2004/03 Tasmania loop - Dove Lake |
|||
We decided to go to Cradle Mountain national park and come back for the Corrinna boat trip later. It was a very twisty drive up the dirt road to Warratah for breakfast. We cooked our own breakfast, as Warratah doesn’t have much in the way of facilities. It’s quite a big place, with a pretty river and park, but all the shops and banks have closed, and everything now happens at the one general store.
From Waratah it was a short drive to the national park at Cradle Mountain. The campground is privately owned, just outside the park. The facilities are good, but it has the monopoly on camping and is very pricey compared to the rest of Tasmania.
There had been a major change to the park since our last trip. The road from the lodge and visitor’s centre to the mountain area used to be a narrow rocky track. To handle increased tourist traffic they had rebuilt and sealed the road, but rather than widen it and build a bigger parking lot at the end, they put in a free shuttle bus service and artificially narrowed the road, sometimes to a single lane. Cars are still allowed to drive up there, but they have to share the road with these great big shuttle buses, so it’s not a pleasant experience. We used the shuttle the whole time we were there, and found it was a great way to hike from A to B without having to come back to A to pick up the camper. We got to know all the shuttle drivers over the next few days.
We took the shuttle up to Dove Lake which lies at the foot of Cradle Mountain. The mountain is a very distinctive line of spires surrounding an oval depression, the “cradle”. There are also mountains on either side of the lake, Marion’s Lookout and Hansons Peak, and it’s a much photographed spot. We walked the trail around the lake, anticlockwise this time. On our last trip we'd walked the other way and spent most of the afternoon helping carry a Swiss lady back down the trail after she’d broken her ankle.
 |
Dove Lake (6.09) |  |
|---|
All the trails here include time estimates for the trip. The estimates may be quite accurate for over-caffeinated mountain goats, but they are a bit optimistic for us. There are so many 
strange plants, animals, and birds on these trails that it doesn’t make sense to 
rush through them.
The strangest plant here is the pandani, a type of heath. In most parts of the world, heaths grow a few inches high. Here on the side of the mountain they grow up to thirty feet high, spindly trunks topped by spider plant foliage, a true Dr Seuss design.
With all this stuff to look at, we barely made it back in time for the last 
shuttle. As part of its facelift, the park service has also built an elaborate foot trail and boardwalk back down to the lodge, but it would have been a long walk in the dark. At the shuttle stop we met an English lady who was back revisiting the areas that she and her Tasmanian husband used to hike in.