Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Natural reserve in Central Highlands, Tasmania.
Walls of Jerusalem National Park covers 517.7 km² of Tasmania's Central Highlands, east of Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. Its dolerite massif, ridged and grey-brown, rises above green shrubby slopes and a small dark tarn, with a flat-topped mountain on the horizon. A long cliff of horizontally layered grey rock, streaked and cracked, drops past a pale scree slope to a yellowish grassy clearing.
The park was established on 24 June 1981 and has formed part of the Tasmanian Wilderness UNESCO World Heritage Area since 1989, listed for both cultural and natural values. Its ice-age moraines and glacial lakes shaped the alpine terrain, and Reginald G. Hall named the park for rock formations resembling Jerusalem's walls.
The name comes from rock formations compared to the walls of Jerusalem, so features carry Biblical names: Herods Gate, Damascus Gate, Lake Salome, Solomons Jewels and the Pool of Bethesda. Reginald G. Hall named the park. Local legend tells of a prophet roaming the wilderness and cursing walkers who enter.
Access to the park is only on foot via walking tracks, beginning from Lake Rowallan and requiring a valid parks pass. Visitors should prepare for alpine conditions, including changeable weather and steep terrain.
The name comes from rock formations compared to the walls of Jerusalem, so features carry Biblical names: Herods Gate, Lake Salome, Solomons Jewels, Damascus Gate, the Pool of Bethesda. The BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs filmed scenes for its second episode here. The C171 (Mersey Forest Road) ends at the park's car park.
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