Hartz Mountains National Park, Nature reserve in Huon Valley, Australia.
Hartz Mountains National Park is a protected nature reserve in southwestern Tasmania featuring dolerite peaks, high ridges, and valleys carved by ancient glaciers. The park contains glacial lakes, flowing streams, waterfalls, and slopes covered with rainforest and alpine vegetation.
The Mellukerdee Aboriginal people inhabited the area before Europeans arrived in the 19th century seeking Huon pine. In the 1840s the Geeves family founded Geeveston and cut the first track to the Hartz Mountains, making the area an early bushwalking destination. It was declared a scenic reserve in 1939, a national park in 1951, and joined the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in 1989.
The park lies in the country of the Mellukerdee Aboriginal people. Its name comes from the Harz range in Germany, given by 19th-century European settlers who came for Huon pine timber. The Geeves family of Geeveston cut the first track to the mountains in the 1840s, and the area became one of Tasmania's earliest bushwalking destinations.
The park is best explored on foot using marked trails of varying difficulty through mountain and forest terrain. Visitors should prepare for changeable weather and bring appropriate outdoor gear for different conditions.
The moss froglet was discovered at the Hartz Mountains in 1992. It is one of the outstanding amphibians of the park, which also shelters Bennett's wallabies, Tasmanian pademelons, brushtail possums, echidnas and platypus, most of them nocturnal.
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