The Wild West coast

Well what a treat! Our first night headed west we stopped in to camp near Lake St Clair and were treated by an Aurora. While not quite visible to the naked eye, our phones were getting spectacular images with a low exposure setting.

We drove through Queenstown headed for Strahan for a couple of nights. While in Strahan, we booked ourselves onto the Gordon River cruise after several recommendations from other travels. The river cruise was indeed very interesting and such a good day. From spectacular sea walls, convict heritage to the World Heritage Area this cruise had it all (plus a delicious buffet lunch to boot). We ended the day seeing the world’s longest running play, The Ship That Never Was. Rein was picked from the crowd for a key role much to my amusement and his demise.

We continued north to Zeehan to check out an old mining spray tunnel with glow worms in it. We walked down the length, mist in the air, admiring the glow worms in the darkness. On our way back however, we used our torches to get a better look at the tunnel. WELL, ignorance is certainly bliss because upon turning on our torches, we saw the tunnel was full on massive cave spiders which we were totally oblivious to while walking through. With only one way to get back to the car, we hurried through the tunnel as quickly as we could, with me squeaking in terror the whole length.

We stopped in at Montezuma Falls, Tasmania’s tallest waterfall sitting at 104m tall. It was a decent walk in, 10km return but an easy walk along the old tramway. The waterfall was epic and there was a cool suspension bridge that spanned in front of the waterfall.

Next we headed to Corinna and took the barge across the river. We weren’t planning on staying at Corinna which was essentially a boat ramp, pub and 10 camp sites, but the woman at the pub said it was $4 a night so we thought what the heck. I handed over a $50 note hoping to break it and was surprised to receive only $10 back. It actually $40 per night but the woman’s accent made it sound like $4!!

We were a bit peeved but it was sprinkling a little bit and there was an undercover fire pit with wood provided so we were happy to park ourselves in front of that and cook our dinner there. Rein saw another platypus but alas, I still didn’t get to glimpse one.

The next morning we took the kayak out to paddle to Lovers Falls. It was a fun but long paddle through the mist, occasionally battling wind. Rein was fishing for trout the whole way but once again, no luck there.

We kept travelling up along the coast, stopping in at Hellyers distillery for another whiskey tasting (we liked LARK better). Before ending up at Cradle Mountain.

We camped at a free spot close to the visitors centre, seeing our first wombat (and baby) while here. The next day we ended up at the visitor centre, with plans to do the summit, and were shocked with what we saw. The carpark was massive and there were heaps of people about, turns out we had to take a bus to the famed hiking area and the ranger informed us we wouldn’t have enough time to complete the summit and get back for the last bus (as it was a 6-8 hour hike). We did the shorter Dove Lake Circuit with plans to come back the next day even earlier to tackle the summit.

It ended up being a stroke of luck as one of Rein’s friends lived close by and was keen to do the summit with us after two failed attempts (due to weather). So the next morning we were up early and on the first bus toward the summit!

The morning was a complete white out with visibility only being around 50m. It was safe to continue and we weren’t expecting any views when reaching the summit, but that was ok, it was about the challenge for us. We took the steep Marion’s Lookout track to the summit, stopping at the kitchen hut for morning tea. We reached the boulder climb in great time, this last section of the hike was by far the most brutal. 2 hours of pure scrambling over medium to large boulders. Every step had to be carefully thought out with dangerous drops all around, one misstep and it’d be a helicopter ride down.

I’ve never been more thankful that I had gotten into bouldering just before the lap. The skills I got from the sport gave me the strength, confidence and knowledge to get to the top.

We passed people on their way down as we climbed up, each saying that the top was a complete white out, but this wasn’t going to deter us.

At around lunchtime and roughly 3 hours of hiking, at 1545 m (941 m gained), we reached the summit of Cradle Mountain. It was exhilarating and super rewarding. We ate our lunch (me and Rein had fried rice - goated hiking lunch) and all shared a nip of whiskey to celebrate. The danger wasn’t over on the summit, a member of another group unfortunately tripped right at the top, ending up with a nasty gash on their shin. We helped by providing some first aid supplies, but ultimately it was going to be a tough descent for the individual.

As we ate on the summit, we watched as the clouds began to lift. To our amazement, the white out lifted and we were rewarded with blue skies and the most incredible views. We couldn’t believe our luck!!!

The way down was just as perilous as the way up, the difference this time being that we could see the devastatingly sheer drops on the edges of the trail. It was really cool though having the sun out, it felt like a completely different hike instead of the same track in and out. We all decided we were very glad we ascended in the white out, as every time we turned back to see where we had come we’d think WTF WE WENT UP THAT!! Mentally, it was actually really nice not to see the ultra steep path to come and just focus on the 50 m we could see.

The hike ended up taking us 6:15 hrs and we hiked 13.9 km. It was so rewarding and up there with one of the top hikes I’ve ever done.

After a brilliant night sleep, we headed to the fun Tasmazia and then to Mole Creek Cave which was by far my favourite cave I’ve done (glow worms and an underground river!).

We then headed to the Tasmanian arbourtorium as we had heard there were lots of platypus. It was our last full day in Tassie so my last chance to see a Tasmanian platypus and we were not disappointed! There was a hide near a lake and from the hide we saw countless platypus popping up on the surface and swimming around. It was amazing. Bucket list item TICK!

We spent the night with Rein’s friend in Latrobe and were up early the next morning for the ferry. Tasmania has been awesome and we are so inspired to come back and do some of the overnight hikes! What a cool place.