Maydena is the aboriginal word for ‘shadow’, so named because it lies in the shadows of Mount Field and the Maydena Ranges in the Tyenna Valley, about 85 kilometres north west of Hobart, Tasmania.
The town has a rich forestry heritage but is now better known as the home of the Maydena Bike Park. Maydena is surrounded by some of Tasmania's most beautiful natural places. These include Mt Field National Park and Southwest National Park, both of which form part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Developed around the 1900s, the Maydena region was once home to four big timber mills built close to the railway. Bushmen used crosscut saw and axe to fell timber and tractors dragged logs to sidings, where steam haulers winched logs on to rail trucks.
Maydena was the main centre of supply and communication for Adamsfield, which was an osmiridium mining camp that soon became home to over 2,000 workers but was abandoned within thirty years of settlement. The 1930s saw the end of the mining rush, and a disastrous bush fire in 1934 resulted in the sawmills winding down their operations.
In the late 1930s, Australian Newsprint Mills Ltd (ANM) became interested in the forests of the area for supply of timber for paper production, and forestry once more became the focus of the region as logs were transported along the railway lines to the Boyer newsprint mill.
In 1947, the present township of Maydena was built by ANM as a base for logging in the Florentine Valley. The surrounding forests still provide a timber resource to mills around Tasmania today. In the late 1980s ANM ceased operations from Maydena and the town declined. Most of the infrastructure remains, however trains no longer run on the railway line.
During the 2000s, debate raged over logging in old-growth forests and rainforests in the Styx and upper Florentine Valleys. These valleys became hotspots for forest-based protests and attracted locals, tourists, journalists and politicians. The Styx and upper Florentine valleys were added to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in 2013.
Today Maydena's population is around 200 and tourism is a growing industry in the region.
The Deepest Caves
The Junee-Florentine karst system is an extensive limestone cave system near Maydena that has the deepest caves in Australia, with an approximate depth of 380 metres. Karst occurs when acidic water breaks down limestone or dolomite surfaces near their cracks. Rivers in karst areas can repeatedly disappear through cracks in the ground and spring up again in different locations.
The Junee Cave Walk follows the Junee River upstream to arrive at the mouth of the Junee-Florentine karst system (see Activities page).
The Largest Trees
The Maydena region is home to Eucalyptus regnans, which are the tallest hardwood trees and flowering plants on Earth, and the second-tallest tree species after the Coast Redwood. 'El Grande' was a massive Eucalyptus regnans found in the Florentine Valley near Maydena. Standing at 79 metres high with a girth of 19 metres, it was Australia's largest tree with a volume of 439 cubic metres. The tree died in 2003 as a result of catching fire in a burn-off after the clear-felling of old-growth forest nearby. 'Centurion' is the tallest living specimen standing at 99.8 metres tall, and is located in the Arve Valley in southern Tasmania.
These forest giants can be seen in the Florentine and Styx Valleys (see Activities page).
The Oldest Plants
The rare Deciduous Beech (Nothofagus gunnii), or fagus, is the only deciduous native tree in Tasmania. It is one of the oldest genera of flowering plants in the world with a fossil record stretching back 80 million years. One of the best places to see the 'turning of the fagus' (when its leaves change from green to red, orange and gold in autumn) is Mt Field National Park (see Activities page).
The Last Thylacine
The last known living Thylacine was captured by renowned 'tiger hunter' Elias Churchill near Maydena in 1933. It was sold to Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart where it died in 1936. Footage survives of this last 'Tasmanian Tiger' being held in captivity.