Cradle Mountain: Dove Lake Circuit

Cradle Mountain, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park

Our first attraction to visit was Cradle Mountain, which is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Tasmania.  We left our campsite early Sunday morning, around dawn.  Imagine our surprise as we saw huge mountains in the distance as we came up out of the Lake Barrington valley where we'd camped.  It had been too dark to see on our drive in the night before, but knowing that we'd driven on this road without seeing it kind of felt like it'd risen up out of the ground while we were sleeping.

Somehow missed Mount Roland the first time around
(If you google 'Mt Roland Tasmania' there are
heaps of much better photos than this.)

It was a beautiful drive to Cradle Mountain.  From West Kentish we drove south on some narrow, winding roads through paddocks and forests and by a couple of towns with interesting names, such as Paradise and Promised Land.  I didn't get a photo of it as we passed, but we drove by the famous "Post Office Tree", which is a hollowed-out eucalyptus that was used for both mail delivery and a pick-up point by prospectors and trappers in the early 1900s.  As we got closer we drove over some really interesting hills, covered in brown scrub and bleached eucalyptus trees.  It was really striking, almost alien-like.  In the distance we could see Cradle Mountain, very small on the horizon.

When we arrived at the park we parked the caravan (that's Aussie for camper-van) at the Visitor Centre. The park offers a shuttle service which loops between the Visitor Centre and Dove Lake, with various stops along the way.  Our plan was to do the Dove Lake circuit and walk back along the Overland Track to Ronny Creek.

We had read in one guidebook that Cradle Mountain is cloudy (and/or rainy)
nine days out of ten, so we felt pretty lucky to have clear blue skies.

Standing on a large rock in front of some much bigger rocks

The Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park is a part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, which is a conglomerate of different National Parks and Reserves such as the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers N.P., Walls of Jerusalem N.P., and Central Plateau Conservation Area.  Cradle Mountain was first designated as a scenic reserve in 1922, became a National Park in 1971, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982.  That's only a tiny bit of its history, however, as there is evidence of Aboriginal inhabitants dating back tens of thousands of years.

The water is stained brown from buttongrass tannins

Standing beneath the Pandani.  Richea pandanifolia is endemic to Tasmania.

The Pandani - also known as the 'Giant Grass Tree'.
Not a palm, but one of the tallest heaths in the world.

The Dove Lake circuit is probably one of the most popular walks around Cradle Mountain and is very accessible.  Much of the walk is boardwalk.  We saw a lot of different plants and shrubs -- groves of pandani shrubs as well as the King Billy Pine (Athrotaxis selaginoides).  These trees are found only in Tasmania and live for over 1000 years.  There was also a lot of amazing lichen!

The dolerite columns of Cradle Mountain.  Tasmania has the most extensive formations of dolerite in the world.

Cradle Mountain as viewed from the southern end of Dove Lake

Our day of hiking in Cradle Mountain NP was the longest excursion from our trip and therefore we have the most amount of photos... over 600, actually, in the park.  It was really difficult to pick and choose so I'll be breaking this venture up into a couple segments.
 The next part of our hike was to go up to Marions Lookout via one of the steepest and roughest of any track we'd yet encountered (to be fair, we were warned, and if we'd read the entire pamphlet from the parks office we'd have seen it was "not recommended.")

To Be Continued ...