Tasmania and the Cradle Mountain Summit

An echidna.

Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain.

There was still some snow!

Beautiful vistas.

The boulder field.

Towards the summit.

The view from the top.

The clouds rolled in.

A wombat...

and a platypus in the wild!

Wednesday, December 21st

I drove to the airport early in the morning and left my car parked there for three days, it's cheaper than a taxi back and forth. I flew to Tasmania at 7 am and arrived at 8. I picked up my rental car and found that I had been upgraded from a little Hyundai to a white Toyota Corolla sedan. Then I set out. I drove the same route I took back in March and drove along quiet, rural roads through forests and farm areas. Again I found an echidna along the side of the road and watched him for a while.

I continued on until I arrived at Cradle Mountain National Park about three hours after landing. I went in and checked out the hikes. I had decided to return to Tasmania so that I could do the canyoning, the summit hike and another hike that I had seen other people doing last time. It involved climbing up and over a large rounded hill. So I asked about that one and the ranger told me it was the Marion Lookout hike. So today I decided to do that one, as I had a half day and didn't want to wear myself out too much before the canyoning which I had booked for tomorrow.

Before I set off, I had to 'rug up'. It was very windy and cold, so I changed from shorts to sweatpants and a fleece jumper and my light down jacket and a beanie and gloves. Yes it was that cold. Then I took the shuttle from the visitor's centre to the Dove Lake car park. They run a shuttle because the 10 kilometre road is very narrow and the parking lot is too small to hold all the cars.

So after taking a couple of shots of Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain, which was partly enshrouded in cloud, away I went on. The Marion Lookout hike was about 4 kilometers and most of it was uphill and quite steep. I found it difficult and challenging but I got there. When I got to the top the view of Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain was beautiful. I was about to head back when I noticed a sign post that indicated the direction of the summit hike. I could see the long winding track to the base of the boulder rock field. This made me reevaluate my hikes. I had planned to do the summit hike on Thursday but I didn't want to have to do the Marion Lookout again, so I decided to carry on. It was a long and steady climb and got windier and colder as I went higher.

This is part of the famous overland trek that people hike for up to seven days from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair. I came to a point where the overland hikers could leave their packs at a cooking shed so they could climb to the summit. After this the trail was quite steep uphill to the base of the boulder rock field. The route through the boulders was marked by metal posts but you had to find your way up and over rocks. It was quite a scramble and at times it was possible to slip off and down, or slip between boulders.

I came across a husband and wife who were doing it too. He was faster than her and I was about the same speed as her. So he went on and waited for us periodically. It was a very hard climb, but as we went up the sky cleared and because quite blue for about an hour, so the views up and out over the surroundings were beautiful.

There were a couple of false summits, where you thought that was the top, but when you reached it you found it went further. Then we reached a spot where again we thought we were at the top only to find that from there it went down a couple of hundred feet and then climbed again up the other side to the last area. The clouds rolled in and it began to drizzle. Plus I was exhausted. I declared that I had had enough and was going to make the ten kilometer hike back. The lady decided to stop there too and rest while her husband continued on.

Climbing down was no picnic either. It was just as hard going down as up, but easier on the lungs. The problem was you were looking down all the time which was unnerving and showed you just how far you had to go!

Thankfully, it didn't rain hard but I was in a cloud for most of the descent and got pretty damp. When I arrived back at the Marion Lookout I decided to take a different route down. Instead of going back to the Dove Lake parking lot, I descended hundreds of steps to the Ronny Creek parking lot, because I knew from the last time that it was a great place to see wombats late in the afternoon. I was thoroughly exhausted by the time I got there, but was happy when I saw about a dozen wombats feeding in and around the button grass. When I got to the parking lot, two guys were looking at a small pond and signaled me over. There was a platypus feeding in the pond! Finally I saw one in the wild. It was feeding in a small shallow pond full of plant life, so it was right at the surface. I watched for a while and missed the shuttle back the ten kilometres to the main car park where my car was. I flagged down a car and asked for a ride back. Inside was a young Irish couple who were here on a working visa and had just finished a stint working on a farm in the outback in order to extend their visa for another year. We had a great chat all the way back.

When I got to the car I drove out of the park and drove west for about a half hour and then south for twenty minutes to the town of Tullah and the Tullah Lake Lodge. I had booked this on line and when I arrived I was surprised to find that it was the same place I stayed at back in March. I checked in just in time to order dinner in the restaurant before it closed at 7:30. I had a beer with dinner and after I finished I went to my room and basically collapsed. Lights out.