Tasmania - Cradle Mountain

It is such an effort to write this. We have had a MAMMOTH day.

So first up, we obviously got up. 😅
We packed and left about 8:20 deciding to find food on the way.
It’s about a 2.5 hour drive to cradle mountain.
Man oh man was it foggy this morning!
There was an astonishing amount of roadkill. The majority were wallabies - ever 50m or so. The crows LOVED IT. Lol.
Stopped in some random town which probs has a population of 200. For a pre made bacon and egg roll. Nothing to brag about but It did it’s job.

Eventually got to the visitors center. Had a bit more food, bought our entry ticket to the park $16 each (includes parking and bus ride)

We caught the bus to the last stop which took 20 minutes and began our walk.
Right so. Fuck me 😂😂😂
IT WAS STEEEEEEP.
We were going to walk around dove lake but then Will decided we would climb to Marion’s lookout which was of course the only hike that had been allocated the “difficult” rating.
Literally 60000 stairs. I had to have a break and rip of my jacket. I will avoid wearing skin tight clothes at ALL COST and I only had a unbelievable tight and UNFLATTERING thermal on underneath but I still took my coat off. #dead
The view from halfway was beautiful. The lake was magnificent from all angles- low and high.
And so began the chains...
this was some heavy duty Norwegian shit.
This was a natural rock formation path not some boardwalk crap - granted there was the occasional boardwalk but man oh man.

This was the only part of the day I had to have breaks.

Once we got to the top - or at least what I though was the top we took some great pictures. We then kept walking and originally reached Marion’s lookout. Stunning 😭😭
Will took over backpack duty to my delight.
Had a view of crater lake too.
Picked out another random route from our map and off me went. We didn’t have time to do the summit - it looked exactly how I imagine Mount Everest. Literally vertical.
We walked over the Face track which was the easier part and reminded me of when we drove through Norway.
There was some ice and snow patches. I got will with a snow ball heh.

What else can I say? It was pretty. Very pretty. There was cool orange moss patches and beautiful creeks and streams. We then got to the Lake Wilks track and this was a total cunt. But I will highlight the best thing ever - as I was walking along I came across a wombat. I have never seen a wild wombat before!!
I was so excited but it was blocking our path for like 10 minutes and we were stressed cause we had a bus to catch and we were rapidly running out of time.
we snuck past it. It was so unconcerned by our presence. Just eating and scratching. So freaking cute. And fat. 😍
We originally didn’t just walk straight pass cause they can be aggressive.
This walk back down was ridiculous. No safety feature. Could have died multiple times and it was even more stressful cause we had to do it fast. There was no more buses after 4.
I slipped on my ass a few times and our feet kept getting stuck in tree roots. Basically we went rockclimbing not hiking haha

Walking through the ballroom section (it was called something ballroom) was beautiful, very mossy, with fallen trees. Damp rainforests vibes.

Walking and running praying to make the bus.

And then we got a text saying our flight had been cancelled....
just get to the bus and then sort it....

So many stairs 😂😭

MADE THE FREAKING BUS 🎉
Saw 3 more wombats on the drive back to the visitors centre. We were SORE. and smelly. Verrryyyy smelly. I told Will to put his arms down hahaha

Had to return to Launceston Airport to return car and organise a new flight.

I CANNOT HIGHLIGHT THIS ENOUGH.
The drive back was FUCKED. I have never, NEVER seen such fog. It’s like we were in a literal cloud. Visibility was like when you fly threw cloud on a airplane. We had high beams on and could see 10m infront MAX.
So stressful. The potential for jumping wildlife added to the danger.
We did make it after 2.5hours. Shattered.

Right so went to organise a new flight first - next flight from Launceston was 2 days away..... Will was so unimpressed and being a prick to the jetstar guy. Wasn’t his fault so I told him to shut it lol. He was stressed cause he had work stuff.
All flights from the airport were cancelled cause of the fog. Frankly it was fair enough. But because so many flights had been cancelled all the next ones were already booked out.
It’s a very long and complicated story but we decided to fly out of Hobart tomorrow instead.
We made the decision to drive down tonight. Or I more encouraged this decision.
We booked the hire car for another day and off we went.
THE FOG OMG.
Genuine miracle we made it alive.
It took nearly 3 hours to get to our hotel which I booked on the way which was super dodgy on the outside (apart of a pub) but inside was great. Small but comfortable and clean.
Lucky the owners were still there cause we got there at 11pm and office hours close at 8.
We would have been stranded on a regular night.

We both crashed!Read more