Strahan to Cradle Mountain

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Day Eleven of Fifteen:

Looking forward to Cradle Mountain
It looked like a nice day as we left Strahan and drove north towards the mining village of Zeehan. Ever since the 70s when I first visited Tasmania I had wanted to visit Cradle Mountain. Way back then I had been led to believe it was a rough track, too bad for my car at the time to negotiate. On the other visits I hadn't considered or didn't have enough time to see this magnificent area. But on this trip we had booked a night at one of the cabins (regretted we didn't book more).

The weather can change so quickly in the west of Tasmania that I didn't want to miss the good weather by seeing places already visited. Because of that, the Henty Dunes were missed and the quaint mining town of Zeehan was also bypassed.

After Zeehan we rejoined the Murchison Highway. A while later we arrived at the junction of the A10 and C132 and turned to the east for another 26 km drive to Cradle Mountain. So far we were lucky, no clouds in the sky.

We quickly found the Cosy Cabin Park and were able to unpack our gear, it was only 11.30 am, enough time to have lunch before driving down to Dove Lake.

At the start of the road down to the lake we passed a sign asking "Have you got a Park Pass". Yes we did and the $50 National Park Pass had just been made worthwhile (ahead by $10). The drive down to the lake was only 5 km long but the narrow windy sealed road seemed to take forever because the van in front, insisted on driving between 20-30 kph on the 40 kph road.

The double summits of the mountain loomed large in front of us. We had planned to do the 6 km walk around Dove Lake and even from the car park we could see it was going to be great. Depending on your stops, allow at least 2 hours.

We planned to travel in a clockwise direction and followed the track after crossing a small bridge that spanned a creek. It didn't take too long to realise it was going to take me longer then two hours. I was stopping every 100 metres. Swinging the video camera up to my eye, then capturing the same vista with the 35 mm camera. Swapping lenses and changing focal length for each shot, all takes time. I lost count of the times that my girlfriend went on ahead and waited for me to catch up further up the track. It seemed that nearly every bend on the walk held another slightly different perspective of the summit and lake. There were a lot of tourists doing the walk but it never seemed crowded.

It's an easy walk with plenty of spots to stop and appreciated the views. My only advice is to do the walk anti clockwise because towards the end of the walk there is a hill - Brochure: Easy (involves one short moderate hill). We are not the fittest people and that moderate hill would have been so much better going down. At the end of 4 hours the car park was a welcome sight and I didn't have to follow anybody slow back to the cabin.

The day turned out to be the best on the holiday and the 250 images I took on the walk indicated there was a lot to keep my interest. Slept very soundly that night.

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Photos

Cradle Mountain
Just to proove I was there.