Tassie Pics Part 3: Cradle Mountain
Part 3 of our journey finds us at the beautiful extinct volcano of Cradle Mountain. It's somewhere I have wanted to go since I was little, so it was great to finally be able to see it.
From Strahan it took just over 2 hours to reach Cradle Mountain, a journey that went relatively quickly compared to Hobart - Strahan. We arrived late afternoon at our accommodation "Cosy Cabins". And cosy they were! Quite small but very nice. We had a nice big gas heater, you know the kind that has fake flames? It didn't take long to warm up the small cabin. The best thing about the cabin though was the spa! One of those 3 seater corner spas, very nice. A good way to warm up on a freezing evening.
Out the front of the cabin we also had some visitors after a while. These are 2 Currawongs, an Australian bird similar to crows but with nice voices, not aaaaaaaaaaaak voices, lol. They just sat there and kept calling to us and hopping around on the ledge. We took the photo through the glass sliding door:
So we spent that evening settling in and keeping warm. The next day we headed up to Cradle Mountain for a walk around Dove Lake. The walk took 2 hours and was FREEZING to begin with. I was wearing thermals, a long sleeved warm top, a really warm hoodie jumper and my anorak. I had my thick gloves on and my beanie and I put the hood from my hoodie and the hood from my anorak over my head. That helped a bit but the wind was still biting. 1/4 of the way around Dove Lake, I began to get hot, so I took the hoods and my gloves off. Halfway around my beanie went and the rest of the way I was boiling, but didn't want to carry all my clothes, so I just boiled for the rest of the walk, lol. Anyway here is Dove Lake with Cradle Mountain in the background. The right hand peak is covered in fog so you can't see it very well:
Chris walking along the path around Dove Lake:
Also from the path:
After walking around Dove Lake for 2 hours, we needed some lunch as we'd worked up a bit of an appetite. We went to a tavern which had a fantastic roaring fire right in the middle of the room and enjoyed an overpriced pay-for-presentation-not-quantity meal, lol. Afterwards we decided to do a few of the shorter walks, so the first one we went to was the Pencil Pine Falls walk:
We also went on 2 other walks, the Enchanted Walk and the King Billy Walk, both of which were just beautiful forest walks. At the start of the King Billy Walk it started drizzling a bit, some of the only rain we'd had the whole trip. By the end it was snowing lightly. Afterwards we drove back to our cabin when it looked like the weather wasn't going to let up. When we got there, we settled in and after a while had another visitor. It looks like a quokka but it's actually a pademelon:
It's so cute! It just stood there wanting to be let in or fed, but you're not allowed to, so we just watched it through the glass. About half an hour later, a couple of brush-tailed possums came along as well, but the light was too bad to take a photograph by then. We had some snow that evening. Not much, just enough to lightly cover the car and patches of the ground. But it was fun trying to get it off the car the next morning :)
We only had 2 nights in Cradle Mountain, so the next day we got up and headed for Launceston, which ends our journey in Tasmania. Coming up in the next post.
From Strahan it took just over 2 hours to reach Cradle Mountain, a journey that went relatively quickly compared to Hobart - Strahan. We arrived late afternoon at our accommodation "Cosy Cabins". And cosy they were! Quite small but very nice. We had a nice big gas heater, you know the kind that has fake flames? It didn't take long to warm up the small cabin. The best thing about the cabin though was the spa! One of those 3 seater corner spas, very nice. A good way to warm up on a freezing evening.
Out the front of the cabin we also had some visitors after a while. These are 2 Currawongs, an Australian bird similar to crows but with nice voices, not aaaaaaaaaaaak voices, lol. They just sat there and kept calling to us and hopping around on the ledge. We took the photo through the glass sliding door:
So we spent that evening settling in and keeping warm. The next day we headed up to Cradle Mountain for a walk around Dove Lake. The walk took 2 hours and was FREEZING to begin with. I was wearing thermals, a long sleeved warm top, a really warm hoodie jumper and my anorak. I had my thick gloves on and my beanie and I put the hood from my hoodie and the hood from my anorak over my head. That helped a bit but the wind was still biting. 1/4 of the way around Dove Lake, I began to get hot, so I took the hoods and my gloves off. Halfway around my beanie went and the rest of the way I was boiling, but didn't want to carry all my clothes, so I just boiled for the rest of the walk, lol. Anyway here is Dove Lake with Cradle Mountain in the background. The right hand peak is covered in fog so you can't see it very well:
Chris walking along the path around Dove Lake:
Also from the path:
After walking around Dove Lake for 2 hours, we needed some lunch as we'd worked up a bit of an appetite. We went to a tavern which had a fantastic roaring fire right in the middle of the room and enjoyed an overpriced pay-for-presentation-not-quantity meal, lol. Afterwards we decided to do a few of the shorter walks, so the first one we went to was the Pencil Pine Falls walk:
We also went on 2 other walks, the Enchanted Walk and the King Billy Walk, both of which were just beautiful forest walks. At the start of the King Billy Walk it started drizzling a bit, some of the only rain we'd had the whole trip. By the end it was snowing lightly. Afterwards we drove back to our cabin when it looked like the weather wasn't going to let up. When we got there, we settled in and after a while had another visitor. It looks like a quokka but it's actually a pademelon:
It's so cute! It just stood there wanting to be let in or fed, but you're not allowed to, so we just watched it through the glass. About half an hour later, a couple of brush-tailed possums came along as well, but the light was too bad to take a photograph by then. We had some snow that evening. Not much, just enough to lightly cover the car and patches of the ground. But it was fun trying to get it off the car the next morning :)
We only had 2 nights in Cradle Mountain, so the next day we got up and headed for Launceston, which ends our journey in Tasmania. Coming up in the next post.