Cradle Mountain Hiking - Spectacular!

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Dove Lake

We drove from Sheffield to Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre, where we left the car.  We picked up our National Parks Pass – this covers all of us in any Tasmanian National Park for eight weeks for $60.
https://www.parks.tas.gov.au/?base=3297

We the caught the free Shuttle Bus to the Dove Lake carpark.  From here we began by following the Dove Lake Circuit in an anti-clockwise direction (Grade 2).  We turned right off this track to ascend the Lake Wilks Track (Grade 4) – this had a chain in places to make it easier and more secure to ascend.  This track would be a challenging way to descend, particularly once tired from a full days walking – I’m glad we chose to go this way on the way out not the way back.

Dove Lake Boat Shed

Lake Wilks Track

Face Track

At the top, we joined onto the Face Track (Grade 3) which took us along a ridge line.  Drew caught the front of his shoe on a tree root and fell heavily knocking the wind out of himself.  I was very pleased when I turned around in response to the sound to find him on the track, rather than down the steep right hand side – it could have been much worse.  Result: one skinned shin with a very large egg where he hit a rock, a cut stomach, one long gash extending from wrist to underarm.

Next was the Cradle Mountain Summit Track (Grade 4). We followed this approximately half way up – and then – missed the right turn to continue on the track.  This would have taken us over “dolerite boulders” which are large, quite rough textured boulders which are good to grip.  Instead …. we blindly followed the crowd and went straight up, perpendicular to the contour lines over a mix of dolerite rocks and boulders with extended patches of light flat “shale-like” rocks which moved constantly as you tried to push upwards – very difficult and not the safest of routes, however we were part of a group of about 15 people going up this way together.  This brought us to Smithies Peak (1527m) which gave absolutely amazing views.  This is almost as high as Cradle Mountain (1545m) but was definitely more challenging!

Triumph at Smithies Peak

Summit Track

On the descent I got hit on the right ankle (just above the knobbly bit) by a falling rock (a bit bigger than a house brick) – it hurt!!  This made the rest of the walk much more challenging.  When we got to the bottom of the summit track, we turned left onto the Overland Track (going in the reverse direction to those doing the 6 Day Overland Track Hike) On the way back we detoured to Marions Lookout for some once again amazing views.  We then came down the Marions Lookout Link Track (grade 4) which was steep with a chain, but much shorted and less steep than the Lake Wilks Track.  This took us back to the Dove Lake Circuit and on to the carpark to catch the Shuttle Bus.  The Shuttle Bus driver commented that this was one of the hottest days of the year on the mountain – by our standards it was cool, but not cold, and definitely not hot!

Overland Track

Back at the Visitors Information Centre I purchased a badge for our family travel quilt and a green Cradle Mountain T-shirt for Hayden as he did amazingly well on what was a tough days hiking.  All up we walked 11.5km over 7 hours and 600m+ of vertical.  Hayden said he enjoyed the hike because it was challenging, not boring!  He showed amazing sensibility in doing the very steep section of track which, in hindsight, we should not have been on.

Drew then did the windy road back home – using his flappy paddles – and I cooked us all a well-deserved dinner.