Excursion – Growling Swallet

Date: Saturday, June 6

Place: Growling Swallet, Florentine Valley (edge of Mount Field National Park)

Time: 9:30am for a 10.00am start.

Meeting point: Car park next to Maydena Bites café in Maydena. We’ll car-pool from there to reduce vehicle numbers on forestry roads.

Travel time: Allow 1 hour 35 minutes to 1 hour 45 minutes to drive from the Hobart GPO to Maydena (~85 km). Route: Lyell Highway (A10) via New Norfolk, then Gordon River Road (B61) to Maydena. From Maydena, we will car-pool along unsealed forestry roads into the Florentine Valley. High-clearance vehicles are recommended. No mobile reception beyond Maydena

About: Growling Swallet is a striking karst system where a forest stream disappears into a limestone cave, producing the deep “growling” sound that gives the site its name—especially noticeable in higher flows.
The walk is short but memorable, leading through wet temperate forest into a landscape shaped by limestone geology, sinkholes, and underground waterways. Surrounding vegetation includes tall wet eucalypt forest transitioning into cooler gullies with myrtle beech, sassafras, and tree ferns, supported by a rich moss and fern understory. This area sits within the broader Florentine Valley karst system, adjacent to Mount Field National Park, one of Tasmania’s significant cave and forest landscapes. For more information about the walk, go to https://tastrails.com/growling-swallet/. For more background on Tasmania’s cave and limestone systems, go to https://www.karst.org.au/