Tahune Air Walk and Franklin Wooden Boat Centre

Thursday 15 January 2015

Our first stop today was the Geeveston Forest and Heritage Museum where Hayden admired the life-sized wooden carvings of people.

http://aumuseums.com/tas/hobart/forest-and-heritage-centre

From here we drove to Tahune Air Walk.  This gives a completely different perspective on the forest as you are in the canopy and in some places above it. There were 112 steps to climb to get to the start of the platform.  After wandering through the canopy there was a cantilevered section that poked out above the canopy almost over the Huon River.  This did have a disconcerting bouncy feeling but I didn’t find it scary.  Hayden was very nervous about coming out onto the cantilevered section, although he seemed quite comfortable on the rest of the Airwalk – he got up the nerve to do it twice in the end!!

https://tahuneadventures.com.au/

Canopy view

We returned to the car via a walk that included a 100m and a 69m suspension bridge over the Huon and Picton Rivers respectively.  These I found a bit nervy, but much more comfortable than I expected. The view of the river was quite good – due to the rain over the last few days, which seemed insignificant to us, the ranger said the river levels had risen 1.5m since the previous day – the water was swirling around some small trees and completely over some trees that would normally be on the riverbank.

Heading back toward Hobart we visited The Wooden Boat Centre in Franklin.  They teach the craft of wooden boat building in both short courses and diploma form.  They make new boats, restore old boats and can make boats from recycled wood.  These boats are truly works of art.  I learnt the difference between clinker boats (boards arranged like a weatherboard house) and carvel boats (non-square boards butted up and caulked with hemp or cotton).

http://www.woodenboatcentre.com/

The last stop on the way home was the Australian Antarctic Division Headquarters, which appeared to be very interesting and full of information.  As we arrived just before closing time I photographed the signs and will read up on this later.  Hayden did “dress-ups” and I took a photo of him in Antarctica.

http://www.antarctica.gov.au/

Another very full day!!