Day 3 - Drive to Cradle Mountain National Park We awoke (after a restless nights sleep) to a freezing cold campervan to say the least and going to the toilet in the dark, wet and cold was not pleasant either, Rich and Kath can we come back please?? Perhaps New Zealand will need reassessing..... After the typical camping breakfast of thick porridge, we donned everything we possibly had to wear for warmth, visited the lake for one last time, and then headed on our way. As we headed north the scenery again reminded us of the rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales but on heading higher, it became more like the Lake District with stunning Dolerite rugged mountains appearing. We then drove through the famous Franklin Gordon National Park and hiked up to a look-out point which looked across the entire valley and mountain range. It was stunning to be somewhere so peaceful where we hadn't seen a house or civilian for about 2 hours; standing some 600m high, the only noise was the raging Franklin River below. Next was a hike to some spectacular falls (Nelson Falls) amongst the rainforest, then soon after we parked up outside another spectacular lake called Lake Burbury and thought... "This is the life, how lucky are we?" To be able to stop anywhere, sleep anywhere and basically enjoy the open road and mountains almost entirely by ourselves was brilliant... There are some good things that come out of freezing it in a campervan in wintertime when every other b***** has sense to stick to the warm but crowded summer!! The valleys now were becoming pretty steep and winding as we came across a rather weird town called Queenstown. Steeped in mining folklore, the landscape had a look of destruction amongst quite stunning colours and the place again was a mere ghost town - it really hit home to us how under populated Tasmania really is, it made the Isle of Wight look as happening as London! After a few more lake stops, near miss of a possum and the stunning sunset sky, we arrived finally at Cradle Mountain National Park. This time the park had a lodge with an open fire where you could cook your food but as it was Adam's turn to cook, the 1 metre by 1 meter cooking test was put into action and another night of pasta was served. Then true to form, it poured down! Day 4: A Walk in the Hills in more rain! The following day with an alarm call set at a time a paperboy would be scared of we awoke to the gentle pitter patter of the Tasmanian rain, sorry I mean all guns blazing, full on, lashing it down, raining wombats and possums type rain peculiar only to the weather system generated by Nik and I. It wasn't a difficult choice! The plan had been to get up early and climb Cradle Mountain weather permitting. It wasn't. When we did eventually surface it was still raining but nowhere near as hard; we revised our plans and set about the day. Firstly, shower.... This consisted of standing in an outside block with near freezing water, near freezing air coming in whilst washing and a very blue couple of travellers, both thinking that 3 weeks of this in New Zealand would be very stupid and that the next campervan may need a few more mod cons! Secondly we then discovered that converting the compact and bijou sleeping area back into a kitchen cum diner takes along time. Then we had to cook breakfast and prepare sandwiches for the hike. Don't know how we managed! Once we were ready at 1pm we set off for the Info centre to discuss our options for what was left of the daylight. Fortified by the breakfast of champions - porridge we were ready for anything. At the centre we confirmed the walk we would do and saw the webcam of our destination - I can't really describe it any other way than bleedin miserable. But it was great to be out doing stuff even if yours truly appears to have a chest infection which might hinder ones progress. Once we had registered we were off into the gloom. The start of our walk took in part of the Overland track one of the most famous walks in Tas, a long 60km hike through the Cradle Mountain National Park top to bottom through some barren countryside. Our section was relative painless along a constructed walkway to start over the peat bog / marsh land heading towards the 1st stop of crater Falls, passing a possum happily eating next to us! The rain by now is lashing it down and I may have commented to Nikki a couple of times about our need to buy some waterproof trousers as soon as possible. There is a real sense of bleakness and isolation once you leave the carpark behind; there are warnings everywhere about being prepared for any changes in the weather it can turn nasty very unexpectedly. Crater falls were kind of weird, all hidden away in a small valley with trees growing in different directions. The most startlingly thing is the colour of the water a mucky brown. Moving on from here we changed direction heading straight into the blustering wind climbing higher and higher towards Crater Lake and the boatshed. The lake is an area of beauty and stands out amongst its stark surroundings, waterfalls flow into the lake from all sides. Moving on from here towards Wombat Peak we could overlook the Wombat pool and take lots of pictures, except we couldn't because it was blowing a complete gale of lashing rain at the top and was freezing! At this point the beautiful blue sky/ sunny pictures that Rich and Kath had shown us previously seemed an extreme impossibility when all we could see was two black valley dots, we presumed were lakes, amongst black cloud and rain, gutted!! Relief though was quickly sorted by moving lower towards the first pool and following this path down to Lake Lilla. The whole landscape must be quite a sight in the throes of winter when the rain and snow is at its worst, because by now we were walking in streams ands rivers flowing down the paths. Our destination Dove lake now appeared and we hurried towards it, all the while keeping an eye out for Cradle Mountain to take that all important picture. Unfortunately the picture just kept evading us, the cloud not clearing quite enough to get the whole setting in; every other mountain had cleared EXCEPT Cradle and by now Nikki had resigned herself to the fact that this was yet another mountain she would not see! By now coffee and warm clothing was calling and the shuttle bus duly took us back to our car not before stopping and the driver pointing out a Platypus. How wicked was that! Back in the van we stripped off and donned warm clothes before heading back to Dove Lake carpark to drink coffee and try and get that camera shot. The light did fade and we had to call it a day, still no Cradle for Nikki, then back at the campsite it was business as usual, make tea and then turn the kitchen cum diner into sleeping quarters after what can only be described as a possum attack! On arriving at the van, I saw one possum, which then on seeing me decided to run under the van, so we thought at the time because it was scared of me, if only! Whilst Nikki was madly taking pictures it actually had no fear whatsoever and wanted to get into the van, Nikki tried to stop it but it wouldn't budge. Then at this point another one came and sat right by her leg scaring the living daylights out of her! Neither would budge so hastily we jumped back in the van and slammed the door shut with Nikki feeling surrounded; I of course was cool about the whole thing! Later on, venturing out quite hesitantly we saw them everywhere, trying to climb inside cabin windows, the laundry house, anywhere to get food! The final straw was when I went outside to close the gas off, one came from under the van and stood between my legs looking up at me as if to say 'G'day mate what ya doing,' giving it a nudge I jumped back in the van and there we stayed for the remainder! Next day Dove Lake walk weather dependant. Day 5 - Drive to St Helens on the East Coast through Launceston. Bad and Good news day! Another pretty cold / sleepless night saw us awaking to lashing rain, again! They do say that only 36 days of the year see full sun at Cradle Mountain and we weren't seeing any of them! On arriving at Dove Lake, visibility was zero, this time even the lake was in cloud so we decided to cancel the walk, make our daily porridge, look with guilt at the freezing/soaking walkers miserable outside our warm van and start the journey North East to Launceston. The journey saw us driving through steep and winding valleys and gorges, down, up, round, down, up, round, you get the picture.....by now the rain had started to ease and the mountain views were beautiful but ruined slightly by some bad news! On coming into phone signal areas we found out that the jewellers could not now make my ring even though they said they could no problem, we were both shocked & gutted. Looking out feeling miserable across the Great Western Tier Mountains, my phone then beeped to a text from my best mate Tracy to say that Si had proposed!!! Fantastic news to brighten our day, 2 engagements in one week and also a bl**** big celebration party to have together when we saw them in 4 weeks. Perhaps double wedding on the cards??!! Uuummm.... On leaving the mountains, the landscape started to flatten and it reminded us very much of the rolling hills of the English countryside, the only difference being was that we had still driven for 2 hours and saw one house if that! Towns are amazing here, most consist of 6 or 7 bungalows and a grocery store and that's it, plus a few cows if you are lucky! Passing the most beautiful rainbow, we then arrived at Launceston and the day went rubbish again. On trying to find an internet café to find the phone number for the ring, we got stopped by the police and then on only being able to use phones as no internet could be found, we could only find one that took cash, not phone card and we had no cash, joyous day! Feeling rubbish we went to visit Launceston's Cataract Gorge so that we could ride their famous chairlift across it, the longest single-span chairlift in the world...guess what it had just shut! Anyway we walked across the Alexandra Swing Bridge instead, enjoyed the view then decided to head on towards the coast. Launceston is Tasmania's 2nd largest city and is a very relaxed country town, (rush hour lasts about 5 minutes!!) but we felt the need to leave, and decided to head onwards in the dark for as far as we could get. The journey, despite not being able to see anything, was pretty spectacular and fun at the same time! Driving through the black forested valleys was quite eerie to say the least but we found a local radio station (where the female DJ was at least 90!) that played wicked tunes from the 60's, Johnny Cash, Elvis you name it and enjoyed the ride. We then stopped in another sleepy town called Scotsdale to find the fish and chip shop open, result, so after some great 'Flake' fish and meat pie we carried on quite happily in the dark, the only car on the road. At this point though we came across one problem............wildlife, and after a 3 hour night time driving experience could definitely see why we had seen so many squashed previously..... Firstly we just missed a wallaby that hopped out in front of us, totally oblivious to it being a highway, then another one plus a few rabbits joined in, then in the space of about 30 minutes we had wallabies hopping alongside the road every 10 metres, more rabbits and then our favourite friend, the possum! One rather large one was wandering across the road, fortunately Ads saw it and stopped, with which it looked at the van as if to say 'what are you staring at!' and waddled as slow as could be to the other side! I still can't believe that Adam managed to miss every animal in sight but at the same time it was just fantastic to be the only ones on the road amongst the remote hills with so many animals hopping around, plus a few squashed ones I must add! We finally reached St Helens on the NE coast and decided to rough it for the night (to save some beer money) and duly found a gravel area near the bay to park up. Not really being able to see where we were, we put our heads down for the night wondering if our campervan may end up in the sea when we woke up!