Fridays Footprints – Cradle Mountain National Park

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Cradle Mt & Dove Lake

Cradle Mt is only a 2 hour drive from us and it makes a fabulous day trip, complete with picnics, wildlife and beautiful scenery.

Cradle Mountain forms the northern end of the wild Cradle Mt – Lake St Clair National Park.

The area is formally recognised through World Heritage listing as being part of the natural and cultural heritage of the world community. The core area was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982 on the basis of all four natural criteria and three cultural criteria, at the time satisfying more criteria than any other World Heritage property on Earth.

Pretty awesome that we live near it! 🙂

There are a variety of walks, ranging from an easy 20 minutes, right up to a fairly challenging 6 day hike on the Overland Track. (This is on my “to do” list)

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Short walk

Some areas are dark and knotted with moss covered trees

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Beautiful greens

And others more open and scrubby

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Boardwalks help protect both the flora and fauna of the area and visitors are asked not to stray from the pathways

The variety of lichens fascinate me

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Like an artists pallet
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Endless patterns

We enjoy bringing our visitors here – usually after a picnic lunch, we tackle the 3 hour walk/hike around Dove Lake.

Sometimes we get brilliant sun –

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Perfect clear warm day

And other days you might be lucky to see Cradle!

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Moody and misty

Personally I like the misty damp days best. It brings out brilliant colours – especially in the trees

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Its like the bark was painted

 

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Trees with character

There is a fantastic path, mostly boardwalk, the entire way around Dove Lake, and the view of the mountain constantly changes

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Easy tracks

Winding your way through the scrub

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An adventure around every corner

At times the path leads you down to small beaches

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Gnarly gum trees

Where your view of Cradle Mt changes again

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Many colours in the water

You find small determined plants, literally growing out of the rocks

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How a small plant can grow out of a rock beats me!

And the unique Pandani stand out in the landscape

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Found only in Tasmania, the pandani is the largest heath plant in the world.
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Beautiful Pandani in the mist
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Lush moss

My favourite part of the walk is entering the Ballroom Forest

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Ballroom Forest – Romantic sounding name

Quite often you will see wildlife

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Wombat crossing a stream
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Young echidna with flowers in her hair…

The boatshed that stands on the northwestern shores of Lake Dove was built in 1940 by the first Ranger at Cradle Mountain, Lionell Connell & is quite a landmark on the lake. The shed was built largely from King Billy pine. Although some restoration work was completed in 1983, the shed remains pretty much unaltered from its original form – It can be a tricky proposition to get a photo sans-tourists as its a popular place for photos

 

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Boatshed with Cradle looming behind

We are hoping to return soon to do a different walk with Emma and Mana – if the weather isn’t too dreadful.

Enjoy the weekend all!

Cheers

 

 

Author: Lisa

A happy traveller through life! Right now living in NW Tasmania with a gorgeous Nurse-Husband, a fool of a Siamese Cat and several chickens. We love our fairly simple lifestyle of growing a lot of what we eat and enjoying the stunning surrounds of our little patch.

8 thoughts on “Fridays Footprints – Cradle Mountain National Park”

  1. Lisa, I love your blog and especially your photos! Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful corner of the world! Karen

  2. I think tourism Tasmania should hire you…I feel like jumping on a plane
    right now. Love your blog Lisa. A big hi from Ontario Canada.

    1. lol – thank-you! Its wonderful to have a small platform to share Tassie with! My Husband is from Hamilton – but we haven’t been back to Canada in an eon – keen to see more of it when we do!

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