Clare & Rob's Tasmania Trip: 2006
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Day 10: Capturing Cradle Mountain
We packed up our gear again and left our pretty location in the bush outside of Strahan. Ahead of us was a couple of hours drive through some mountain regions to the north end of the Cradle Mountain and Lake St CLair National Park.
Once in the park, we drove all the way along a narrow road to the car park, with views of Cradle Mountain across Dove Lake. We were fortunate, as we found out later, that the sky was pretty clear and we could see the mountain. We took the two hour easy trek around Dove Lake with nice views of the mountain most of the way, including a stop for a picnic lunch in a peaceful bay with the mountain reflecting in the dark waters of the lake.
Leaving the park, we stopped off for some inspirational viewing of wilderness photographs, before heading to the north coast of Tasmania. The mobile phone has been out of range for a few days, so as we neared the larger town of Burnie we found we had seven messages waiting for us. Most of them were from family, notifying us that Rob's mum was in hospital for an urgent but hopefully not too serious operation.
It was nice to be on the coast again. We drove west for another hour to reach Stanley and its famous nut, a rocky hill on the point. After checking out a seaside cabin, we decided on the cheaper option of a double bed in the youth hostel. We practically had it to ourselves. There was enough daylight hours left to climb the grueling path to the top of the nut, and explore the top and enjoy the views.
We knew we were in a sleepy country town when we had to convince a restaurant owner to stay open at 8pm and serve us some pizza.