A pleasant rural town of around 5,000 people, Wynyard is a major regional hub, servicing many of the surrounding rural districts. It makes a good place to start exploration of the north west of Tasmania. The area is excellent for fishing. The Inglis and Flowerdale rivers are ideal for trout fishing and there is good ocean fishing as well.

The town has an annual Christmas parade held on Christmas Eve, a colourful summer fair, and regular markets, on the foreshore, at a site near the airport and a farmers  market at the showground, which backs onto the river.

For over 25 years the Bloomin Tulip Festival has made the local town of Wynyard buzz with activities, food, music, artists and festivities. For one Saturday each October the festival tempts visitors and locals alike to shake off the doldrums of winter and welcome in spring with joy and colour. The farm is a central part of the festivities, with thousands of people travelling up the Cape to see the showpiece of the festival & the tulip flower itself. The festival is one of the town's greatest attractions to tourists, whether from Tasmania itself or from the mainland.

Visitor Information Centre: 8 Exhibition Link, Wynyard. Ph (03) 6443 8330

Where Is it?: 317 km north west of Hobart, 163 km northwest of Launceston, on the Inglis River.



The Wonders of Wynyard is the local visitor centre with a world class collection of veteran cars and local art to enjoy. Its art gallery exhibits local creative works including paintings, sculptures, photographs and textiles -the perfect place to purchase a special memento of your holiday.

The Wonders of Wynyard is home to the Ransley Veteran Car Collection, which contains the equal oldest Ford in the world - a 1903 Model A. There is also a Darracq (1905), believed to be the only car of its kind in Australia. The collection has been lovingly restored and is an outstanding showcase of Australian motoring history. Rntry fees apply (car collection only).

Open - October - April: 9am-5pm 7 days a week; Aug-Sep: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm/ Sat-Sun 10am-4pm; May-July: 10am - 4pm 7 days a week. Closed: Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Good Friday, ANZAC Day open 1pm-5pm


Inglis River, Gutteridge Gardens, Wynyard

The Inglis River

In the winter of 1826, the Van Diemen's Land (VDL) Co.'s agricultural adviser, Alexander Goldie, and surveyor Joseph Fossey made a journey in a whaleboat from the company's newly established headquarters at Circular Head (Highfield, Stanley) to examine the coastline and its rivers from the Mersey to Cape Grim for the company. During the voyage, their party explored the Inglis River. It was either Goldie on this occasion, or Henry Hellyer on his visit to the area a few months later, who named the Inglis River after James Inglis, the first chairman, Court of Directors, Van Diemens Land (VDL) Company, in 1824. James Inglis and his brother John Bellingham Inglis were directors in the firm of Inglis, Ellice, and Co. The company imported coffee and tobacco grown on the plantations of the West Indies and Darjeeling tea from West Bengal, India. James was also a director of the East India Company, John was a wine merchant. Goldie himself is remembered in the name of Wynyard's main street.

The Inglis River extends approximately 61 kilometres from the Campbell Ranges near Takone before discharging into Bass Strait at Wynyard. The Flowerdale River is the largest tributary system on the Inglis River and makes up approximately one-third of the 471-square-kilometre Inglis-Flowerdale catchment basin. While not tributaries of the main river system, Sisters Creek and Seabrook Creek are notable minor creeks which form part of the Inglis-Flowerdale catchment area.

Forestry plantations dominate the landscape in the western region of the catchment, with intensive agriculture land-use in the north and eastern regions. Because of the steep and confining nature of the topography around the Inglis and Flowerdale rivers, both have retained substantial native forests that tend to buffer the rivers from both land-use activities.

Surrounding area

Table Cape

The cape is actually a volcanic plug which rises to about 190 metres above sea level. The cape is planted with tulip fields that are a blaze of colour in spring. The area is also famous for its lily fields. The cape's lighthouse and a lookout offer expansive views inland along the north coast and out to Bass Strait.



The Lighthouse was commissioned in 1888 and was manned by three keepers until 1920 when it was automated. It has rarely been open to the public, until 2010, after decades of lobbying by the local council and tourism authorities. Visitors can now take the 45 minute tour around the precinct and up the spiral staircase, stopping on the way to gaze out onto the magnificent views from the windows.



The cape's premier attraction in spring is Table Cape Tulip Farm, the home home of Van Diemen Quality Bulbs. They are specialist flower bulb producers and farmers who grow more than just tulips. The farm also specialises in Liliums and Dutch Iris as well as many other bulbs and plants which we sell directly to customers through our mail order and online catalogue.

During late September through to mid October the farm explodes with colour. Each year at this time the farm is opened up to visitors to walk in the tulips. Best viewing is normally from end of the first week to the end of the second week in October During the farm's spring open days, visitors can enjoy an impressive indoor display featuring floral arrangements, souvenirs, Devonshire teas, an art gallery, potted tulips, cut flowers and information on growing bulbs. The open days are a lure for photographers who have the opportunity to take fantastic shots utilising backdrops of Bass Strait, the lighthouse and the surrounding rich farmlands to showcase the vista of colourful blooming fields. spiral staircase, stopping on the way to gaze out onto the magnificent views from the windows.

About Table Cape

More or less circular in shape, Table Cape was originally a volcanic lake which flowed in a southerly direction forming the hills of the nearby Flowerfale area, and also laid a basalt cap on Fossil Bluff. As it weathered down this basalt rock formed some of the richest agricultural land in Tasmania. It is red in colour due to the high iron conent. Table Cape is one of a number of large volcanic plugs on the north west coast of Tasmania on the shores of Bass Strait. It was once a lava lake (hence its flatness). The rock is a Tertiary teschenite (a course grained basalt). The tuffs and breccias of the old crater are cut back by the erosional effects of the sea during level changes, leaving the solid neck as a promontory.

The Tommeginner tribe of Aboriginals traversed the area before and after the arrival of Europeans in the 19th century, living along the coastline, building fish traps at Freestone Cove and hunting for game on the inland coastal plains.



In 1798 George Bass and Matthew Flinders sailed in their sloop 'Norfolk" through Bass Strait, and named the large promontory Table Cape, which has now become the local landmark. The Table Cape area was first developed by the Van Diemen's Land Company in the 1820's, making it one of the oldest European settlement areas in Australia, preceding Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin and Brisbane.

The first white settlers west of the Inglis River was the King family, that took up land in the early 1840s. Back then, the cape had trees up to 12 metres in diameter at the base; the area was stripped of these huge stringybark eucalyptus gum trees in the late 19th century by timber cutters. When European settlement began, the beautiful red loam of the Cape was found to be most suitable for the growing of potatoes, peas, onions and corn and the raising of sheep and cattle, and more recently has changed to the cultivation of poppies, pyrethrum and tulips.

Fossil Bluff

Table Cape is the remains a volcanic plug which rises to about 170 metres above sea level on the north-west coast of Tasmania. Located on Table Cape, Fossil Bluff is an unusual geological structure comprising glacial Permian Tillite, sandstone and basalt.

There is a small beach and the rocks at either end of the beach are characterised by shells which have been caught and fossilised. Embedded into the shore rocks and visible at low tide are Australia's oldest marsupial fossils. The beds of tillite are believed to have been created 275 million years ago, according to the Geology Department of the University of Tasmania. The were formed as boulder clay from a large glacier as the ice melted, and was later consolidated by a load of ice and other rocks on it.

Near high water mark close to the cliff face of Fossil Bluff there are many blocks of very fossiliferous sandstone or siltstone, which have fallen from the cliffs above. The cliffs contain a succession of light coloured rocks, scarcely consolidated sands and limey silts which were deposited on a beach and in a shallow bay some 22 million years ago. Fossil Bluff was named, but not discovered, by Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer, a controversial scientist who served for many years as president of the Victorian Football League (now AFL).

Boat Harbour Beach

Table Cape is the remains a volcanic plug which rises to about 170 metres above sea level on the north-west coast of Tasmania. Located Boat Harbour Beach would have to be one of Australia's Top Ten beaches. Picturesque Boat Harbour Beach is noted for its clean, white sands, rock and coral formations and its crystal clear blue waters. At low tide, you may see abalone on the rocks. Precious stones are found in the rocks, and look out for fairy rings in the grass.

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Yolla

Yolla is a rural community on the Murchison Highway about 20 kilometres south of the towns of Wynyard, Somerset and Burnie. With a population of 316 (2016 Census), the area around Yolla rich agricultural country, where dairying, beef cattle, growing vegetables, opium poppies and other crops, as well as forestry and mining drive the local economy. Local attractions are Hellyer Gorge and the Oldina Forest Reserve.

Yolla was first settled in the 1880s. Camp Creek Post Office was open between 1881 and 1884. It reopened in 1905 and was renamed Yolla in 1906. The opening of a butter factory in that year led to the growth of a settlement away from its original location, less than a kilometre from present day Yolla. The name is a Tasmanian Aboriginal word for the short-tailed shearwater or "muttonbird". The area was originally covered by myrtle beech forest, which was gradually cleared for farming in the late 18th century/early 19th century.

The North West coast hinterland has lost many of its churches over the last few decades therefore Yolla is unusual in that it retains three of the four churches built at the town; all of which remain active. St Joseph's Catholic Church was designed by Father Fanning and its Romanesque style echoes St Brigid’s Catholic Church in Wynyard that was built in 1912. St Mary's, Yolla’s Anglican church, was originally established as a Mission Hall, opening on Sunday 27 August 1911. It occupied a central position in the town, opposite the butter factory. The hall was consecrated as St Mary’s Anglican Church in 1922.

The first Methodist church was built in 1896 but was replaced by a new one closer to the emerging settlement in 1922. Early Christian Brethren meetings at Mount Hicks were held in local homes with support from the Brethren Gospel Hall at Wynyard. Worship also took place in the Yolla Memorial Hall. While meetings ceased for a time, a Brethren community was reestablished with the opening of the Upper Mount Hicks Chapel on 11 November 1956. The chapel closed early this century and was sold and converted into a house.