Day out in Cradle Mountain National Park on the first day of Summer……

We awoke to clear blue skies and yet by the time we were ready to leave the hotel it was snowing!! A good start to summer! After that we experienced a mix of torrential downpours, hail and snow storms, interspersed with glorious (and warm), sunshine!!
They had warned us that the alpine environment here in Cradle was unpredictable and that we could potentially experience all the seasons in one day and so we did!!

Not to be put off we headed for the car park at the end of Dove Lake with a view to hopefully, taking a few snaps of the mountain (cloud cover permitting), but had resigned ourselves to the fact that we may not be able to complete the Dove Lake walk which at around 6km would take us on a circuit of the lake with splendid views of the mountain and surrounding scenery………………

Our guardian angels had obviously been working overtime(!) as not only did the weather behave itself with long periods of warm sunshine and clear skies but the mountain was all the more majestic, revealing itself to us slowly as we made the circuit walk and by the time we had completed the round trip she was free of any low cloud, all her peaks visible.

During the walk we were impressed by the flora and fauna - all of which were new to us - we saw plains of button grasses, King Billy Pines - tall and quite spindly pine trees, a number of colourful alpine flowers and plants, heathers and some amazing palm-like trees which seemed out of place in this alpine environment but beautiful nonetheless.

The waters were clear and there were several stunning waterfalls on the surrounding hillsides - some of the lake water was brown in colour and we discovered that this is a result of the tannin released from the many button grasses but, the water is fresh and good to drink.

When we had completed the Dove Lake walk we stopped for a light lunch and then made our way to the nearby Waldheim Chalet…….a King Billy pine chalet built by the Austrian-Australian Gustave Weindorfer in 1912, and now a museum devoted to this man who loved this wilderness.


We saw a couple of wombats as they made their way across the button grass to feed and several lovely wallabies basking in the afternoon sunshine and munching on the grasses…

Tomorrow we leave for Strahan……watch this space!