Cradle Mountain

Cradle Mountain is located at the northern tip of Cradle Mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park. There are a number of walks to do around Cradle Mountain. We chose to do the Dove Lake circuit, which is the most popular Cradle Mountain walk. Mainly because the walk affords spectacular views of Cradle Mountain as you circle the lake.

We were quite lucky to have a warm(ish), sunny day for our walk. The weather at Cradle Mountain is quite changeable and the Rangers warn you to be prepared for all types of conditions. We’d spoken to one backpacker in Hobart who’d started her walk at Cradle Mountain on a warm, sunny day wearing shorts and a t-shirt. By the end of the hike it was snowing and she was freezing!

Along the route we noticed a lot of square animal poo piled on the boardwalk. Apparently a Wombat is responsible for the square poo. Let’s not think too hard about the anatomical attributes required to produce square scat.

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If you are in the neighbourhood go down to Lake St Clair and find the Derwent River. Find a fishing rod and throw in a line (check laws and limits first as this place is heavily inspected). When I was there we were pulling browns and rainbows out hand over fist. We let the vast majority of them go, but it was 2 great days of fishing.

I went to Cradle Mountain national park when i was about 7 years old, but it was a cloudy day so you couldn’t see much and we didn’t climb the mountain.

Since then I have seen an endless number of posters and photos that make me desperate to go there (particularly the photos by the late Peter Dombrovskis).

The last time I went to Tasmania (for work) I only had one free day and didn’t make it there, but I am determined I will some day!!!

What an amazing place to visit. It certainly was colder than we expected, but nevertheless, that did not deter us from enjoying it enormously. On Thursday we travelled to Strachan (1 1/2 hrs from Cradle Mountain) and took a trip on the West Coast Wilderness Railway. This journey takes you through 35 kms of true west coast wilderness taking 4 hours to complete, using reconditioned original engines from the 1890’s. A truly unique experience that we will never forget. Saturday -we did an incredible walk around Dove Lake – a 2 hour hike – quite spectacular – it did start to snow on us on the way down. It just added to the atmosphere. We went through a section called The Ballroom Forest – just brilliant – if you stood quietly you would swear that you were in a ballroom full of dancing couples – the trees were unbelievable. On the Sunday we walked up to Crater Falls – a stunning waterfall. This is a native area for wombats and surprisingly we did see some during daylight hours. They were just beautiful. During our trip, we stayed at the Cradle Mountain Chateau – a quite large complex just at the base of Cradle Mountain – luxurious accommodation and beautiful food. Cosy wood fires just made it complete. The Chateau also has the largest private photographic gallery in Australia. Rooms and rooms full of very talented photographers works. Definitely a 10 out of 10.

we walked around dove lake the water is so pure and clean i stuck my head in the water and drank some it was really nice and i didnt get sick and it was really cold water,if u go u have to walk around dove lake