Cradle Mountain — ColourfulLittleMoments

The Cradle Mountain - Lake St Clair National Park is in the Central Highlands regions of Tasmania. I spent 2 days walking the Cradle Mountain section of the park. And it was beautiful, sweaty, chilly, windy, joyful and challenging, thirsty work. I chose to stay at Peppers Cradle Mountain Lodge as it is the closest to the National Park entrance. The lodge does have a number of small walks right outside your door that you don't need to pay a parks entrance fee for which would be great for smaller children. They also have a number of other activities to choose from such as canoeing, canyoning, fly fishing and wine and cheese tasting. But, if you are there for the day hikes, it turns out you still need to drive to the Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre or one of the National park car parks to get going.

The first day, we were up early and raring to go so drove to the visitor centre to pay our entrance fee and get moving. But, as I hadn't done my homework, I found that the visitor centre was open yet. Depending on the season it opens at either 8.30am or 9.00am. So, back down to the lodge we went and filled in time doing the local, short Pencil Pine Falls and Knyvet Falls walk. These would be great for small children and seemed like a fairly-land with it's mossy, carpeted floors, fallen trees, boardwalk and pademelons out for their morning feed.

After the short walk, we headed back to the visitor centre, paid our entrance fees ($60 for 2 days/2 people), got the shuttle bus to the Dove Lake car park, registered our walk and got moving. The plan was to walk Marion's Lookout via Wombat Pool (graded medium) and the Dove Lake Circuit (graded easy). Marion's Lookout is an estimated 2 1/2 hour walk that included boardwalk, earth and rubble paths, quite a lot of manmade steps and a small difficult section of big rocky steps. Thankfully there was a chain that you can haul yourself up with. The views along the way and from the top are worth the effort.

Once we got to Marion's Lookout, the plan was to make our way back down and do the Dove Lake circuit, but, the boardwalk continued and we couldn't see where it led. You know how the story goes...off we went. Over the plateaux and far away, the boardwalk led to Kitchen Hut and the Cradle Mountain Summit climb. From the bottom looking up, I wouldn't have thought it could have a walking track, but we spotted a hiker part way up and thought we'd see how far we could get. The track is a grade 5 including crossing large rocks. The dirt track eventually stopped got a bit serious so the iPhone camera went away so I could use both hands to scramble and climb the rocks. Once you get to the rocks, there are only poles here and there so you can see which way to go next. I have to admit, I didn't get right to the summit for a couple of reasons. 1) there was a storm predicted for the afternoon, clouds were rolling in and we didn't want to be climbing down on wet, slippery rocks, 2) close to the top a woman was descending, she was panicking and exclaiming that she was stuck and didn't know how she was getting down. Hearing this started to worry me - I'm 5'2" and my legs are shorter than most people. If she was having trouble, how the hell was I going to get down? I managed to climb a bit further up than where she got stuck (maybe 20 meters from the top), but her voice in my head and the threatening clouds psyched me out. We decided to call it a day and start the descent. Annoyingly, I got through the section she got stuck in relatively ok so one day I shall return and conquer!

Day 2 of walking we opted for a longer distance but easier going. We drove to Ronny Creek car park, registered the walks and started the Lilla Lake walk followed by the Dove Lake Circuit (that we were meant to do the day before). These walks have some sweet spots including tiny, pebble beaches and the beach hut. Whilst these walks are much easier going, there are still quite a few steps in some sections. Returning to Ronny Creek, we took one final detour to check out Waldheim chateaux and the history of Gustav Weindorfer who championed Cradle Mountain to be a National Park. It was here that I spotted my first wombat and echidna. An exciting moment for me.

After a lunch break at the lodge, we left again to do the Cradle Mountain Boardwalk. This walk starts from the Rangers Station which is located across the road from the lodge so no car was required. This was a fairly easy walk, about 6.5 - 7.5km each way, but again had a number of steps along the way. Throughout the day I saw a couple of wallabies, 5 wombats, an echidna and lots of pademelons so a nice day of walking and animal spotting. I will definitely come back to Cradle Mountain to try some different walks and conquer the summit.