Cradle Mountain National Park (CMNP)

The drive from Sheffield to CMNP was pretty much that … a drive … flat and straight roads part of the way … winding and curvy in other parts. Nothing exciting.

Shortly before 4:00p, we pulled into the Cradle Mountain Lodge … our base of operations for three nights. Initially, we were assigned to Pencil Pine Cabin #12. It had the lake view we had requested. But it was missing the veranda. No worries, Working with the manager, we got ourselves switched to PPC #24. Perfect … and we were immediately rewarded with a wombat grazing right out front.

In fact, we’ve had plenty of wildlife sightings already … platypus in the lake (pond really; 3 sightings); native hens; a couple more wombats; a Bennett’s wallaby; a couple of pademelons; and right at our front door, a brush-tailed possum. Thrilling … even if I didn’t manage to get photos of all of them.

After settling into our cabin, we returned to the main building to have dinner at the Tavern … which does not require reservations. Our tummies sated, we hopped in the car to check out the national park itself. Once the mandatory shuttle stops operating, cars are allowed inside. In February, that is at 6:30p.

The road into the park is about 7.5 miles long and dead-ends at Dove Lake. The sun wasn’t due to set until about 8:00p, but the light disappears fast due to the high mountains. Even if that weren’t the case, today we would not have been able to stay long. It was polar-region-cold with a wind strong enough to push me around. Back in the car, Mui said it was 46F … but I bet the feels like with the windchill was below 32F. The good news is that the wind is expected to die down. Fingers crossed.

Oh, by the way. Despite reports that there is no cell signal to be had hereabouts, we have a strong 4G with our Telstra eSIM … no need to go to main building to connect via WiFi.Read more