Touring the tops of the trees

The day dawned with brightness behind the grey and progressively got better for there. After a hurried start of hot cross buns for brekkie overlooking the serenity of the bay from our porch we threw everything into the car and headed off to Launceston. 5 minutes on we realised that Petunia Bothington-Smythe (our GPS voice) was taking us on the boring route, so we did a U-Turn and instead went over the mountainous north east corner of the Island.
This route showed us landscapes ranging from flat green pastures through thick forests (incl. Myrtle) to high plains barren vegetation (this may have been a result of Gunns operations – sometimes hard to tell). And indeed quite often all of these were showing in single vistas. A coffee break at Scottsdale and then an hour later we were heading into sunny Launceston.
After locating our accommodation (owned by an overly zealous Historic Ex-Hawthorn Players Spotter) we wandered into town for lunch and an acclimatisation experience. We then checked into our room and hopped back into the car for our elevated experience.
The tree tops adventurer was purposely left to the last day to give us some excitement after sitting in the car for a week. It was a bonus (to us) that the weather was perfect for the event. The idea of this theme park is twofold 1. Make money 2. Give people an exciting few hours that they don’t mind contributing to idea no 1.
They have seven flying foxes in a course strung down the side of a forested mountainside and over a substantial mountain stream. It’s all perfectly safe (if you leave the equipment alone) however still nerve raking when you’re hanging off the side of a huge mountain ash, 30 meters up surrounded by a tangle of wires, pulleys, ropes, a gaggle of people you don’t know and some blasé guides who swing through the jungle like Tarzan (or in our case.... Jane).
The adventure took 3 hours to complete. 2 hours, 59 minutes of this was preparing, listening to instructions and waiting in line. The other 60 seconds dangling from wire at ridiculously high altitudes and at high speeds seemed to make up nicely for the rest of the time.
Seriously good fun. The final long run goes for 400 meters, crosses the river 50 meters up at speeds of up to 80 km per hour. So with our wheels squealing and voices shrieking we tried our best to scare the begeebees out of the wildlife surrounding us. Needless to say the wildlife has better things to do than worry about a noisy pack of flying drongo’s.
We all received certificates to authorise us for...ummm.. not sure actually. They do look official though.

Heading back to town we decided to shun the pack of HEHP’s having diner in the Hotel lobby and instead walked down the street to discover every place was full due to the game being played in town the next night. So we weedled our way into a place (drinks at a pub up the road until a table became free) and enjoyed another great dinner surrounded by the trendy Y Gen (Tassie Branch).
Back to the hotel room for a later than normal night (bed at 9:30 - night owls - woo hoo!). Tomorrow will be the riveting finish to the trip by getting back home (which means this was really the last day).