The Wombat's Cradle

Day 11: Carlos was our new driver with a unique taste in music which led to most people towards the end of the trip listening to their own MP3s! He took us from Launceston to Devonport to pick up a few more people, including Kurt, a scary looking, 60-a-day old boozer from Switzerland! An interesting character to say the least.

We stopped in Sheffield, the self styled “Town of Murals”. Not a huge reason to go there, and of more interest was getting some grub at the supermarket as we would be in little lodges in the middle of nowhere come evening. It was a bit more dreary today, with the mountain tops shrouded in cloud cover. However, after checking into our huts (where I was sharing with Kurt!) we drove the short distance into Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, part of the 20% of Tasmania that is world heritage listed, and the clouds began to part. Down by Dove Lake, the jagged peaks of Cradle Mountain appeared, offering a fine setting to eat some lunch.

A few of us walked around Dove Lake, an easy relaxing two hour walk, taking in the view of the mountain around the shores of the lake. As that only took a short time, we then headed across to the smaller Lake Lilla, which was calm and still and offered a beautiful reflection of the mountains.

The path then climbed so that you could see across both lakes towards the ever-present Cradle Mountain, which is much like the Matterhorn in that it demands being photographed over and over again!

It was turning into a splendid walk, taking in two more lakes – Wombat Pool and Crater Lake before finally descending into a lush rainforest gully complete with ferns and the cascade of Crater Falls.

Finally, we emerged out of the forest and into empty plains of buttongrass moorland, with the odd tree scattered here and there. We were now on part of the Overland track, one of the great walks of the world from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair which takes about 5 to 8 days.

It had been a fabulously varied walk in near perfect conditions. The icing on the cake was coming across Mummy and Daddy wombat along with little baby wombat as we neared the end of the walk.

It was with immense satisfaction that we caught the shuttle bus back to our lodges and made a delicious pasta dinner, perhaps with a little too much cheese, but yum nonetheless!