🌲 Hollybank Wilderness Adventures: Flight Through the Treetops

The Arrival

The drive from Launceston to Hollybank Forest Reserve is short, but it feels like a passage into another world. The city streets give way to winding country roads, and soon the forest rises around you — towering blue gums, their trunks pale and smooth, stretching skyward.

The air sharpens, scented with eucalyptus and damp earth. By the time you pull into the car park at Hollybank Wilderness Adventures, anticipation has already taken root. Inside the main building, the hum of excitement is palpable. Families check in, children tugging at harness straps.

Guides move with practiced ease, fitting helmets, tightening buckles, explaining safety with a calm authority that reassures even the most nervous first‑timer. Lockers line the wall, ready to swallow phones and bags, though cameras can come along if tethered securely.

It’s a rhythm of preparation — shedding the everyday, gearing up for something extraordinary.

The Launch

The zipline adventure begins not with flight but with learning. A short training session introduces the harness, the clips, the cables — the lifelines that will carry you through the canopy.

Guides demonstrate, then watch as each participant practices, ensuring confidence before the real journey begins. From here, a ten‑minute walk leads deeper into the forest.

The path winds beneath towering gums, sunlight filtering through leaves, shadows shifting with the breeze. Birds call overhead, unseen but ever present. The forest feels alive, a companion to the adventure about to unfold.

At the launch pad, you climb three metres to the first platform. The ground already feels distant, though the true heights are yet to come. Harness clipped, helmet secure, you step forward. The guide counts down, and suddenly gravity takes over.

The Flight

The first zipline is a revelation. The moment your feet leave the platform, the forest transforms. Wind rushes past, the ground drops away, and you are no longer walking through the wilderness — you are flying above it.

Six ziplines trace the course, nearly a kilometre in total. Each one carries you from tree to tree, platforms suspended like cloud stations in the canopy. The longest stretch spans 400 metres, a soaring glide across Piper’s River, 50 metres above the valley floor.

Below, the water glints in the sun, framed by the green sweep of forest. Above, the sky opens wide, a canvas of blue. It is exhilaration and serenity intertwined. The speed thrills, pressing air against your body, yet the silence of the treetops calms.

You are suspended between worlds — part of the forest, part of the sky.

The Canopy Perspective

From the platforms, the forest reveals itself in new ways. Leaves shimmer in the light, branches twist in intricate patterns, and the trunks rise endlessly, their scale only apparent when viewed from within.

Guides pause to share stories of the ecosystem — the resilience of blue gums, the wildlife that calls the canopy home, the delicate balance that sustains this wilderness. It is not just an adrenaline rush; it is an education in perspective.

Walking the forest floor, you see trunks and shadows. Flying through the canopy, you see life layered — roots, understory, mid‑canopy, and crown. Each level teems with its own rhythm, its own inhabitants.

The Family Adventure

The zipline tour is designed for families, though with careful boundaries. Children under eight ride tandem with adults, clipped into double harnesses that ensure safety while sharing the thrill.

Younger ones watch from below, eyes wide, waiting for their turn in years to come. For parents, the joy is doubled — the exhilaration of flight paired with the delight of seeing children conquer fear, laugh in the wind, and discover courage.

It becomes a shared memory, etched into family lore, retold long after the harnesses are unclipped.

The Rhythm of the Course

Each zipline builds upon the last. The first is short, easing you into the sensation. The second stretches longer, the third higher. By the time you reach the fourth, confidence has replaced hesitation.

The fifth carries you across the valley, and the sixth — the grand finale — delivers the longest, most breathtaking glide. The rhythm is deliberate, a choreography of ascent and descent, speed and pause.

Platforms offer moments to breathe, to look around, to absorb the forest before leaping again. It is a dance between anticipation and release, fear and exhilaration.

The Treetop Ropes

For those who crave challenge on solid footing, the tree ropes course offers another way to explore the canopy. Colour‑coded paths rise in difficulty: yellow for the youngest climbers, green and blue for cautious adventurers, red for daring ten‑year‑olds, and black for teens ready to test their limits.

Each course ascends higher, weaving tightropes, ladders, and leaps. The red concludes with a 20‑metre drop, controlled yet thrilling. The black, reserved for those who have conquered red, pushes balance and nerve to the edge.

Parents join in, not just supervising but participating. The ropes demand teamwork, encouragement, laughter. It is as much about family bonding as it is about physical challenge.

The Atmosphere of Hollybank

What sets Hollybank apart is not just the activities but the atmosphere. Staff are attentive, guides patient, safety paramount. Yet there is also warmth — a sense of welcome that makes every visitor feel part of the adventure.

The café offers respite, the gift shop tokens of memory, the forest itself the true reward. Even those who choose not to climb or fly find joy in watching, in breathing the fresh air, in simply being present in a place where nature and adventure meet.

The Practicalities

• Location: 66 Hollybank Rd, Underwood, Launceston, TAS 7268
• Opening Hours: Daily, 9am–5pm
• Activities: Zipline tours, tree ropes, Segway tours, mountain biking
• Duration: Zipline tour, 2.5 hours
• Requirements: Comfortable clothing, flat shoes, warm layers for changing weather
• Age Limits: Children under 8 tandem with adults; under 3 not permitted

Booking in advance is recommended, especially during peak seasons. The forest welcomes visitors year‑round, though weather can shift quickly — sunshine one moment, drizzle the next. Flexibility is part of the adventure.

The Essence of Flight

To fly through Hollybank’s treetops is to rediscover wonder. It is not just about speed or height, though both are thrilling. It is about perspective — seeing the forest from within, feeling the wind as companion, realizing that adventure can be both exhilarating and peaceful.

The zipline tour distills freedom into motion. It strips away hesitation, replaces it with exhilaration, and leaves behind memory — of laughter, of courage, of beauty glimpsed from above.

The Farewell

As the harness is unclipped and the helmet removed, the forest feels different. You walk back to the base camp, feet on solid ground, yet the sensation of flight lingers. The trees seem taller, the air fresher, the sky wider.

For a last afternoon in Launceston, Hollybank offers more than activity. It offers transformation — a chance to see the Tasmanian wilderness from a fresh perspective, to feel both thrill and tranquillity, to carry home a story that will be retold again and again.