Merry Christmas to all my friends and family. I hope that you are celebrating this time of the year in a most wonderful way. For us this year, at Cradle Mountain, it is very different from any other Christmas. It is a beautiful part of the world here in the wilderness of Tasmania and as I sit here typing this blog, this is the view from our room at the Cradle Mountain Hotel. It is a glorious day and we will reach a temperature of 22 degrees.
Yesterday, Christmas Eve, we spent the morning hiking. For as long as I can remember I have had a penchant to walk the Dove Lake Circuit. I have looked at photos of the "hut" on the edge of the crystal clear waters of Dove Lake and knew I had to photograph that special place.
The only way you can now reach Dove Lake is via shuttle bus. I seem to remember that 11 years ago we drove right up to the lakes edge, but things have certainly changed. The Information Centre is also a new addition and it is quite a lovely building that blends in beautifully with the surroundings.
We purchase our shuttle bus tickets and wait no longer than a couple of minutes before one of the buses arrives. There are many, many people here to hike. There are numerous hikes ranging from easy to difficult, the most difficult being the Overland Track that is over 60km in length. We have chosen a medium difficulty track that should take us around 3 hours. There is still a little cloud as we start our walk but within ten minutes we are shedding our jackets as the sun makes its appearance.
My goodness me. This is such a beautiful hike, particularly the first half. Around 40% of it is boardwalk and the remainder is a well marked out gravel path. We are told to walk in a clockwise direction to avoid running into people but nearly half of the hikers either didn't hear the instruction or ignored it. Still, it didn't detract from the experience.
The second half of the hike is slightly more challenging with lots of steps and quite a climb. However it was short so that was a blessing. I have learnt to walk up the stairs slowly. By doing that I can walk up hills and steps for quite a long distance and it is always so rewarding at the top. We come upon the Enchanted Forest that is an area covered in moss, and ferns and we comment that we have seen a lot of areas like this on our various hikes around Tasmania. They still hold a certain charm whenever you come across them.
Reaching the "hut" signals the end of the hike and what a way to end. It is such a gorgeous postcard pretty view but it is after midday and there are many people here all vying for a photo. The best photos is to get the hut without anybody around it but some selfish people have decided that the best photo is mum standing outside the hut taking photos of dad and bub inside the hut and thereby blocking everybody's photo. It is so frustrating waiting for them to finish their photo shoot! Anyway, enough whingeing. Here is my photo of the day.
The walk was immensely satisfying and just as I imagined it would be. As we made our way back to the entrance to wait for the shuttle bus, I stopped to take some photos of some hikers on another boardwalk track in the area. The boardwalks make it so much better for hiking and protects the fragile environment. We are seeing more and more of them on our travels. A lot of the timber boardwalks are being replaced with a recycled heavy duty matting that would last a very long time in this harsh environment.
It is around 1pm when we finally get back to the car so we head to a nearby restaurant for lunch. It was a recommendation when we checked in and another recommendation was the wood fired pizza. Good suggestions! We devoured the pizza (well... almost all of it) and washed it down with beer and wine. We jokingly laughed that we had probably exercised off 2000 calories and just put them back on again with this meal!
When we arrived back into our room at the hotel, we had this lovely treat waiting for us. Christmas really is in the air!
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