Fridays Footprints – Cradle Mountain National Park

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)

Some areas are dark and knotted with moss covered trees

And others more open and scrubby

The variety of lichens fascinate me

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 –

And other days you might be lucky to see Cradle!

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

 

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

Winding your way through the scrub

At times the path leads you down to small beaches

Where your view of Cradle Mt changes again

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

And the unique Pandani stand out in the landscape

My favourite part of the walk is entering the Ballroom Forest

Quite often you will see wildlife

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

 

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