Painted Cliffs Maria Island, Maria Island, Tasmania, Australia
This walk is on Maria Island and can be enjoyed as part of a day or overnight visit to the island. The Painted Cliffs are best visited at or around low tide to allow safe access around the rock platform adjacent to the cliffs. Visitors can return via the Oast House where hop kilns were built sometime before 1845.
Day visitors could combine the walk with another Great Short Walk, the Fossil Cliffs walk and/or exploring the historic Darlington area.
The geology of Maria Island is of great interest as it contains features from many geological ages. The Triassic sandstones of the Painted Cliffs is one such feature.
Although this sort of rock formation is not uncommon, it is rare in a natural situation for it to be so extensively and beautifully exposed.
The wonderful patterns are caused by ground water percolating down through the already formed sandstone and leaving traces of iron oxides, which have stained the rock formation. This probably occurred millions of years ago in a monsoonal climate.
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