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Published: March 13th 2014
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With our 3 days at White Beach completed, we made the decision to cross Hobart and head to the Tahune Air Walk before catching up with friends in Hobart before the weekend. The weather looked reasonably favourable for this plan as well with only a slight chance of rain. We were not so sure about that overnight though as the wind did surely blow. It was a little less on Monday morning for our departure, and the skies looked like they would once again clear.
We left White Beach and drove around through Nubeena and completed the loop back to Eaglehawk Neck and Sorell. Seems our departure was timely as a bush fire on the access road required evacuation of the White Beach camp ground later that day.
I had noticed when looking up the bay from White Beach some unusual structures out into the harbour. As we left Nubeena we could see that they were aquatic farms, probably salmon farming which the area is famous for. You will see Huon Salmon in shops across Australia, and that comes from this region.
We had a most unusual experience along the way. We approached a bridge which we had
crossed on the way down to White beach. Unfortunately some one had turned it on its piers at right angles to the road, so no one could cross the river. Then we saw the top of a mast drift by, and magically the bridge at Dunalley rotated back in line with the road and we were on our way.
It wasn’t long before we were through Sorell, and then asked Tom Tom to take us to Tahune. No he said, that’s not in Australia! Best he could come up with was Geeveston, the town where the road leads off to Tahune.
So off we went and took a lunch break beside the Huon River at Franklin.
This river valley is a beautiful and productive part of Tasmania. Every few kilometres we passed orchards with trees loaded with bright red apples. It is just about picking season, so everyone seemed to be geared up with pallets and packaging ready to go. The only thing that surprised us was the size of the fruit. These seemed to be a smallish apple. Not sure if they are for eating or juicing or just the growth phase.
The drive from
Franklin to Geeveston is only a few minutes, and it was there we picked up our passes to the Tahune Air Walk. The good thing is that we got a complimentary nights accommodation in the forest making this a really good deal.
The drive up through the forest is about 28 ks on a sealed logging road. Some tricky pot holes, many tight corners and quite a climb upwards.
Once at the end of the road there is ample parking, a really good info centre including meals and souvenirs. In a few minutes we were off for our first walk, the Tahune Air Walk. This 1.5 k walk gives both forest floor and nearly tree top views from up to 48 metres above the forest floor. Then for good measure, the cantilever portion reaches out over the Huon River.
One of the trees I tried to photograph was a stringy bark. Thought I would try the panorama feature on the Sony camera, but with the scan done in a vertical rather than horizontal movement. Starting from the base of the tree I panned up, and up and up. Then the camera went BEEP as it could not
panorama any further. Still hadn’t got to the top!
Over the afternoon we completed about 6 kilometres of walks in the forest including crossing both the Picton and Huon Rivers on swing bridges.
We finally had our evening meal and sitting quietly in the motorhome when we heard a mighty crash. Seems that a large tree crashed in two stages somewhere close by. That was the only scary thing we heard. There are wild Tassie Devils here, but we saw no sign of them. The rest of the night passed without incident other than my co-pilot reported that I frightened any creatures within 10ks with the volume of my snoring. Marg has heard on a couple of other occasions the screech of the Tassie Devil, but not here where we know they are prevalent.
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Jakii
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Huon River Valley
Thank you ---beautiful--miss you --Jakii