Got up early because Bill, Katrina and I wanted to hike to Marions Lookout in Cradle Mountain National Park. Heather graciously offered to stay behind at The Granary to watch the kids.
This is what I saw when I looked out the window of our cottage at 7am. What a view to greet you first thing in the morning!
The 35-mile drive to Cradle Mountain over narrow and winding roads took just a little under an hour. We were able to drive straight to the parking lot at Dove Lake, and it was less than half full. Certainly a huge difference from yesterday afternoon when no more cars were being allowed into the park because the parking lots—small to begin with, at least compared to U.S. national parks—were full.
We started our hike at 8:50am in very windy conditions. The trail started innocuous enough but soon kicked into high gear with a steep boardwalk up to Lake Lilla, one of the many smallish but picturesque lakes dotting the landscape.
Another climb took us to Wombat Pool, the kind of swampy environment wombats prefer. Wombats are crepuscular (i.e. most active at dusk and dawn) so we didn’t sight any right then, although we did later in the evening. What we did see more and and more were rocks beautifully overgrown with green and red lichen. I don’t know what makes the lichen turn red, but it certainly was a stunning color. Bill and Katrina acted as my scouts, finding things for me to photograph.
The rest of the hike was quite strenuous, especially the numerous steep sections. One section, about 3/4 of the way to the top, even had chains installed horizontally like handrails to hold on to as we scrambled over boulders and scree. The hike to Marions Lookout is rated “moderate”, but considering that I spend most of my days glued to a computer and most of my daily exercise consists of climbing the stairs in our house and not boulder-strewn mountains in the southern hemisphere, I got seriously winded on the steeper sections. But when we finally got to the top, I was proud of myself and happy that I hadn’t listened to the lazy bastard inside of me who would have preferred to stay in bed this morning.
It actually wasn’t as windy and cold at the top as it had been on the exposed ridge before the summit climb. When we first got to the top, there were two other people there (one guy was the archetypical “serious” hiker, wearing shorts even in 50°F weather) but they left quickly and then we had the summit all to ourselves! Bill had brought ham-and-cheese sandwiches, and I can’t remember the last time I had such a tasty al fresco meal!
Here are Bill and Katrina at Marions Lookout.
And here am I, incontrovertible photographic proof that I, too, made it to the top.
View of Little Horn and Cradle Mountain from Marions Lookout. The lake below is Dove Lake where we started our hike.
Closer view of Dove Lake.
The descent went quite a bit faster than the ascent although maneuvering the steep sections still required concentration. We saw a lot more people on the way down than we had on the way up, and we were glad that we had started out relatively early in the morning.
Waiting at the bottom was this beautiful view of Dove Lake, Little Horn (left), Cradle Mountain (middle) and Marions Lookout (the mesa on the right). I was sweaty and tired but happy to have done it. Knowing what I now know, I would do it again!
After a quick lunch at the café at the park entrance (same place where we parked and lunched yesterday), we headed to Sheffield to get groceries for this evening’s dinner (pasta with Bolognese sauce).
Heather and the kids had a good day as well. The Granary has quite a range of amenities for fun and play, including an Activity Center with pool, ping-pong and air-hockey tables, PlayStation and Xboxes, hundreds of DVDs and even some old exercise equipment. In addition, there are a tree house, a secret garden, a soccer field and a small miniature golf course—all of it a bit “daggy” to adult eyes, but the kids certainly don’t care that everything is a bit worn around the edges.
For the evening, we had booked a “Night with the Animals” tour at Cradle Mountain. The idea is to drive around the park in vans equipped with spotlights to look for nocturnal animals. Our hopes were high of seeing all kinds of Tasmanian wildlife.
We got on the tour van at 8:45pm and within 5 minutes, en route to the campground to pick up more people, we spotted a Tasmanian devil crossing the road, turning around and crossing the road a second time before running into the bush. Man, was it fast! Tasmanian devils are the largest carnivorous marsupials, about the size of a terrier. They often have white markings on their back to blend in with their surroundings. They are typically scavengers, “nature’s vacuum cleaners”, as our driver said. Tasmanian devils used to live on the Australian mainland as well but became extinct there about 600 years ago, most likely because of food competition from the dingoes who hunt in packs. Tasmania is now the last place where they still can be found in the wild, although in the last 10 years their numbers have been reduced by as much as 70% in some regions because of Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), a contagious cancer that causes bulbous lesions on their face and then spreads throughout their body. Affected devils are usually dead within 3 months. Feverish efforts are underway to isolate healthy populations to ensure the survival of the species. Our driver said there are probably less than 10,000 Tasmanian devils left in the wild. They are very shy, and seeing them in the wild is a special treat.
Over the next hour and a half, we spotted scores of Bennetts wallabiess, pademelons (pronounced “PADDY-melon”; smaller and plumper than wallabies), and of course wombats. Wombats are the closest relatives of koalas. They are chunky marsupials, looking somewhat like a toppled Buddha statue on four legs. They look fat and slow but apparently can outrun the fastest human over short distances. They have sharp claws on their front feet and can hold their own in encounters with predators. We saw several with bare spots on their back, according to our driver from encounters with Tasmanian devils, who LOOOOOVE to eat wombats.
Another highlight of the tour was the sighting of a spotted quoll, a ferret-sized predator with pronounced spots on its back. Quoll sightings in the wild are even rarer than Tasmanian devil sightings. Everybody on the bus was excited when we spotted it by the side of the road. The driver turned off the engine and we were able to watch the quoll just sit there for almost a minute before it dashed across the road, turned around to look at us, and then ran off into the bush.
At around 10:30pm, after dropping off passengers at their various accommodations, the van made its way back to the transfer terminal where our car was parked. Just before we turned into the parking lot, we spotted another Tasmanian devil! This one didn’t have a stripe and darted off into the bush pretty quickly, but it was clearly a devil. Our driver was as excited as we were!
After we’d gotten off the van and were almost at our cars, our driver called us over for yet another sighting: a brushtail possum on top of a garbage dumpster behind the café where we’d had lunch! Possums are very common—Sophie calls them “Australia’s nocturnal squirrels”—but it was still nice to see yet another endemic Aussie animal.
The hour-long drive back to The Granary along solitary mountain roads was anything but boring. We spotted scores of pademelons and Bennetts wallabies grazing along the side of the road, or hopping about. What a bizarre sight, to see all these small kangaroo relatives in the headlights of our car!
Our last animal sighting of the night was right in front of our cottage: another brushtail possum, this one a fat adult. Even though this isn’t a densely populated area, there are houses here and there, which means more garbage to be scavenged.
The final highlight of the evening was the night-time sky. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars! Star after star after star, some extremely bright. We also saw several galaxies, looking like faint clouds in the sky. There is zero light pollution here and the air is extremely clean, so it’s no surprise that the stars are so brilliant. What a way to end an unforgettable day!
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