About the Trust & the curator

The Trust

The Meander Valley Highland Heritage Trust was formed in Deloraine in 2014 by a group of walkers, cavers and craftspeople who wanted a single, accurate set of track notes for the Great Western Tiers and a record of the valley's craft and built heritage that lived somewhere other than in people's heads. We are a small, volunteer-run organisation. We hold no land, run no tours and sell nothing. The field guide on this site is our main public work.

Legal name

Meander Valley Highland Heritage Trust

Trading as

Deloraine & Meander Valley Field Guide (deloraine.org)

Office

98 Emu Bay Rd, Deloraine TAS 7304, Australia

Established

2014

Visitor enquiries

visitor@deloraine.org

Curator

curator@deloraine.org

Grid reference

AMG Z55 471600E 5403300N (approx.)

What we do

• Track sheets. We walk, log and re-walk the main tracks on the Tiers in every season, and publish the times, hazards and weather windows here.
• The platypus count. Since 2014 we have kept a log of sightings on the Meander River through Deloraine, fed by visitor reports.
• Sinkhole register. With the Mole Creek Caving Club we survey and register karst sinkholes in the valley every second year.
• Craft and heritage trail. We maintain the walking route through the Georgian town and the directory of working studios.
• Loan gear. Personal locator beacons for walkers, through the Deloraine visitor centre.

Lachlan MacQuarrie, Highland Trail Curator

Lachlan grew up on a sheep property under Quamby Bluff, walked the Tiers as a child and the Alps and Scandinavia as an adult, and came home to the valley to run the Trust's track programme. Lachlan holds a Tasmanian remote-area first aid certificate, has walked the Overland Track in every month of the year, and writes every sheet on this site. The margin notes are Lachlan's and are meant to be taken literally.

Accuracy and sources

Times, distances and elevations come from the Trust's own GPS logs averaged across repeated walks, checked against Tasmania Parks and Wildlife track grades and the 1:25,000 TASMAP series. Geology draws on the Mineral Resources Tasmania mapping and the published work of the Tasmanian caving community. Heritage dates come from the Tasmanian Heritage Register and the Meander Valley Council heritage study. If you find an error, write to the curator. Corrections are logged on the sheet they affect.

Acknowledgement

The Trust acknowledges the Pallittorre people of the Meander Valley and the palawa custodians of Kooparoona Niara, and pays respect to Elders past and present. The Tiers were a seasonal highway and hunting ground for thousands of years before any track sheet was drawn.