Day Three ... Launceston

Today, we were based in Launceston, and my trusty travel buddy had organised our day for us by trawling through the Ad Lab app, the travel brochure I had picked up at the airport and a little googling.

We headed out at about 8.30 and with the morning being a little cooler headed straight to Cataract Gorge. When we arrived we discovered that there was going to be a massive music festival there later today so we were very happy to have headed there first!

We hiked the upper section of Basin Lake before heading on to Cataract Walk - a gentle, paved walk that took us to Kingston Bridge. It was a lovely gentle amble amongst the granite, passing alongside the river as it tumbled over the rocks. The suspension bridge over the lake gives you beautiful views both up and down the gorge.

Reaching the end of the walk we crossed over the river to Penny Royal, a mini adventure park/historical park. It is filled with history of Van Diemen's Land and we stopped in to complete the Cliff Walk ... where you are harnessed up and walk on elevated rope bridges high above the park. After gearing up, we were given our safety briefing and then we were told to head off to the start ... on our own! We were not part of a group and were able to go at our own pace. The views were amazing and the walk was exhilarating!

Whilst at the Penny Royal Ian did a little gold panning and found our fortune and had a little play with remote control boats. We watched the Brig travel around its route with the most hilarious boat captain!

Saying goodbye to Penny Royal we headed back to the Gorge and decided to hike the Zig Zag track back to our car. It was rated hard but we took it slow and hiked the steps up to the ridge and then down again on the other side. The walk was very different to the Cataract Walk and I'm really glad we did it. (Jacqui was a star, pushing through the thousand steps to the top).

And so on to our next stop ... which was really a series of stops ... as we completed 2 Ad Labs that took us to several beautiful parks all around Launceston. We explored Princes Square, Punchbowl Reserve, Royal Park and many more. The parks in Launceston are wonderful. They are well kept, they are filled with things to do, they have lovely clean toilets and ample parking. We stopped for lunch at a wonderful Cafe that works hard to support lonely youth through employment, fund-raising and free meals. And drove down a street that was unbelievably STEEP.

We finished our day with a walk through City Park, listed as one of the top ten parks in Australia. It has beautiful gardens, magnificent trees that are hundreds of years old, a band stand, a conservatory and a macaque monkey enclosure with macaques donated from Japan in exchange for some Tasmanian Wallabies. We had a wonderful walk, stopping for an ice cream and to sit and watch the world go by.