As part of our weekend in Tasmania Xuan and I drove about 70 kilometres out of Hobart to the Huon Valley to experience the Tahune Forest AirWalk which is a 597 metre walk 20 metres above the ground. The highlight of the walk is the cantilever which protrudes out from the main walk structure giving amazing views of the surrounding forest and the junction of the Picton and Huon Rivers. It was a little scary though as the cantilever swayed in the wind and bounced while you walked.

We also did the Huon Pine Walk which took us across two suspension bridges over the Picton and Huon Rivers. You’re supposed to leave a 10 metre gap between walkers for safety while crossing the bridges. The bridges bounced and swayed heaps as you walked on them. Now that was a pretty amazing experience.

I spent last weekend at the Grampians (officially the Grampians National Park in Victoria, Australia) with my mum’s side of the family which was a lot of fun. There were around 16 of us and we all stayed at the cosy Mt Zero Log Cabins.

On Sunday we made our way to Mt Stapylton to tackle the 2 hour walk. We were told the walk would be a little challenging but we had no idea it would be as involving as it was (I found out later on that travel guides graded the walk as either moderate or hard). There were many slippery rock surfaces and certain areas required some rock hopping and rock scrambling which would have been a little too dangerous for my youngest cousin and some of the older folks in the group. There weren’t any guard rails either so it wouldn’t have taken much for someone to accidentally slip and fall off a rock ledge.

In the end about half of us made it all the way to the summit. The views were quite spectacular. I especially liked the numerous rock pools scattered around the summit area which you can see in photos below.

While Xuan and I were at Emerald Lake we stumbled across these little red mushrooms. We were both fascinated by them and ended up spending quite some time taking photographs. They kind of reminded me of the mushroom houses in the 1980s cartoon The Smurfs.

The proper name for this species of mushroom or fungus to be correct is Amanita muscaria but they are apparently commonly known as fly agaric or fly Amanita. The mushrooms are poisonous and are said to have hallucinogenic effects if consumed. The photos below taken today show the mushrooms in various stages of growth.

Xuan and I headed to Emerald Lake Park today which is located in Melbourne’s outer east, about 50 km from the city. The park has two lakes, Lake Treganowan and Nobelious and offers barbecue facilities, paddle boats, walking tracks, fishing and the famous Puffing Billy heritage railway.

We spent the afternoon walking on the tracks and taking photos along the way. A lot of our time was spent taking photos of cute little red mushrooms we discovered scattered around the park. After some research I found out that they are called Amanita muscaria and are poisonous.

A group of us headed down to Fairhaven this weekend for a bit of rest and relaxation away from the city. Fairhaven is a small coastal town near Aireys Inlet and Anglesea on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.

We rented a large house overlooking the beach which was sensational. The place had five bedrooms, two living areas, bar area, pool table, barbeque and a large upstairs deck with spectacular ocean views. We couldn’t have hoped for a nicer place to spend the weekend.

The weather wasn’t great so we didn’t head down to the beach for a swim. We did go and check out the Split Point Lighthouse though which is one of the main attractions along the Great Ocean Road. Some scenes from the Australian children’s television series Round the Twist were also filmed there.