The Tahune Airwalk suspends visitors 20 metres above the Huon River, a steel cantilever structure that extends 597 metres through the canopy of swamp gums and myrtle beech.
Opened in 2001, the elevated walkway was designed to offer non-climbers access to the mid-canopy zone, where epiphytic ferns and lichen colonies thrive in perpetual mist. The engineering brief required minimal ground disturbance—each pylon was helicoptered into position to avoid logging roads through old-growth stands. The result is a pathway that moves with the wind, swaying gently as visitors cross above the river gorge.
Hastings Caves, 84 kilometres south, occupies a different geological chapter. The dolomite chambers formed 40 million years ago when acidic groundwater dissolved carbonate rock, leaving vaulted galleries and rimstone pools. The main cavern, discovered by loggers in 1917, maintains a year-round temperature of 9 degrees Celsius. Stalactites grow at one cubic centimetre per century; the largest formations in the King Solomon Cave chamber are estimated at 15,000 years old. Thermal springs adjacent to the cave entrance feed a public pool heated to 28 degrees, the only accessible geothermal site in southern Tasmania.
The Huon Valley corridor connects both sites through 120 kilometres of winding two-lane highway, passing through Geeveston—once the southernmost timber town in Australia—and the Arve River valley, where Huon pine logs, felled in the 1950s, still rest in shaded gullies, resistant to decay for centuries. The Tahune site preserves a stand of these conifers along the Huon Pine Walk, a 600-metre ground-level loop where visitors can touch bark from trees that predate European settlement by 400 years.
Combined tours typically allocate three hours at Tahune for the Airwalk, Swinging Bridges, and forest trails, then drive south for a 90-minute guided cave descent and thermal pool session. The route passes through the Hartz Mountains foothills, where roadside signs mark the boundary of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Mobile coverage drops after Geeveston. The Tahune Airwalk and Hastings Cave tour operates year-round, though winter访itors should prepare for subfreezing morning temperatures at elevation and rain that turns the Airwalk decking slick. The cave interior remains dry.
24 hr
