We planned three days for hiking in Tasmania, until the rain hit. This morning was out last day, in Cradle Mountain - and the day dawned sunny and beautiful! While the sun came and went, we ended up with a beautiful day.
We started hiking around 7am, and were some of the first people on the trails - that in itself was a great start, since it meant we got one of very few parking spots right at the trailhead. The trail started out nice and easy around a lake and through a beautiful woods. Then we took the turning up towards the summit, past all the warning signs...and it got a whole lot harder. I'm very glad all the blisters I got early in the trip were healed, because we spent a lot of time scampering up and down steps, rock crevices and sometimes hauling ourselves up/down sheer rocks by a chain.
And it was still less scary than being blown about by the wind in Freycinet!
The payoff was also much better - we walked by, through and over so many lakes and waterfalls. We didn't make it to the summit, and by the end of the hike we were very thankful for that since the way out took us over the summit of more than one smaller mountain! We got a great variety of views and landscape, and saw another wallaby and a kookaburra. It's also great to be here in spring - everything is blooming, from trees to ground cover to trees, and it adds great color.
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| We did it! |
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| Our starting point...we hiked up to the point between those two peaks in the distance |
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| The view from the top...looking back the way we came |
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| Some of the nice, easy early trail |
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| Some of the plant life on top of the mountain |
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