famous Huon Pine is said to end and Australia ’ s largest temperate rainforest begins , the second largest in the world . Almost half a million hectares of wilderness that goes back to a time well before man , where animals and plants hark to a time when Gondwanaland existed , connecting Australia with New Zealand , New Guinea , and Patagonia .
Amongst the heavily forested hills are the remains of settlements that once saw fortune seekers plying their skills to find wealth , so very often ending in disaster . The region still hosts a number of mining communities yet it ’ s the archaeological treasures that provide greater rewards . The region is said to be one of the most significant Aboriginal regions in the whole of the Australian continent .
It ’ s hard to comprehend that a people could live here for millennia , this land so easily beat European settlers , perhaps beaten into submission by a lack of respect and willingness to adapt , always wanting to dominate the landscape rather than live with it . The Aboriginal people new that a symbiotic relationship was the only way to survive and in doing so were able to shape the landscape so that they could farm and harvest in a way that worked for their needs . It ’ s believed that the many buttongrass moors found in the region are the result of consistent low heat burns by the Aboriginal peoples who cleared the land of forests so that they may hunt indigenous animals .
Amongst the forests , moors and sand dune systems that follow the coast , can be found the remains of at least 500 mining sites dating back to the early 19th Century . A greater number of Aboriginal historical sites area scattered throughout the region . In fact , the region itself is named for the indigenous word takayna and was believed to have been first coined in the early 1990s .
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