A wintry weekend escape to Cradle Mountain was on the agenda. We flew into Launceston and it was like landing in Dunedin, small airport slightly out of town and a calm, clear, cold winter's day. It was a couple of hours drive to Cradle Mountain but the roads were quiet and the scenery was good.
Our little cottage was excellent, small wooden hut but good facilities and good heating.
We went for a walk to a couple of waterfalls on the Saturday afternoon.
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| Bush on the way to waterfalls |
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| Waterfall from the James Boag's ad |
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| We saw a few wombats but they were a bit tricky to capture on camera. |
Sunday dawn clear and cold and we were up early to get into the National Park to try to walk and climb Cradle Mountain. Didn't start out so well as our rental car had a flat tyre so we caught the shuttle bus in. Was a good morning for walking though.
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| Lake and boat shed |
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| Cradle Mountain, covered in cloud |
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| Snow! |
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| Track leading to the top, cloud has cleared |
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| A better view without the cloud |
The climb was quite difficult as we got into the granite boulders, a lot of scrambling up and over rocks. Was made more difficult by the fact that the shady side was covered in ice and slippery. We made it most of the way but the last part was fully in the shade and just to dangerous to push on.
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| Looking down the lake to the car park |
Was a bit of a wait for the bus back. It was a long weekend and there were a lot of people around. We made it back in time for four tyre changes to get the space saver onto the back wheel.
Monday was a public holiday and it took three chances to find a garage that was open and willing to fix our flattie. We still had some time to kill in Launceston so hung out in the gardens and visited the Japanese monkeys. Very odd. Was a great weekend though and we'll definitely be back to see more of Tasmania.
