Cradle Mountain

Two and a half weeks ago we were just getting back from our amazing weekend at Cradle Mountain National Park. It’s crazy that’s it’s already been two weeks! As soon as we learned about Cradle Mountain, Tanner and I knew that we had to make it there before we left. Our first few attempts to get there failed because of weather and car/ group confusion. We finally had everything worked out on our third attempt. Then we looked at the weather and of course there was a 90% chance of rain in Cradle the whole weekend. We decided it didn’t matter and it wasn’t worth the confusion to put it off again. We were finally going on our Cradle Mountain adventure!

Since the weather decided it wasn’t going to cooperate with us, I decided that I probably should invest in a decent raincoat. My first few attempts at cheap raincoats didn’t really go well for me and let’s just say I found out the hard way they really weren’t waterproof. I found a nice purple raincoat at a sports store and made sure that the tag clearly said waterproof. It was well worth the extra money and since winter in Tassie is proving to be quite rainy it is coming in handy! We also decided that we really weren’t up for camping in the rainy, chilly weather. Our $15 tents and other incredibly cheap camping gear just weren’t going to cut it. One of my friends recommended some cabins right by the national park, so I quickly booked one for us. On Thursday night Tanner picked up our rental car and then we got ready for our weekend away.

Day One

Early Friday morning we packed up the car and picked up everyone. We had a completely full car (Tanner, Kate, Madison, Kirsten, and I), which was awesome. It’s always more fun with a bunch of people. It was probably the longest drive Tanner and I have been on in Tas, but it was so pretty it didn’t matter. Once we got up into the mountains there was snow all over the ground. Most people know I’m not the biggest fan of snow, but it was kind of cool seeing it in Australia. The car wasn’t really fond of the snow though and struggled with the tiny amount on the road. Tanner really appreciated that while he was driving. Once we got to the other side of the mountain and started going down again it immediately started to warm up and the snow disappeared. It was impressive how fast and drastically the landscape/temperature changed.

We made a pit stop at Mole Creek Karst National Park on our way to Cradle Mountain. I had read about the national park online and it said there was karst caves with beautiful formations there. Everyone in the car was easy going and up for anything, which was awesome! I really wanted to see a Tassie cave, so I was pumped to get the opportunity to explore one.  We ended up going on a tour of King Solomon cave. The website didn’t lie … it was full of beautiful cave formations and stalactites. It was crazy to think that when we were walking on the path to the visitors center this whole underground world was so close to us and we had no idea. At one point in the tour the guide shut off the lights and we were able to listen to the sounds of the cave. I couldn’t even imagine being the first one to find the cave. It would be so dark, especially with just a little lantern! On our way out of the cave our guide pointed out a Tasmanian Cave Spider. We had a whole lecture about them in our Tasmanian Fauna class, so I was actually really excited to find this little critter in its natural habitat.

Once our tour was over we said goodbye to our magical underground world and continued on our journey to Cradle. About an hour later we pulled up at the Discovery Holiday Park, which was where our home for the weekend was. We checked in and then dropped our things off.  After being indecisive for a little bit, we decided on going on some short walks. We only had about 2/2.5 hours off sunlight left, so we couldn’t be too ambitious our first day. We jumped back in the car and drove to the Interpretative Center to start our first short hike. It was raining quite a bit when we started our bushwalk and it continued the whole time. Our first walk was on the Enchanted Forest trail. I saw people post pictures of this walk on Pinterest. I of course thought it looked super cool so I pinned it, but I actually had no idea where in Tasmania it was. It was pretty exciting to actually stumble upon it. It didn’t let me down! We were surrounded my huge trees and lots of green just like the picture showed.  Actually being there was 10 times better though! We also saw some streams that were very high and were moving extremely fast. It was pretty incredible.

The Enchanted loop only took about 20 minutes to finish, so after we started on the King Billy Pine walk. This one was my personal favorite! All the trees were once again super tall and the moss made everything extremely green. I felt like I was walking in some magical forest in a Disney movie and animals should have been jumping out to talk to me! Sadly there were no talking animals, but we made it to a massive and incredibly old King Billy Pine tree. Who knew my brother shared a name with an enormous tree! I mean he probably would find that significantly less exciting then his sister, but that’s ok. We finished our loop and then walked back to the Interpretation Center. There were a few times we wondered if we were actually going to get back or if you we would be stuck in the forest because the path and river became one. The water was very high and beginning to flood!

We had a little more time to walk, so we did one more walk by the Interpretation Center.  We got to see the Pencil Pine Falls and the pencil pine/myrtle rainforest. By the time we finished that walk we were pretty wet and chilly, so we jumped back in the car. We didn’t want to go back to the cabin yet, so Madison suggested that we should go to Ronny Creek, which is were a lot of wombats hang out. Once we got there we started walking on the famous overland track. It generally takes people walking this trail about 4-5 days to complete... not quite what we were up for.  It seems like it would be an excellent summer activity! We only walked on it for 5 mins just so we could find our wombats! We found lots of them and we were all thrilled to see our furry friends. Not to deprive the wonderful wombats from their spotlight, but Tanner also spotted a platypus near the trail. Kate and I rushed over, but it had already disappeared in the shallow water. We were determined to find it again… we figured it would have to breathe again eventually. We also decided that since the water it was swimming in wasn’t very deep or large we had a good chance of spotting it when it did come up. After a little while, Kate saw found our platypus friend and we were all absolutely amazed by him. We watched our buddy search for food and swim around for a while. I was in heaven and love every minute of watching this adorable creature. Finding a platypus was well worth all the rain we endured that weekend. Now I can actually say, see a wild platypus… check!!! I never thought that goal would ever happen!

Proof I saw a platypus!

Once we were finished with our Ronny Creek wildlife excitement we headed back to the cabins to dry off and get warm. I keep saying cabins, but it was more like a hostel with our own really nice private room. We shared a kitchen, and toilet/shower facility with other people staying in bunkerhouse rooms. It’s just easier to refer to it as a cabin. The common kitchen area was super nice and we spent most of the time we weren’t walking or sleeping in there. It was a great place to hang out and warm up. There were tables, an oven, two fridges, all the cooking stuff you could need (even though I really didn’t use any of it), microwaves, and our personal favorite the heater. Our room was great too and we were all happy to have a warm/dry place to sleep. We all decided it was well worth the little bit of extra money not to have to camp. I personally liked falling asleep listening to the rain, especially b/c I wasn’t actually getting wet or cold. Tent camping would have miserable.

Day Two

On the second day of our Cradle adventure we drove down to Dove Lake. This is the famous part of Cradle Mountain National Park, since you can see the actual Cradle Mountain there. It is also theoretically where you can capture the iconic Cradle Mountain picture with Dove Lake and the Cradle summit. However, we found out pretty quickly that when it is cloudy and raining you can’t actually see the Cradle Mountain summit. I’ve officially been to Cradle Mountain without actually seeing the whole Cradle Mountain. Bummer! We were able to see a little more than half of the famous mountain though.  Plus the lake and landscape was still spectacular.

 After we snapped some pics of Dove Lake we started our bushwalk to Marions Lookout. Walking in this national Park was incredible and the views and sights were amazing. Every part of our walk was astoundingly beautiful. Tasmania has once again left me speechless and words just don’t do this park justice. On our walk the weather wasn’t too bad. It was mostly just cloudy and misty. There were even some brief moments of sunlight… we would all get super excited for our few seconds of light! We found a lookout that had awesome views of Dove Lake and the surrounding landscape! My favorite part of this walk though was seeing Crater Lake. The lake was very impressive and the mountains surrounding me made me feel so tiny. The views from this point were breathtaking as well. It was awesome to see all the lakes and the buttongrass landscape from up high. We continued walking towards Marion’s Lookout after we were finished taking in the Crater Lake scenery. Our walk got very steep and slick once we got close to the lookout. There was a chain rail that you could use to pull yourself up. I enjoyed the extra challenge of getting to our destination and not falling down the mountain. When we made it to the lookout we tried to take in the view. We could see little bits of things, but we were basically standing in a cloud and we really couldn’t see too much. I’m sure on a clear day the views are absolutely spectacular. There was a decent amount of snow at the lookout, so we all enjoyed jumping in the snow. Kirstein even left a little snowman at the top for other visitors. Then it was time for our journey back down towards the car park. We took a pretty steep and wet path down. I was doing so well and hadn’t slipped until the very end. At almost the very bottom I slipped and fell on my butt. Unfortunately, I picked a place with a big puddle to fall. Oops!

Kate and I at Marion's Lookout

Once we were down, we jumped onto the Dove Lake Circuit trail. This trail takes you around the whole Dove Lake and it was my favorite walk of the weekend. I loved seeing all the buttongrass… it’s probably one of my favorite plants now. It just makes the landscape look so fluffy! We also went through the Ballroom Forest, which showcased more giant, moss-covered trees (which I also love).  At the end of the loop we were able to set out onto Glacier Rock and take some cool pictures of the lake and mountains. It was a fantastic walk and I know my writing is not doing it justice! Pictures say 1,000 words right (they don’t do it justice either) ….

Button grass and other plants!

Cradle Mountain in the clouds... and a rainbow!

Boat hut on Dove Lake Circuit 

Once we made it back to the car park we sat in the visitors hut and ate our lunch. We were all pretty wet from all the on and off raining/misting. I was also personally very cold, so I headed back to the car to warm up with Kate. While I was walking back I noticed there was a rainbow in the middle of Dove Lake right in front of Cradle Mountain! AMAZING! The only thing that could have possible made that sight better was if the top of Cradle Mountain was showing. I wasn’t complaining though… I definitely wasn’t expecting to see the perfect rainbow in basically the perfect place!

We all hopped in the car and were trying to find the next place to walk, since we still had some daylight left. We decided to go back up by the visitors center and do the Dove Canyon walk. Right before we were about to get out of the car it started to rain…. This time it was raining really hard too. We sure know how to time things (this happened to us the entire weekend). We had all been sitting in the warm car and decided that we were tired, finally warm, and really not up for another 2 hour walk. Instead we went to check out the gift shop in the lodge and visitor center. We wanted to get souvenirs anyway so it worked out well. We even found some wallabies on our way in to the lodge aka Kate’s favorite Aussie animal!

After that we headed back to the cabin and hung out for the rest of the night. We played cards a bunch of card games, shared some wine (drinking age is 18 so no worries I wasn’t breaking the law), and talked a lot. It was a pretty awesome time and a great way to end the day. We also saw a hairy cicada around the cabin! It was pretty weird looking… kinda like a moth and a cicada combined. We found out later in Tas Fauna it is a primitive species of cicada. I thought it was cool.

Day Three

We waned to wake up early to do the Dover Lake Circuit walk that we neglected to do the day before. When we woke up we heard the rain steadily beating on the roof and we all turned over went back to sleep for a little longer. Eventually we decided to brave the rain and wind so we could have one last adventure. We decided to do a shorter walk to Kvyett Falls instead of the 2/3 hour loop. It started to clear up for us while we were driving to the Interpretation Center (the beginning of the our walk), but as soon as we were getting out of the car it stared to pour! We decided to just go for it and start our walk anyways. This walk took us to a waterfall. The water was running incredibly fast and there was a lot of it. We also saw a few wallabies on our walk. Kate tried to convince one that it should go back to Canada with her, but it didn’t want to. I found a wombat sleeping in the hole of a tree. It was all cuddled up and trying to stay dry. Adorable!

Once we made it back to the car we headed back to Hobart. Our ride home was filled with mountains, rainbows, and of course sheep. We even drove through a town called Perth, so now I can stay I’ve been to Perth. I don’t have to mention that it’s was the tiny town in Tassie and not the city on the west coast of the Australian mainland right?!?!

 

Heading back to Hobart

Cradle Mountain National Park was amazing! It was one of my favorite places I’ve visited in Tassie. It was beautiful even in the rain, so I can’t even imagine what it would be like to see it is when it’s sunny! It is now on my bucket list to go back to Cradle Mountain someday in the summer months.

Tanner and I officially have less then a month until we arrive in the USA. CRAZY! We just finished classes today and all we have left are exams. This upcoming week is SWOTVAC or as we say in the US dead week. There are no classes during SWOTVAC, so we are off to Melbourne/New Zealand for the week.  Don’t worry they also have 3 weeks of exams here and our finals aren’t until a little later in the exam time period. We will have a few days to study when we get back! I’m so excited to see what adventures we will have this week. See you all in less than a month! Miss you <3

Love Always,

Bobbi