Another Cradle Hike

Well… today I didn’t run about too much. My legs are – displeased with me haha.
It did give me time to sit and sort yesterdays photos!

We got to Cradle a tad before 8am and found that everything had changed. A sexy new visitors centre has just been opened for one thing…
Still a lot of construction going on but overall I really like it.
Collecting your Overland Track pass is now a bit different. Due to a record amount of rescues last year, hikers are now taken into a dedicated room for a talk – on safety, expectations, risks etc etc.
They’ve got a policeman on board representing the rescue side of things and a video. We saw neither the policeman or video as its not up and running just yet. But since we’ve done the track a few times the lady booking us in wasn’t so concerned.
People get a bit blase about the hike. And sure… if the weather behaves, its all hunky dory. A lot of people really don’t realise the fast changes that can happen up there – and if you are unprepared, it will kill you.

My well prepared husband was in good spirits when we set out yesterday. Mind you, first thing in the morning up there yesterday, it was icy cold!!

We diverted off the usual track to go up the Horse Track. This way we avoided a lot of the tourists that were heading up. It was really peaceful for us.

The Horse Track is a fair slog though. It just steadily keeps going up. Marions Lookout way has more breaks with a short steeper section.

I had to stop and rest a bit. But since Jeff was carrying the heavy pack I didn’t get too far behind him!

Jeff fixing his flyaway hair and a goofy selfie from me

(Love the fisheye lens haha)

Finally got to the top of that long upwards stretch

As ever, the views are amazing and rewarding. It was turning out to be a spectacular day.

My usual obsession and delight with the pincushion plants

Cradle on the left, Barn Bluff on the right, Jeff in the middle!!

We got to Kitchen Hut, but didn’t feel like lunch, so we went up to the junction and had a hug and a smooch before Jeff continued on his adventure and I went off to tackle the Face Track.
Its rather weird to be completely cut off from contact. We are used to it more than other people with our lack of mobile phone or devices but even so… until I go to collect him I have no idea how he is going or progressing.

🙁
I was a little envious too of course!
But my path yesterday lay to the left.

I think this section of pathway, flanked by pincushion plants, overlooked by Cradle with that classic old wooden walkway rates as my favourite in the world of paths that I have traversed.

I caught up with a mum who was walking down this track with her two young girls. Dad and a friend were doing the summit of Cradle. I was a bit concerned as the Face Track is not for the faint hearted. There are warning signs about the level of difficulty but – not everyone reads them or takes them seriously. The girls looked to be about 8 and 10 max.
I had a chat just sounding her out as I didn’t want to just presume they weren’t capable or informed.
Turns out they had no idea to the challenges of that track. I gave the mum an idea of what to expect and an alternate route back as a better (read: safer) option.
Apparently her husband was also under the impression that the Cradle Summit climb was only going to take him half an hour.
Some learning curves were probably achieved yesterday! 🙂

Civic Duty Done, and I trundled along my way enjoying all the sights

Again – its hard to get a sense of the steepness of the track with the photos, but the views were magnificent (as usual)

I put the camera away for a while as getting myself down in one piece took priority over photography and when scrambling down some of the sections, I didn’t need my camera bouncing about and I needed all my limbs and in some cases… my bottom haha

By the time I got down to the little hut my legs were shot from ‘putting on the brakes’ for so long. So a sit down, a drink and a sandwich was in order.
Wrapped in Bee Wrap of course!

The next section of the hike was a lot of up and down. Each time I went up I thought it was the last time!!

(Jeff is out there – somewhere!!)

Finally made it to the chain links where a very long descent is made somewhat safer with a sturdy set of chains and poles that has been embedded.
You can see from the photo below looking back to where I came down on it. (red line)

The tricky part wasn’t quite over as the remaining track before getting to the more heavily used Dove Lake track is pretty much like walking on scree. Its not too stable underfoot as you go down.

Clearly I did get down in one piece – thoroughly enjoying my days walk.
Treated myself to a fizzy drink, jumped in the car and returned home to a very pleased Pip – who probably thought we were both disappearing on him again!

Hope you enjoyed the walk!!
Cheers!