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.

MOT Tour Day 9 - Dove Lake & Devils

Cradle Mountain

For both of us, going to Dove Lake today removed one of the few remaining check boxes not ticked on our Bucket Lists yet it was a day which showed little promise. Weather forecasts seemed to clearly forbid anything of importance happening.

We woke to sunshine but the BOM site (one of the reasons given for changing their acronym) made it clear it wasn't going to last. On a specky, we thought we could at least go to the NP office and see if a bus ride into the park might be an option. Note here that if you want to visit and/or walk in Cradle Mountains NP, you have to have a pass and you can't take your car in. Shuttle buses run on the quarter hour. When my Mum and Dad were here thirty years ago, it cost and controls nearly stopped him from seeing the awesome Cradle Mountain.

The inside of the NP building looked like an airport terminal with queuing posts and ribbons and multiple attendants at counter stations. Hardly unexpected, as I counted at least 200 cars in the car park, plus coaches. There must have been at least 500 people in the park at that moment. The check-in concierge at the door - yep, in a NP visitor's centre - told Sue that the summer had been crazy with visitor numbers, one of their biggest ever but what marked it as different was that it was still busy in February.

It was cloudy but still not raining, so after a cup of coffee, we hopped on the shuttle and went on up to Dove Lake.

No amount of photographs prepare you for the majesty of the view. Despite being overcast, which was clearly dulling the tones and giving the near vertical walls of the mountain an indistinct, blended look which lacked definition, yet they still rose suddenly, in abrupt defiance. Dove Lake was dull but foreboding, as though some mythical creature might rise at any moment. As Sue aptly said in immediate response, it took your breath away.

We weren't here to walk but did two small reconnoitrers: first to the eastern side of the lake to stand on the lookout at Glacier Rock and the second to the western side and the iconic boathouse. The view from Glacier Rock is possibly as good as it gets and its a reminder from many millions of years ago of the formation of Cradle Mountain during at least three stages of glacial ice. The sun occasionally peaked out and there were moments of what the lake could show, but the peaks at Cradle Mountain and Little Horn stayed sullen in shadows.

On the western side, the enchanting view at the boathouse was like stepping into a postcard - except for the numbers of other tourists trying to sweep the experience up into their consciousness. It's important to note the courtesy shown by and to all as we took our photos and found our spot to mull. No one wanted to spoil the other's moments. Sue and I lagged behind as the clouds began stacking blocks and sat and contemplated. Parts of our life’s journey have been hard, some distressing, many wonderful and yet regardless of the odds against it, here we were.

The infamous boatshed at Dove Lake

From there, we made a hasty retreat and came up the last hill to the shuttle staging area just as rain drops started staining the crushed gravel at our feet. Amazingly, we were delayed by a German couple who asked us to take their photo, with CM in the background. I instead gave the mountain two thirds and them beside it, one third. They seemed happy with the result and disappeared into the ever darkening clouds.

On the way out of the park, we called in at the Ranger Station - in all probably the previous but not original Visitor's Centre. It’s a tired little place but with good displays and the obligatory audio visual presentation playing on a perennial loop behind black curtains. In another room, an interesting program in which the interviewer wore a wide tie and a serious expression and was teasing wonderful stories from Evelyn Temple Emmett, first director of the Tasmanian Tourist Bureau and founder of the Hobart Walking Club. Among other things, Emmett is famous for leading walking expeditions from Dove Lake to Lake St Clair, a walk now known as the Overland Track. Mount Emmett lies a few kms to the south east of Cradle Mountain.

Our final short ride on the shuttle got us back to the Visitors Centre and into our car but we detoured on the way back to our digs and called in at Devils@Cradle, a sanctuary undertaking a breeding and rehabilitation for Tassie Devils. The feisty little blokes have been having a bad time of it for quite a while now with large numbers of the native population being badly affected by a facial parasitic cancer that creates large tumours around their mouths. Left unchecked, they die from hunger, unable to feed themselves. The population of Devils in Tasmania has decreased by 50%, with at least 65% of Devils infected. This mob is breeding Devils from uninfected lines and releasing them into the wild. To do so, the Devils are progressively kept in ever larger sprawling pens built into a rainforest setting. The setting was here. The pens have been built into it. 

Devils have the noisiest calls and appear to be in constant contest with others in the enclosure. We watched one trying to find a quiet place to eat what looked like a possum’s tail, only to be pursued by two others and when they got too close, screams and dust offs ensued!

They also have populations of manic Eastern Quolls, who tear around like lightning bolts. Gorgeous coats, something that worked against them when white fellas came here. We have booked a viewing of a feeding session and an information talk by one of the keepers.

Click here for today's photos

Sue had a great treat even before we went in to see the Devils. We pulled up in their car park and there on the grassed slope above us was wombat, just going about doing what wombats do. Snout down eating grasses and their roots and dropping out their cube-shaped poo (which we had seen on the track earlier at Dove Lake). This is something you only normally see at night because the big fellows prefer the cool of the night to feed. However, because it is much colder in Tassie, they can also be seen during the day. Another lucky treat.

Not a bad day for one we thought was going to be a write off.

 

MOT Tour Day 8 - Devonport to Cradle Mountain

Sweet little pademelons joined
us in the maze

 We left behind one of the lesser parks of our experience, this morning. It was certainly clean and the staff were friendly but it was old and a little haphazard and very tired. The power hook up was a good example. Instead of the fairly standard stand alone post with power outlets, our site had to unlocked circuit boards. One had three or four unmarked plug in points. One had a cross ruled through it. Another had come off the board and was hanging by wires. I aske the manager for guidance and she arrived with a small, bedside clock radio, which she proceeded to plug in. "When the radio come on, I know I've got the right one".

Get the idea?

On our way to Cradle Mountain with the news that we can expect single digit temperatures during the day and rain, at least until the third day of a four day stay. We weren't phased. 

We travelled a lot of back roads to get to Tasmazia and the Village of Crackpot, a series of mazes and a miniature village (5:1 scale) set up by local dairy farmer Brian Inder in the early 1980's on his property, Promised Land. Disillusioned with the lot of a cow-puller, he fulfilled a childhood dream of creating a hedge maze. While he waited for it to grow, he developed the Village of Crackpot and opened the doors to the public in 1987. The business boomed and Inder added other mazes and an additional hidden village of quirky buildings which have the hallmarks of a child's imagination. 

Embassy of Cuba

Despite rain and cool temperatures, this was a lot of fun. We are both a bit terrified of mazes but they assured us they’d come looking for us at 4.00pm, when we checked in at 11:00 o’clock! The mazes are well maintain and varied. In the big maze, there are lots of funny dad jokes at dead ends. We especially loved the pademelons who were in from the rain and feeding on the hedges, ensuring us an eventual way out. In fact, I swear one of them led us out. The small villages are full of whimsy and irreverent humour, especially the Embassies of the World. It was only at Crackpot Village I baulked. In among funny touches were a few exhibits which could potential frighten young children or at least give today’s parent a hard time to explain them. Small negative but not enough to diminish the rating. Lovely staff, although once checked in, you are left to your own devices. The Cafe isn’t operating but they still run a limited menu which is both tasty and reasonable.

After lunch, much of the remaining 40 odd kms to Cradle Mountain were over mostly narrow, mostly very winding, very slow roads. Very few speed advisory signs or centrelines and hardly any other vehicles on the road ... except trucks. Big trucks. B double trucks. One white-knuckled moment happened on a hairpin bend on the Cethana Road, not far from the dam. One truck pulled hard into the outside of the bend and signalled me around. As I finished negotiating the tight space and moved away, a truck coming in the opposite direction came around the next bend about half a metre on my side of the centre lines!

Of course, I had been warned about backroads in Tassie. 

When we arrived at Cradle Mountain, we missed the caravan park turn in and headed off down a road we didn't want to go down. This is never a good look because in a van, you can't just "chuck a Uie" and three-point turns don't exist for caravans. Luckily a broad driveway loomed and there was just enough room to make the turn. When we retraced our steps, the signage seemed obvious until I realised there had been a dirt haulage truck in the driveway when we came past and he blocked out the signage which was all at ground level. Are we spotting a recurrent theme here?

Click here for today's photos

It was raining when we arrived so we just did the bare minimum and erected the Avan so we would have a place to sit in the warm. It was about 6C. By studying the BOM live rain charts, we worked out it would stop in about 45 minutes and then give us a one hour window to set up.

Done.

Rain of and on for most of tomorrow and then on Saturday and Sunday we should get a chance to walk. Bucket list place for both of us.