HOBART – 28-29 May 2025
When planning the upcoming Three Capes Walk, I envisaged a sold training regime. Well, that lasted for about a month. Just couldn’t motivate myself to get back to the gym. I did do some caving, day walks and one overnight walk, definitely not enough! So, I added on a few days in Hobart before the walk intending to at least get a bit of walking in. Probably not that blogworthy, it’s a good test to see if the gmail-ers are getting my posts.
John O offered to take me on a day walk and then I thought I’d do a quick spin around Hobart, like that would make a difference to my slothful behavior!
John picked me up from the Astor Private Hotel (my goto place when stopping off in Hobart).
Reception area in The Astor, I just love the art deco decor and Tildy (the manager) has added even more antiques than those you see in the photo. Every time I stay here Tildy treats me like a long-lost friend!
John and I then headed up to We then headed off to the Hartz Mountains National Park to do a walk on the mountain. Whilst the weather forecast predicted showers late in the day, by the time we drove up to the parking spot the wind had picked up and there was driving rain, so we gave up on that plan and drove back down the mountain to the Tahune AirWalk which is in a State Forest. The plan was to walk the trail (about 5k) and check out the AirWalk. On a past trip down to Ida Bay, I’d seen the sign for the AirWalk but we didn’t have the time to do it, so this is a great opportunity.
5 minutes into the walk and we are at Havaguanda Beach, in the summer would be nice to sit here with your feet in the water. It’s hard to see but the AirWalk is across the river in the canopy.
On the track looking up at the canopy, the height of these trees is amazing and it’s nice to see that they haven’t been felled.
Given this is a state forest, the width of the walking track isn’t surprising.
These rocks are what remains of “Picton House”, occupied by Francis McPartlan his wife Alice and their Children. McPartlan came to Tasmania from Ireland as a convict in 1846 (serving a sentence for stealing a gun), after serving his sentence in 1863 he was appointed as a police constable responsible for inspecting and issuing timber cutting licences – this involved him walking long distances from the Huon River to Mount Arthur (a huge area).
Crossing the Picton River – Jox in the distance. I’m never entirely comfortable crossing a swing bridge – at 62m long, and this is a big one.
Once across the swing bridge, we took a small detour to a lookout where we could see the confluence of the Picton River with the Huon River. On the rh side of the photo, you can see the swing bridge across the Huon River.
Back to the track and we’re now crossing the Huon River – if I thought the Picton River one was big, this one at 100m was way impressive and a bit scary. It was cool crossing the river though.
From the swing bridge looking downstream. The Huon River doesn’t have a dam in the headwaters (like the Derwent River), so you can imagine the flow of the water when this river is in flood.
On January 15th, 2019, dry lightning strikes ignited what is now called the Riveaux road fire in the Huon Valley. The lightning strikes started multiple fires across the forests in South-West Tasmania. Within a few days they had joined together and began heading towards the Tahune State Forest. This tree shows the scale of the fire.
Looking up to the AirWalk showing many of the fire damaged trees.
Looking up at the “end” of the AirWalk and the lookout. From crossing the river it took us about 1/2 an hour to get to the start of the AirWalk. The AirWalk is about 620m in length – quite impressive.
John walking out to the end of the AirWalk on the cantilevered walkway (50m above the river). In the distance is Pear Hill (630m) the 2019 fire started at the base of Pear Hill with lightning strikes.
From the end of the AirWalk looking out at the devastation – all the “dead-looking” trees never recovered from the fire. About 63,800 hectares of forest was burnt in the Huon Region. The Huon River in the foreground.
Looking upstream on the Huon river and in the distance you can see the confluence of the Picton and Huon rivers – and Pear Hill. Stunning river – imagine rafting down it!
We had lunch by the river and then headed off to do the Huon Pine Walk, also within the State Forest.
The Huon Pine forest is quite “rainforest-ish” with plenty of fungi around.
More fungi.
Nice ferny section.
I was expecting a different looking tree than what we found. The trees are quite small in stature. And the leaves aren’t like the pine needles that I expected. They love having wet roots so are often near the river, like this one. The wood (when they are cut) is very yellow inside and is highly sought after for furniture. This one would be hundreds of years old (a sign said 450 years old) – Huon Pine trees on the west coast of Tasmania are believed to be 2,500 years old. Fortunately, the 2019 fire did not wipe out this forest.
Was a lovely walk, and a great opportunity to catch up with John, thank you so much for the day out John. Whilst probably wouldn’t help me much with the upcoming Three Capes Walk, at least I was doing SOMETHING!
On Thursday morning I decided to do a short fitness walk about the Hobart Waterfront and let me say, much has changed since I was down this way in 2020!
Stunning waterfront (and weather). Last time I wandered around the waterfront there were far more sheds and big metal buildings with little or no aesthetic appeal. Now there’s a lovely walkway.
I particularly liked this new art installation. It was erected to acknowledge the 13,000 convict women transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) between 1803 and 1853, bringing with them 2,000 children, they apparently disembarked on Hunter Island (which is apparently where this building stands). The panels on which each statue stands has the names of all the women and their children and when they arrived (also possibly on which ship). Very moving.
On a lighter note, some other metal art installations – very cute.
I probably walked around 5k along the waterfront and through downtown – not enough to make me fitter LOL – so then I went back to the Astor and, sloth that I am, laid in bed reading a trashy novel for the rest of the day waiting for Beth (my walking partner) to arrive!
Hope you enjoyed the brief revisit to Hobart! It was only just “blog worthy”.