Australian travels...: Day 4 - Tahune airwalk/Hastings Caves

Alright, I've arrived in Perth via the train - 41 hours later, it was truly an epic train ride - will tell more later, for now, here's Day four of Tassie, (I wrote this earlier:)

So today I woke up early and headed south to a place called Tahune airwalk. It was a fair distance away and I wanted to get a head start on the day and beat the rush hour traffic out of Hobart. As I drove out of Hobart up the hill, there was a beautiful turn out spot to watch the sun come up over the hills, however I couldn't get off the highway quick enough to take pictures, so I figured I'd do it the next day.

I drove to the town of Geeveston and stopped to buy a ticket for the airwalk, however I was so early the visitor center wasn't open and I also found out that the airwalk didn't open till 1000, not 0900 like the internet said. So basically I had about an hour to kill. I took my time getting to the airwalk stopping at a few small walks and driving to the top of the Hartz mountain. A couple of the walks where ridiculously short, like less then 2 mintues to get to the lookout point, but well worth it. There was also hardly anyone else on the roads, I saw two campers stopped at a rest point, one of which I also saw at the lookout at the top of Hartz mountains. Now this day was not the nicest of days either, it was cloudy, misty and freakin cold at the top of Hartz mountain. However, I really wanted to walk to a suggest waterfall, a 20 minute walk - which I sped walked in like 10 minutes!! The falls where so beautiful I spend more time taking photo's then I took to walk it! I have posted one of my favorites below.

Once I finished at the waterfalls I figured it was time to go to Tahune Airwalk, which I should add most of this road was a gravol road - fun, and the drive to the summit of Hartz mountain was very twisty and turny, and of course, narrow. I arrived at the airwalk at around 10am, and when I arrived, the sign was posted as actually a 0900 opening time. Oh well, the hour didn't really make that much of a difference, and I'm glad I saw what I did. So, to the airwalk, which I should explain is a large steel structure/walkway that is built high up in the tree tops. It is a brief walk, but a really cool walk with a completely different view and respect for how tall these trees get. I also did a 45 minute walk in the forest and crossed a couple swing bridges over a river. It was cool outside, but nothing I couldn't handle! I just kept my feet moving and it was all good!

Once I finsihed the airwalk, which I spent over an hour at, I headed further south to Hastings Caves and Thermal Springs. En route I stopped to look at the 'Big Tree', and my was it big. In fact, the tree is 87m high and is figured to weigh 405 tonnes!! Crazy! I made it to Hastings caves just in time for the 1515 tour, and to my advantage, I was the only guest on the tour! So I got a very personal guided tour of the caves where I not only saw cool stalactites and stagmites, but I saw cave crickets, glow worms, and the Tasmania cave spiders. All very cool! I headed to the thermal springs, but the pool was being cleaned and I didn't have my swimming suit, so I walked around the creeks, hoping to see a platypus, but no such luck. It was starting to get late in the day, so I decided to head back to hobart, about a 3 hour drive and end my day with a cold beer and spagetti! Oh life is good!