Hastings Caves & Cockle Creek

Finaly after 2 months Down Under I've made my first real Backpackers trip. Together with Paul (NL) and Sonja (GER) I've left to take the Huon Trail last weekend.

We left on Saturday around noon-ish to drive to the south of Tasmania and after aprox. 2,5 hour we arrived at Hastings Cave (offical name Newdegate Cave) where we would have our first stop. Just a small little detail about this cave. It's even older than the dinosaurs and was created back in the time that all continents were one whole part and on the Northern Hemisphere. Gosh, I don't feel old at all at the moment.

But before we went into the cave we walked around and did swim a bit at the Thermal Springs. Temparature of the hot Springs and the swimming pool was about 29 degrees, and in the cave? Just a wee bit colder.. 9 degrees.

The most odd thing for me in this cave was the fact that we entered the first and also biggest chamber after approx. 20 stairs. I've been visiting caves before (last one in 2005 in the Czech Republic) but with the most of them needing to walk for a while before entering a chamber. But if all the caves look the same, it's boring to visit them isn't it?

To be honest I didn't pay that much attention to what the guide told, as I was looking around to what the cave looked like so I can't tell that much about it. Although I did listen to what the guide said about the stalactite (above) and the stalagmite (below), of which there is a picture below. Although they almost touch each other it appears to take them almost another 1000 years to actually become 1 column.

Well after leaving the cave we head south again to arrive in the metropolitan called Cockle Creek early in the evening. Cockle Creek is the most southern you can drive by motor vehicle in the whole of Australia. You might think why metropolitan. It has a population of 3!! And I haven't spotted them at all :). After finding a place to put up our tent we ate a bit and enjoyed the evening. Little detail in difference with the Netherlands, here there are signs where you CAN'T camp instead of other way around.

The next morning started with a couple of showers forcing us to discuss which track we should walk. The South Cape Bay track in Cockle Creek or heading for Hartz Mountains National Park to walk a track there. We decided to do the first one and to be honest I didn't regret it. This 15km return track would take us to the most southern point you can walk in whole Australia and is part of the 7 day long South Coast track (we even met some bushwalkers almost finishing this track). So.. of we went walking for about 30 minutes through rain forrest, 1 hour through open land and the another 30 minutes through rain forrest. And after that 2 hours? Just an impressive wild Southern Ocean. Standing on the cliffs facing south there is only the South Cape and about 3000km of water between you and Antarctica. The only thing I can say.. just take a look at the photo's.

Unfortunatly I seemed to have pulled a muscle in my lower back or at least it started to irritate me on the way back to Cockle Creek. It felt so horrible that we had to call of the rest of the Huon Trail trip. So no Hartz Mountains, no Tahune Airwalk and no Bruny Island this time. More luck next time.

Oh and don't worry, I feel much better already. :)