Mushroom trip: a mycologist’s tour of the Tarkine

On a three-day fungi workshop in Australia’s largest cool temperate rainforest, Alexis Buxton-Collins unearths an unexpected appreciation for the third kingdom of life

Revered as one of Australia’s last true wilderness areas, Takayna/ Tarkine is a place of legends. Freshwater crayfish that can reach almost a metre in length lurk in the shade of 2000-year-old Huon pines, and every few years a rumour emerges that thylacines still prowl the dense Gondwanan rainforest of northwest Tasmania.

For 65m years, this landscape has sheltered all manner of astonishing creatures. But some of the most fascinating life forms found here are even older. Before animals walked the Earth or trees began converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, fungi helped to create the conditions necessary for complex life on our planet. “People often say that fungi grow in the forest,” Dr Alison Pouliot tells me as we inhale cool air perfumed with the gentle spice of sassafras. “But there wouldn’t be a forest without fungi. Fungi are the ecosystem engineers that created the foundation for the forest.”