Dismal Swamp, designed by JAWS Architects, is part of the Tarkine Forest Adventures located at the Northern end of the Tarkine. Dismal Swamp is a Blackwood Forest sinkhole, the largest of its kind in Australia.
This attraction includes a visitor centre in the treetops, high above Dismal Swamp, as well as Dismal Maze on the sinkhole floor. To get down to the forest floor, one can walk, or slide down the long twisting slide through the tree canopies, disorientating the visitor to mimic the disorientation felt in the Tarkine Wilderness and forests. Dismal Maze also recrates this disorientation, with walkways and structures that wind around the forest floor through the Blackwood trees. In 2005, Dismal Swamp received the Colorbond Award for Steel Architecture, as well as Commendation in the Environmental Design category.
The visitor centre is unlike any other, floating above the sinkhole weightlessly in the trees. The careful architectural design of the curved timber interior walls of the café and tunnel-like walkway offer a unique, fluid quality, perhaps hinting at the movement of the ground in the sinkhole.