Spend a lot of time in this position in Hastings Cave
Halactities
Click picture to read the signs.
Hello Readers,
Our day off and we were aiming to leave by 8am! This plan fell off the rails since we didn't wake up until 830. We left just after 10 and headed along our wheel ruts on the road to Hobart. Not pausing we trod the same route down the Huon Valley as last week. We called in to the Geeveston Bakery and had our pies, coffee and cakes for lunch. We did try the other shop across the road but they did not accept EFTPOS either. "We don't have a phone line".
On the road this morning, Susan "I have really improved being a passenger" (This refers to her constant instructions to the driver) Simon "Well you couldn't have gotten worse!" Both "Laughter".
We arrived at Hastings Caves reserve at around 215. The reserve consists of 2 attractions, the caves and the thermal springs. These are around 28C. We duly trotted down bathers and towels in hand. Susan decided that it wasn't warm enough to swin so we walked the "hot springs trail for 30 mins before heading up to the cave for our tour. We were the only people on the tout along with Laura out guide and a younger woman on work experience whose name has slipped both our minds. On entering the cave i again realised why i had taken so many pictures on my last visit in 1978. They are truly spectacular and the photos do not do them justice. As is my want i had to correct the guide when she said calcite was 1 on the hardness scale for rocks. I was able to recall the mnemonic after several minutes of thinking and correctly saying that 1 was talc and calcite is 3. Funny I can remember something I learnt in 1978 but not what happened today to write in the blog! I guess the tour guides just love people like me! Must be an occupational hazard being a guide though.
Moving on from the caves we headed south. From my observations leaving Dover the Mountain with the conical peak featured in earlier blogs covered in snow is not Mount Picton but Adamsons peak. I shall have to go back and make corrections. We came to the end of the southernmost road in Australia. You cannot actually drive to the southernmost point of Australia and looking a the maps I am not sure you can even walk there. South Cape is like a giant Fortescue Bay. The early visitations were by the French which is reflected in the naming of the bays and channels.
After a walk around and an appreciation of the area (It's wet with an average of 212 rain days per year) we headed northwards again. We still have a little bit to see down here. There is a tourist railway at Ida Bay which i would like to see. We stopped at Franklin for tea at the Huon's Little Treasure Bistro with a mixed asian and western cuisine. Very nice it was too. From then on it was the drive back to Nubeena some 2 hours with a pause for fuel. Thankfully I managed not to flatten any of the local wildlife although there were a couple of near misses. We arrived home at 1030. A good day out pity we didn't wake a bit earlier this morning.
night folks.
Cheers Simon
Two corrections! It is "end of the road" not end of the world and recherche = research!
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