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Well today was exciting for us as we were off to Cradle Mountain. We spent the morning getting our last minute things ready and had lunch with Amanda and the kids, then in the road we went. The weather wasn't that flash with drizzle and a tad cold for our liking, but overall, it couldn't get in the way of our thrill of getting back on the road again. It was great to stay with the Woods and everyone else for the last month, but it was great to be getting time to ourselves again.
So we were on our way, the drive was good, only a few hours and we went thru some magnificent countryside of rolling lush green hills and cute country towns full of character. We arrived at the Big 4 Discovery Park and set up the tent for the next two nights. The set up went surprisingly well seeing we hadn't done it since Cape York. After setting up we had a quick look around the park, it had good amenities, laundry, a playground which consisted of a swing!, and an awesome camp kitchen. It was probably the best one we've had. It had the usual cook tops, wash area, fridges, and microwaves but it was also fully enclosed into ones advice room with heaps of tables and also an open fire place! We will be spending alot of mealtimes here warming up after being in the ailments all day! After our discovery we headed off to explore a bit of the Cradle Mountain area. We stopped of at the ranges info centre and picked up a map of the walking tracks to do and went to start a few. We headed off on the quick 'Enchanted Walk' which took us on a 30min boardwalk circuit thru damp forest filled with green moss on the trees and rocks, also having small creeks running thru and passed a little waterfall. Was a great start to our walking adventure around Tassie. We then drove down to the next one, the 'Pencil Pine' walk, which was a little 20 min circuit walk thru forest again, this te filled with pencil pine trees (hence the name!). We arrived at the viewing area to a small waterfall which looked beautiful, then we headed down the path where we came across an echidna. I was so excited as I've never come across a wild echidna before. I whipped out the camera and took my snapshots before it noticed us, which it did and waddled off into the bush. We continued on our walk not even ten meters when we saw a wombat rummaging on some grass. Again the camera was out, click, click....then it ran off into the bush more quickly than what l thought they could move. We finally finished our short walk and then took a quick drive down thru the national park to Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain. It was amazing! This enormous mountain in the backdrop of a huge blue lake, spectacular! After this we headed back to the campground, cooked a huge amount of wanted veggies, enjoyed the open fire for a little then settled in the tent for the night.
The next day, being Saturday, we awoke from our warm sleeping bags not wanting to get out to face the Tassie cold. We eventually rose and had breaky before setting out for a quick walk before the Woods arrived at lunchtime for our walk around Dove Lake. We decided to do a little walk in the morning up a hill to some cottages built by Gustav who bought land in Cradle Valley in the late summer of 1910. In 1912 he started building his alpine chalet Waldheim, which means "forest home" and received his first guests in late 1912. The history of the place was everywhere to learn with great documentation in the cottages. The girls whinged all the way up the hill but lived walking thru the homestead and outside over the old wooden bridge and thru the forest. His wife, Kate Weindorfer died in April 1916 and Gustav Weindorfer died in May 1932, but during his lifetime his vision of a National Park became a reality when in 1922 an area of 158,000 acres from Cradle Mountain to Lake St.Clair was proclaimed a "Scenic Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary." We learnt there were even wildlife warriors back in the early years. Awesome story...
We made our way to Dove Lake to meet the Woods for lunch and a three hour walk. While we were waiting the girls cams across a wallaby and enjoyed patting it for ages, we actually had to coax her away from it. On the trip it is becoming evident that Meg loves animals and it wouldn't surprise us if she became a vet or worked in a zoo. Anyway, the Woods arrived and we made wraps in the car park and scoffed them down as we were eager to start the anticipated walk. We got our happy snaps done before commencing and took off in an anti clockwise direction as we had heard it was pretty full on on that side of the walk with steps and steep climbs. We weren't too far in when three kids started whinning wanting to know when we'd be finished...god this was gonna be a long arvo!!! Luckily we had Amanda to entertain us and bribe the kids with treats!! The weather was great, with the sun shining and making us work up a sweat... We got half way round and were going along well, all chewing on some snake lollies when Meg tripped and starting screaming like she'd hurt herself bad. I ran up to find out what was the problem, cuddling and trying to console her, when my sunnies fell off my head and fell down the side of the bushes down the slop. I finally got Meg to calm down and found out she was screaming her head off not from pain but because she dropped her snake lollie! Mark kindly climbed down the slop bushes to retrieve my sunnies and after we all stopped laughing we took off again. Bloody kids eh?!? I was loosing my calm with the kids and as a young couple walked passed a loudly stated "use contraception"!! They looked at me weird and Marty, Mark and Amanda just cacked themselves laughing. We finally got to the end, three hours after we started, with all water being consumed about an hour prior to completing the walk, so went straight to the cars and guzzled fluids like no tomorrow. We always seem to not take enough water! After a little rest we took the Woods back to our camp to show them our set up and then said our goodbyes, only for another short period as we plan to camp with them on the east coast next week. We headed off to our last activity for the day, Devils at Cradle. We arrived at the conservation center and had the best time. It was a two and a half interactive talk about the Tasmanian Devils and Quolls. These creatures are fascinating and sadly becoming extinct due to inbreeding causing facial tumors (the devils). I always grew up thinking the devils were these voracious creatures that would attack you if had the chance. After this experience l have walked away appreciating these cute devils. We got to pat one, they have really soft coats, and watch them feed on a kangaroo leg. Meg was so funny, she just kept asking how the leg came off the kangaroo? Lol.. The tour guide was really great and passionate and we would recommend the tour to everyone if your over this way. At 7:30pm when the talk finished, we were a bit tired, been a long day. We headed back to camp and had toast for tea and said goodnight early. Awesome jam packed day, still bloody cold though!!
Bell Xxx
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