal permission to acquire 350,000 acres of north-west Tasmania for growing fine merino sheep in 1826.

Today, the Company’s woolly ovines have been replaced by bovines, and the rich green grasses at the Woolnorth historic homestead precinct provide fertile fodder for Australia’s largest dairy farm.

No one knows this patch of country better than Laura Dabner, a proud Tasmanian Aboriginal descendant whose family has strong links with the region. Laura is the passionate and incredibly knowledgeable owner of Woolnorth Tours, giving you exclusive up-close access to the Woolnorth Wind Farm and historic farming precinct, taking you on a journey that will take your breath away.

Woolnorth Wind Farm

Your tour begins at 10am, at the gates of Bluff Point Wind Farm, where your energetic guide Laura will meet you and whisk you away on a fascinating drive through the picturesque countryside of Tasmania’s largest dairy farm, accompanied by informative commentary. Your first destination is Bluff Point, on the spectacularly jagged seacoast, where 37 majestic wind farm towers stand proudly on the clifftops looking out to sea.

Here, at Tasmania’s first large-scale wind farm, you can literally hear and feel nature’s raw power, as rollicking ocean winds propel gigantic white blades, 32 metres long, on wind turbines towering 60 metres high, delivering clean, green energy to the island state.

Stand beneath these mighty clifftop towers and hear and feel the hum and swoosh of massive blades being fanned by the prevailing Roaring Forties winds blowing in off the Southern Ocean, as the waves crash onto dark basalt rocks far below your feet.

And if the conditions are right, and you’re feeling game, you can brave the elements and lean into those mighty winds at the visitor centre – a thrilling experience that will ruffle your hair, invigorate your senses, and sometimes blow you backwards off your feet!

Woolnorth historic homestead precinct

Leaving the Bluff Point wind farm and visitor centre, the tour heads to Woolnorth’s historic homestead precinct, passing old farm buildings constructed by convict hands.

Today, Woolnorth is home to Australia’s biggest dairy farm, and the largest in the Southern Hemisphere – with over 30,000 dairy cows!

But it was wool, not milk, that was Woolnorth’s earliest claim to fame. Stand in the original shearing shed, built when Woolnorth pumped out prime merinos, and you can almost hear and smell the 65,000 sheep that clamoured to be shorn during its heyday in the early 1980s. The last sheep left Woolnorth around 2007, but Laura explains the shearing process so thoroughly you’ll feel like you’re still standing in the thick of the action, surrounded by the sounds and smells of men, machinery and animals, and those quick hands clipping the fleece off each sheep in 90 seconds flat!

Native animals also abound on the property: echidnas, wombats, quolls, wallabies and Tassie devils. Listen closely and you might hear the honking squawks and trills of Cape Barren geese, cockatoos, parrots, native hens and ducks – as sea birds such as waders and oystercatchers comb the shores, and hawks and wedge-tailed eagles soar high above on thermal wind currents.

After morning tea in the shearing shed, the tour takes a darker turn, heading off to the dramatic coastline of Cape Grim.

Kennaook / Cape Grim

The name Cape Grim has nothing to do with the wild weather in this remote corner of north-west Tasmania.

Back in 1798, charting the Tasmanian coastline aboard the Norfolk, explorer Matthew Flinders imagined that this hulking rock of dark basalt was the gloomy visage of a grim-faced Neanderthal man “unhappily rising out of the water”.

Cape Grim does, however, have a very grim history.

This ancient coastline, weathered by wind and sea, was known to its local Aboriginal custodians – the Peerapper people – as Kennaook, and was the site of the horrific Cape Grim massacre in 1828.

Laura shares the history of that terrible event, where four members of the Van Diemen’s Land Company shot and killed more than 30 Tasmanian Aboriginal people, throwing some of their bodies over these dark cliffs.

On calmer days, as fishing boats harvest octopus, abalone and lobster from the marine-blue waters around Koindrim (or the Doughboys) – a pair of hummocky islands that rise like loaves of bread out of the water – it’s hard to imagine that this breathtaking setting was the site of one of the bloodiest events in Tasmania’s history.

It’s a fitting end to a tour that packs so many surprising and wildly different experiences into just half a day, and brings to life a long sweep of history, in a way that encompasses the past, present and future.

Accessibility

Laura’s Woolnorth Tours depart at 10am from the Bluff Point Wind Farm gate, at 1665 Woolnorth Road. It takes about 45 minutes to drive to the gates from Smithton, and one hour from Stanley. From Devonport, the journey will take you about two and a half hours, and from Launceston, about three and a half hours. If you’re setting off from Cradle Mountain, allow three hours.

A bus service is available from Launceston to Smithton, with a break of about three hours in Burnie. Catch the 705 bus from Cornwall Square Transit Centre in Launceston and change to the 708 in Devonport. You’ll get into Burnie and board the 768 bus for Smithton. However, there’s no public transport from Smithton to the Bluff Point Wind Farm gate, so you’ll need to arrange a private transfer.

Fun Tassie Tours also includes the Woolnorth Tours experience as part of its 11-day Western Explorer package. Please contact the operator directly to discuss your requirements and determine if their offer fits your needs.

There are plenty of accommodation options in the seaside village of Stanley, about an hour’s drive from Woolnorth – from hotel rooms to cute cottages, as well as a caravan park. Consider bedding down for a night or two, so you can explore other attractions along Tasmania’s far northwest, including historic Highfield House, a few kilometres from Stanley.

Alternatively, there are a range of lodgings available at Smithton, including hotel rooms, self-contained cottages and quaint B&Bs. The Smithton Visitor Information Centre can assist with further information about accommodation and attractions in the area and can be contacted on 1300 138 229.