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  • Day 188

    Now on to Cradle mountain

    February 23, 2020 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    We left the Tamar river and headed south south west to the foothills of the northern end of the range of mountains that make up the centre of Tasmania. We are making our way towards Cradle mountain in a very round about way , zigzagging in and out of the foothills looking at some beautiful farm land and what you can grow in this climate. Grows just about anything but only in seasons and personally I don’t do seasons anymore as there is cold and very cold ones in there!! Not for me!!!😎😎. Stayed in some lovely bush camps as well as beside some beautiful lakes. Our next camp , by lake Gairdner , just below Cradle mountain and close enough to be able to do a day trip. Traveled up Cradle mountain the next morning to the information centre, a fare way up the mountain , and there we picked which walk we thought we could do. Then onto the shuttle bus up to our drop point and onto shankes pony for the walk. With in a few hundred metres we saw a beautiful a wombat grazing just off the track we were on. They look like a beautiful cute cuddly bear. Then on up mountain towards our goal, Marions lookout. Went past a beautiful lake, had a wee rest there, and then on we went up up up. Thinking we had made on top of a ridge when some nice person popped our bubble and pointed out Marions lookout well above us and very steep to boot. There was a bit of dissension in our camp about the need to go up there, but I just pushed on saying the views would make it worthwhile. It got steeper and steeper till we were pulling ourselves up by a chain they had installed for the last hundred or so metres. At the top it most definitely was worth it , the views were stunning, and Bess was stoked she had made it. We sat up there and had lunch and just took in the views, amazing and very little wind which we were told doesn’t happen very often. Just for the record it snowed there a couple of days later. Then the decent, not a hell of a lot easier than going up, just slowly slowly!! Passed a couple of more lakes on our way down to the car park which still had a lot of ups and downs to get there. On arrival at the car park, 5 and a half hours later, we looked back up at where we had been and l thought to my self, that crazy skinny cousin of mine and his super fit wife must be getting into my head for me to have done something like that!!!😤😤. Crawled back onto the bus back to our truck and down to another lake, lake Barrington , for a well earned rest.Read more