Code: 151
Title:
Duration: 52'
Format: For TV and Video

In a world where pristine wilderness is fast disappearing, Australia's Tarkine is a rare and ruggedly beautiful place. Isolated on the island of Tasmania at the end of the last ice age, this 350,000 hectares of wilderness has changed very little over the last sixty million years. Like a lost world, it owes its survival to its isolation. One of the world's largest temperate rainforests is found in the Tarkine's damp river valleys and vast array of wildlife, often unique to Tasmania, are met at every turn. From wombats, wallabies, tiger cats, the world's largest freshwater crayfish measuring up to a metre in length, the bizarre egg laying mammal the Platypus to the Tasmanian Devil, the largest of the Marsupial carnivores, the Tarkine is home to them all. While the rugged coast is dotted with penguins and many birds who regularly engage in a feeding frenzy, it is also a deadly whale trap. During the filming of this program, over 60 sperm whales were stranded on the beach. Their massive bulk and gaping jaws are powerful images - but before long they were swallowed up by the shifting sands of the coast, sands that are hit by storms that have travelled thousands of kilometers from the Antarctic. These fascinating wildlife stories are set amidst the stunning beauty of this forgotten wilderness that was also once home to mysterious aboriginal people.