Day 7 - Huon Valley to Longford... then home

I screwed things up a bit in the planning today and wasted a lot of time. Very annoying... but it's done. Move on.

Initially I had listed several things south of Hobart that I wanted to check out. There were some caves right down south, and another peninsula walk that would take a couple of hours, and the Tahune Airwalk. But then I realised that I had to get all the way back up north to stay near Launceston for the night as I had to drop off the camper and get to the airport by 9:00am. That also meant trying to get there in daylight so I could more easily repack my bags and clean out the camper (I was quite well moved in after a week!).

So I had to cull the list of places to see and things to do. And I culled without really consulting a map or thinking about how I could best use my time for the day. Annoyingly, this cost me about half a day.

The one thing in southern Tassie that I didn't cull from my list (but should have if I was had thought about it) was the Tahune Adventures Airwalk. They also had a hang-glider thing on a cable that looked quite cool. And there was a nice looking bush walk with a couple of swing bridges.

The site is about an hour and a half west of Hobart, and the last 20 minutes is through quite small and winding forestry roads. But each time you are just starting to wonder if you took a wrong turn somewhere, there is a sign telling you where to go. So I made it, and I was fairly early... one of the first people through.

What I didn't realise until I saw the sign, was that this area of forest was decimated by the severe bush fires of 2019. I had been thinking that the bush was pretty sparse, and it wasn't as lush as other air walks I had been on (admittedly, that was in rainforest, this wasn't). But this region was just starting the decades-long process of recovering from fire. 

I screen-shotted this picture from an ABC News article. Although it wasn't completely destroyed, the Airwalk was closed for a year while the engineers realigned it and rebuilt the bits that needed it and made sure it was safe for people to access. 

So I had to reset my expectations a bit in light of this. What I had thought was black bark, or just what these trees were supposed to look like, was actually where they had been burned. It was amazing that many of them were still alive and starting to sprout new shoots.

And the ground cover was slowly coming back, but it will take many, many years. And who knows when the next fire might be?

At this site there is several attractions. I would have liked to do the round walk with the swing bridges, but I didn't have time. I had to get on the road heading north. What I hadn't realised was that the quickest way north towards Launceston from this point was by travelling for the hour and a half back to Hobart and turning north from there. When I'd had a few more things planned in this southern region my travels would have taken me further west and there was a nice way north from there (but longer). If I'd realised that I would have to come straight back through Hobart after only doing the one thing out there, I probably wouldn't have gone. That would have given my time to see a couple of things around Launceston that I had wanted to see like Cataract Gorge. Isn't hindsight grand...?

I suppose all of that just gives me more of an excuse to come back one day. I spent the rest of the day just driving northward through mostly farm land. I didn't stop to take photos. I love road trips, and when I get into the swing of long drives I just like to keep on going and going. What struck me most about the countryside was how dry it is... There isn't a lot of green. It's a very yellow and brown landscape. But the sheep and cattle look healthy, so it's obviously not dire yet. And it also felt like the roadworks were non-stop from Hobart to Launceston! There was a whole lot of upgrading going on...

 This is the only photo I took, when I stopped to get some lunch (not from the church 😆). 

I got to the campground at Longford, near Launceston with plenty of light left to do some repacking and get the van tidied up for the drop-off in the morning. It was in a nice setting, beside a river, with plenty of friendly ducks.

And that was it... The next morning I dropped the camper off in Launceston at 8am and headed back to Queensland and real life. I do hope to go back to Tasmania one day and spend a bit more time there. 

One day...