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Published: January 15th 2009
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Luckily we had already booked a campsite at the Discovery Holiday Parks campground, which is the only campground at the Cradle Valley end of the park. The rest are more up-market cabins and châteaux, etc. The park was full but the campsites were nice and secluded so we weren't jammed in like a normal caravan park, although we only just squeezed the camper trailer into our allotted site with the awning up. Alex's unwanted association with leeches continued, but the two we did spot on the door mat did not survive to live another day! Middle of the night toilet stops were also very cautious!
It was very chilly on Sunday evening and it rained a bit overnight, but on Monday we woke to a bight and sunny day even if it was still a bit on the chilly side. We walked down to the transit terminal and took the shuttle to have a look around the Visitor Centre where we also did the short Pencil Pine Falls and Rainforest Walk, and the Enchanted Walk. We then hopped on another shuttle and headed for Dove Lake. We did the Dove Lake Circuit Walk, but also did a short but steep
deviation up to Lake Wilks, which gave us great views of the lake and surrounds, as well as a taste of things to come with our plan to hike to the summit of Cradle Mountain the following day. We had an early dinner and then drove back into the Valley to Ronny Creek where we went in search of wombats. We walked along the start of the Overland Track and it didn't take us long to find several wombats munching on the grass. We took the junction up to Waldheim, the home of Gustaf Weindhorfer who pioneered the region, which we also found very interesting, and then walked back to the car park at Ronny Creek. We turned in fairly early that night in readiness for our long hike the next day.
We had a reasonably early breakfast and managed to get a fairly early shuttle to Ronny Creek, where we started our hike to the summit. We took the usual way up, following the Overland Track via Wombat Peak and Marions Lookout to Kitchen Hut. From there it was all up hill. Actually, it was almost all uphill already! The boulder hopping and gusty winds near the summit
were very challenging, but Annelies and Thomas (in particular) did really well. A few people commented how Thomas must have been a mountain goat in a previous life!
It was quite a warm day with bright sunshine and only a little bit of high cloud, so the views from the top were superb. There was still a large patch of snow on the lee side of the mountain from the stiff and warm northwester. Apparently, when we were up Mt Wellington marvelling in the snow on the 2nd of January, the snow was waste high up on Cradle Mountain.
We came back down via the Face Track and the Lake Rodway Track over Hansons Peak to Dove Lake. We were very proud of having reached the summit, although we should probably not have celebrated quite so much that evening as our dehydration from the walk left us with headaches and a restless night's sleep!
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