Kartman

Today we are to Cradle Mountain, and for our most outdoorsy day the weather has finally delivered on what it has threatened for the past week, rain.

Because we are staying out of Launceston we have had to get up a little earlier and through some miracle, and a fear of running out of hot water, we arrived at the designated meeting point 10 minutes early, only to find out the parking station is closed for maintenance, whoops.

We managed to find one nearby but by the time we park the car and head back to the meeting point our guide Graeme is on the phone trying to rustle us up. Here we all were rugged up for the cold and Graeme was in shorts, it appears he doesn’t worry about long pants unless an ice age is due. It is almost a full tour today and after one more pick up we are off on our adventure, with just a few stops on the way.

Our first stop breaks the trip in half and is the last chance for us to buy lunch for the day. After the last experience I steered clear of the chocolate muffin despite the fact that it looked awesome.

Graeme takes some side roads which are more scenic than the main roads and offer us a better chance to see some wildlife, but all the animals are sensibly tuck away in their burrows. All up the side roads only add a few minutes to the journey but the scenery is so much better than the highway. The last stop on the way is Sheffield the town of murals which is just near Railton the town of Topiary, both of which are near No Where Else on the way to the Promised Land, yep all that is true. I was slightly disappointed we didn’t stop in the middle of No Where because everyone always talks about going there! Sheffield for me the particular highlight, it wasn’t just the park dedicated to the murals, the ones that fascinated me the most were the murals scattered around the businesses and homes in town, people get to buy a mural although I think that might push the friendship if I tried to take one on the plane home.

Back on the bus to warm up and off to Cradle Mountain, on the way we moved into dairy country with Graeme commenting that most of the cows were Friesian, so was I. Once we were checked in at the national park office we headed off on a short walk to see Pencil Pine Falls. The local Pademelons, small wallabies, kept us company on the walk while Graeme showed us the features of some of the local plants, including the pepper bush. The leaves when crushed have a peppery taste and Graeme’s suggestion of not chewing them unless you have water on hand is good advice. Of course I wasn’t the only one who didn’t follow this advice, we were the people walking back to the bus with our tongues out to catch the rain.

Pencil Pine falls were nice but the main attraction was Dove Lake, and now we had to make a choice, walk around Dove Lake or walk to the top of Mount Marion for a view over the lake. Two hours of easy walking or a much harder 3 to 4 hour walk, no brainer really so we rugged up and headed up the hill. On the way we past Wombat Poo in more ways than one. The lake was actually called Wombat Pool but the “L” was missing from every sign, but also the trail was dotted with real wombat poo. Now normally unless I am at MONA poo has no interest for me but wombat poos are cubes and where the cubes are there should be wombats. Maybe it was just a joke played out by the park rangers because that was the only evidence of wombats on the walk.

The walk to the top of Mt Marion is strenuous, and we went the easy way. The weather was not helping with horizontal rain that found any openings in our wet weather gear. But the views on the way made it more than worthwhile. The walk is dotted with a myriad of small lakes and always off in the distance Cradle Mountain and Dove Lake.

We thought we were making good time until we got to the junction to be greeted by Graeme. He had taken a group partially around the lake and despite setting off nearly an hour after us and taking the steeper route was waiting there to make sure we went the right way, LEGEND, and it only reinforced my thought that he is the love child of Chuck Norris and Les Higgins. We left Graeme as he headed off on the overland trail and a brief swim to Antartica, and we headed to the lookout. The last bit of the walk is the steepest and Graeme’s suggestion of coming back down for lunch was again spot on. The wind picked up on the way to the lookout and added a bit of sleet into the mix as well. On making it to the top we were rewarded with a magnificent view and thanks to the changeable conditions for a brief moment we had clear skies and a view all the way across the mountain. It stayed that way long enough for a few pictures then gave us a windy reminder it was time to head down. The steep trail down has chains and the like to make the going easier but it was slow going in the rain. Luckily it didn’t rain all the way, we had snow as well.

We made good time coming down and joined the main Dove Lake trail with heaps of time to spare so we decided to see if we could add that walk to the day as well. Twenty minutes in we ran into others in our group who were completing their circumnavigation of Dove Lake. Normally at this point I want to turn back and Ann wants to see what is just around the next corner, but for some reason the roles were reversed. Maybe it was Graeme’s briefing in the bus that it was a long walk back to Launceston.

I managed to force the issue and we headed a little further to get a superb view of one of the many waterfalls but Ann’s patience ran out and we turned tail for home with me bleating that continuing on would be the quicker way home.

On the way back we passed the Boathouse and across the lake we could see Glacier Rock and I had to admit the walk on the other side looked quite arduous so maybe Ann’s judgement was right. More than I thought because when we got back to the carpark it was empty, no bus no Graeme. I was sure everyone would be in the hiker’s shed out of the rain but nope that was empty too. I was sure we were early but my phone had taken one too many pictures in the rain and was not cooperating. Still if we were going to spend the night here may as well get out of the wet weather gear and freshen up, with freshening up the operative term, the toilets were clean and dry but with the world’s coldest toilet seat, they don’t mention that in the brochures!

We headed back to the shelter to find Graeme waiting for us, and he happily confirmed that we had heaps of time to come back the other way around the lake and joined the 1% of hikers that do both walks. But I was inside a warm bus and saw some awesome views so who cares, and the day wasn’t over!

Since we hadn’t seen any wombats we headed to Graeme’s secret wombat spotting location which more than delivered. Multiple wombats including a very photogenic one, maybe Graeme is a wombat whisperer as well? What a day amazing walks, all sorts of weather, sun, rain and snow and wombats with one more surprise on the way home.

Stopping at the cheese factory wasn’t the surprise it was the number of people who couldn’t resist the ice cream, including Ann. Me, I stuck to the cheese tastings and stocked up on some very unique cheese blends. We got back to Launceston on dusk and despite a few restaurant suggestions in town decided to head back to Evandale for a hot shower before dinner.Read more