2004/03 Tasmania loop - Cradle Mountain boardwalk |
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Saturday March 13th
I had hopes of climbing the mountain on this day, but at dawn it was wet and windy so I 
deferred the climb by a day and went back to bed. We used the soggy morning to do some shopping, catch up on e-mail, and go to the Visitor Centre. Sandie’s legs were still suffering from the previous day’s scrambling, so we chose an easy hike.
We took the shuttle to Dove Lake, and walked down to the valley towards Waldheim, 
where we met the wombat. Wombats are pig-sized animals that live in burrows, usually emerging to feed on the celery ferns in the evening. This one was working overtime in mid-afternoon and took no notice of us.
We decided to walk down to the Lodge, using the new trail and boardwalk. This is a really elaborate affair, with lots of steps and bridges. They also
ran all the power, telephone, and sewer lines under the boardwalk, but found later that they had to encase the whole lot in steel as the devils developed a taste for fiber optic cable.
The trail went mainly through open country where celery fern, button grass, and pandani were competing for space. The plants seem to
succeed in groups, so there’d be an army of button grass mounds in one spot and then a line of pandani in another. Overlooking some of the valleys you could feel like Adolf Hitler addressing a rally of button grass mounds. We finished the walk by moonlight and caught the last shuttle back to the campsite.
We wanted to take a look at the starving possums, so we rigged up a feeding spot with some 
elderly veggies and added a lantern. We had to wait all of two minutes for the first possum to arrive, and then we had three of them contending for the goodies. None of them looked to be starving, nor were they afraid to go into a camper or tent and help themselves.