and

Thermal Pools 

03/27/08

We had been waiting for some time for a really miserable day to go visit Hastings Caves about two hours south of Hobart near the small coastal town of Southport.  On Monday, July 3rd, we awoke to a misty, gloomy day and decided it was time to finally do it.  The drive south is one of our favorites, up and over the mountains and into the Huon Valley. As we drove into the park area, I spotted a pair of Superb Lyrebirds on the edge of the forest, the first of these birds I have ever seen in the wild.  We heard their clear, loud calls echoing through the forest for the rest of the day.

The caves were discovered by loggers poaching timber from the site in 1919.  The area and cave have been protected since the early thirties, but the evidence of nineteenth century logging is hard to ignore with huge stumps along the boardwalk though the forest to the cave's entrance.  The stumps are about fifteen feet tall and thirty feet in diameter.  These moss covered giants were felled over a hundred years ago and the notches where the loggers propped themselves to stand and cut are still evident. 

Newdegate Cave, one of three caves in the complex, is the largest dolomite cave in Australia and is accessible through a narrow entrance barred with an elaborate, wrought iron gate.  There are over four hundred steps to the bottom of the cave and back again.  There is some lighting and recently some areas of the floor were covered with pavers, but it is otherwise as it was found a hundred and eighty seven years ago.

The other attraction of the area is a thermal swimming pool fed by a stream that surfaces nearby supplying water at 28 C (81 F) year round.  Next to the pool is a wonderful shower facility and a picnic area which was heated by two huge fireplaces the day we were there.  The roof of the picnic shelter is supported by one of the huge tree stumps from the nineteenth century. 

The scale is hard to detect from this photo, but this stump is well over fifteen feet tall.  The forest is full of these ancient remnants.	Near the entrance to the cave is a fallen giant.  This picture starts to capture the inner light of the green of the forest.
The cave is full of amazing formations like this one ....	.... and contains a wide variety of stalactites like these that don't seem to be content to just grow downward.
The cave has formed columns in many areas.....	.... and when you see how slowly these formations grow, it is unfathomable how long something like this would take....
I know all caves with formations like this tend to blend together, but it was awe inspiring to see it, just the same.	The cave had several areas where curtain stalactites had formed.
A column in a room of straw stalactites....	I thought this looked like a Disney Cave!
The covered picnic area....	Near the junction of the blue grey, but clear, hot spring stream and the cold, tannin colored surface runoff stream, there is a stair and a platform so that we could bend down and feel the two streams before they joined.
The carved archway above and this sign are typical of the signage in the park.  Someone has gone to a great deal of effort!  Some of the signs were ceramic.  Others were bronze or like these two, wood.