MOT Tour Day 11 - Dove Lake, Devils@Cradle

You know how you can look forward to something for so long, with so much desire, with so much planning and anticipation that when the day comes, it just kind of falls flat and isn’t anything like as good as you had built it up to be. 

 Today wasn’t like that. 

 Sue and I have always wanted to visit Cradle Mountain NP, specifically to walk around Dove Lake. There was a time when our ambitions were a tad loftier, harbouring the dream of walking the five day Overland Track to Lake St Clair to the south. Of course, our endeavour would have been the executive version of that walk, just carrying a day pack and arriving in private accommodation where meals are cooked and wine served and if the weather is too foul, you stayed in bed.

However, it would be wrong to say the Dove Lake Circuit represents lowered expectations. For despite the well maintained and often trod track - 90% of which is chicken wire covered boardwalk - this is still a wild place. I won’t pretend that means this is a difficult walk, for average fitness and some comfortable shoes will get you around, but it’s ability to bite you in the backside is evidenced by the insistence that you register you walk with the NP people before you walk.

Today, during the three to four hours we took to circumnavigate Dove Lake, there were a host of others whom we passed on the track, often more than once as we each rested at our own chosen points. A lot were like us: well prepared and appropriately equipped but there were a range of patrons. The two uncontrolled sub five year olds were the most odious. Actually, I take that back. Their parents were worse but this group were the exception. The rest were all captured by the presence of the bid saddle which is Cradle Mountain, the deep lake at its feet and the soaring fellow mountains in the neighbourhood, each exerting their contribution in the overall awe of the setting.

We had clear, sunny skies at first steps, although the highest reaches of the mountain were shrouded in cotton wool clouds that were less nuisance and more mystique. Walking clockwise as recommended, the eastern side of the lake was a constant lapping companion. Occasional dolerite beaches of white stone provided access to the water’s edge. A deep blue from a distance, at this range it reveals itself to be like the colour rust.

The track becomes dependant upon boards and these snake along, sometimes close to the shore, sometimes a tree or so above it and hugging large boulders. Then as used to rainforest as you have become, in one step, the vegetation completely changes. The sunlight fills the space and the floor of the forest which has been clear of anything but roots, is suddenly a mangled, impenetrable wall of greens and the occasional white flowers.

By now, we were passing beneath Little Horn and those immense vertical walls of rock rose above us, putting us squarely in our place. It was about now that Sue, still walking, turned to speak to a couple sitting quietly at one of the trackside resting spots and went face forward onto the track. We stopped for morning tea.

Upon resuming, we came past the first of two waterfalls before descending back down to another “beach”. A series of ladders and we were in the Ballroom Forest, a serene patch of rainforest with a creek burbling through it. The light was magnificent. It was like entering a special place where your voice fell to a whisper out of reverence but you didn’t quite know why.

We sighted the second waterfall, emptying high up above us and falling in a succession of long drops.

There was a hill. A long hill of big rock steps but we outlasted it and then the long downhill run to the famous Boatshed, where I finally took lunch and Sue finished the job she had started when she ate for comfort back at her fall. Lots of visitors here, all jostling for photographs, some with a degree of celebratory for new husbands and others as they tried to explain why this old shed was so important. Well, this old replica shed at least. There was a lovely moment when I looked up and there was my girl, boots off and up to her knees in the water.

We soon finished the walk and just as soon, Sue had us on the shuttle. In debating next moves, I was for two short walks - the Pencil Pine Falls and the Enchanted Walk, whereas Sue wanted to see Waldheim.

The walk to Waldheim was about 1km along the valley floor, where thick grass survives on islands where small rivulets run between. Wombats grace here in plenty. We saw five. The final 250 metres is straight up hill, something I needed like a horse needs another mile in the Melbourne Cup and I wasn’t happy. When we got there, I sat outside. It was just another old cottage and in fact, wasn’t what the place the Waldorfers had built in 1912 or Connell had added to afterwards. That building was knocked down in 1976 and this replica was built afterwards.

Back down the hill with the knowledge we had run out of day and I would miss out on my preference to walk through the rainforest to the waterfall.

After coffee back at the visitors centre, with gathered ourselves and went to the later afternoon tour at Devil@Cradle.

It was a delight. Not only were the critters interesting but their sad plight was an enthralling tale; and the response from people like our keeper has been amazing. I won't go over the facts and figures here but it is sufficient to say Tasmanian Devils, Eastern Quolls and Spotted Tail Quolls would well towards gone if breeding programs such as is being successfully persecuted here had not been undertaken with such great passion. We watched all three be fed and all got to know a lot more about the three species than when we walked in.

Click here for today's photos

However, despite the quality of the presentation and the attractiveness of the subjects, the 12 or so kms we had walked to make during the day began to make our legs heavy and we spent the final twenty minutes searching for places to sit.

It was a fabulous last day in Cradle Mountain NP.

Footnote: for those keeping count, you will notice there is no Day 10 in the record. Its a weather related omission. IT rained and was cold and we stayed in camp for the day.