Creative Paper Tasmania
In Wynyard, on Tasmania’s north-west coast, Creative Paper Tasmania gives families the chance to step inside a working paper mill and make something with their own hands. It’s Australia’s largest handmade paper mill, and the experience is refreshingly practical: you don’t just watch, you roll up your sleeves and have a go.
The Papermaking Tour
The centrepiece is a 30-minute guided papermaking tour. It’s fully hands-on, so children and adults alike get to use the mould and deckle to lift their own sheet of paper from the vat. That sheet is yours to take home, which gives even younger children a real sense of having made something rather than simply visited somewhere.
The tour suits all ages, and it’s short enough to hold the attention of restless little ones while still teaching them something about how paper is actually made.
Paper from Surprising Ingredients
Here’s the part that children tend to remember and repeat for weeks. Alongside recycled cotton, denim, hemp and other plant fibres, the mill turns some genuinely unusual materials into paper. Apples, native leaves, forest floor clippings and, yes, wombat and roo droppings all find their way into the sheets. It’s a fun way in to a bigger idea, because the whole approach is built around recycling fibres and giving waste materials a second life. Sustainability isn’t an add-on here; it’s how the paper has always been made.
Sculptures, Gallery and Shop
Beyond the papermaking itself, the site holds a large collection of life-size paper mâché sculptures by artists Pam Thorne and Ruth Rees, which are worth a wander in their own right. There’s also a gallery showing handmade papers and local artworks, and a gift shop stocked with handcrafted paper products. If the children enjoyed making their sheet, the shop is a nice place to see what skilled hands can do with the same material.
Longer workshops for Keen Makers
For families with older children, or anyone who catches the papermaking bug, longer hands-on workshops run for around three hours. These go further into creative techniques like embedding flowers, embossing patterns and adding natural extras to your sheets, so there’s room to experiment and make something more personal.
Getting There and Booking
Creative Paper Tasmania is well placed for travellers. It’s about 40 minutes from the Spirit of Tasmania terminal in Devonport and only five minutes from Burnie/Wynyard Airport, which makes it easy to fit in early or late in a trip. It also sits on the way to Stanley and The Nut, the Tarkine and Cradle Mountain, so it slots neatly into a wider north-west itinerary.
One practical point: tours are limited to 15 people and bookings are essential, so it’s best to reserve your spot ahead of time rather than turning up and hoping. For school and group visits, it’s worth getting in touch directly to arrange a time that works.
