Port Latta: Coast and Ore Loading

Port Latta is a destination with a strong industrial and coastal connection. Magnetite processing and ore loading are part of the town; Crayfish Creek Beach adds a beach element to this focus. If you are looking for a hotel, you can first consider whether this particular combination makes Port Latta a good fit for your stay, or whether other landscape and cultural themes in the wider destination of Circular Head Council matter more to you.

Ore Loading and Maritime Facility

Magnetite from Savage River is processed into iron ore pellets in Port Latta. The concentrate is pumped through an 83-kilometre pipeline to the Port Latta Pelletising Plant on the coast, from where it is exported. The plant is 60 kilometres west of Burnie. The ore-loading facility and offshore berth are located at the end of a 1,800-metre jetty.

Under the Marine and Safety (Navigation and Pilotage) Regulations 2017, the Port of Port Latta comprises all waters within an imaginary circle with a radius of 3 nautical miles around the outer end of the ore-loading jetty. This boundary provides a precise definition of the harbour area; it differs from the description of the local beach landscape.

Beaches and Local Orientation

Crayfish Creek Beach begins in the shelter of a 250-metre breakwater connected to Port Latta. Surf Life Saving Australia does not currently provide services at this beach. If you plan to swim there, check the current conditions beforehand.

Nearby, Brickmakers Beach is on a rocky headland, about 1.4 kilometres west of the Port Latta Pelletising Plant. The area is designated as a picnic reserve. The approximate distance and direction help to locate this other named coastal spot without confusing it with Crayfish Creek Beach.

Nature and Cultural Attractions in the Wider Destination of Circular Head Council

The wider destination of Circular Head Council offers other landscape highlights. The Nut Summit Circuit is a 2.7-kilometre loop walk across a plateau and takes about an hour. Rocky Cape National Park is a different kind of destination: it is primarily intended for day trips and is best explored on foot. Its landscape includes sea caves, rock pools and secluded beaches suitable for fishing and swimming. Walking conditions and facilities may change; check current information before visiting.

Wildlife and heritage also shape the range of options in the wider destination of Circular Head Council. The Nut State Reserve is a breeding area for short-tailed shearwaters, peregrine falcons, Australian kestrels and little penguins. It also protects significant Tasmanian Aboriginal and historical heritage sites. At Godfrey’s Beach, visitors can watch little penguins come ashore at night and make their way to their burrows from a purpose-built platform lit with red lights.

The Circular Head Heritage Centre has an extensive collection that includes fossils and geological specimens, as well as local Aboriginal cultural items, historical machinery and household objects. This places nature observation and collections relating to regional history alongside one another as distinct themes, without attributing them to a single place.

The landscape of the Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area includes a large part of Tasmania’s extensive button grass moorlands and some of the state’s largest dune fields. The area can be explored in conventional and four-wheel-drive vehicles, by canoe and on foot. If you plan to travel along vehicle tracks, check their current condition. The area is also part of the traditional lands of the four clans of the North West Nation: Peerapper, Manegin, Tarkiner and Peternidic.

Discover more destinations: Tyenna, Sorell, Currie, Nubeena, Hawley Beach, Glaziers Bay, Lake St Clair, New Norfolk

Go to the main travel overview: Tasmania.