Down Under Down Under
⬅ previous ⬆intro next ➡Day 12 ~ 2 Jan - Cradle Mountain
Today's plan is - yes! - more walking. We'll take the Crater Lake circuit and then climb to Marion's Lookout.
On the first bus of the day to Ronny Creek. You will (maybe) recall that this is where the Overland Track starts, and again we'll begin by following that for a while.
We must briefly pause to let a wombat cross the boardwalk.
And off he or she goes. Sexual dimorphism is not much of a thing with wombats. The Australian Society of Zoo Keeping says, "There are no obvious distinguishing marks between sexes. The only way is to turn them over." I don't think that would be appropriate behaviour for tourists.
Our path lies ahead. The white and orange markers are for the Overland Track, although it's kind of obvious where the route is here. Boardwalks are not universal, though, so the markers could be more important later.
It's summer here, and the altitude is not that great, but there's definitely a bit of a spring/alpine look to a lot of the plants.
Crater Falls is the first waterfall on the Overland Track. Got to be honest and say that Pencil Pines was better.
Not big and showy, but very pretty flowers. According to the Australian Plants Society Tasmania Inc. (formerly the Society for Growing Australian Plants), Cradle Mountain is one of the best places to see the Tasmanian Christmas Bell, Blandfordia-punicea.
Crater Lake and another little boathouse. From here we'll follow the edge of the lake then start to climb towards Marion's Lookout.
That's Crater Lake behind me. We're in a short but steep section where a chain is provided to help you pull yourself up.
We reach a small plateau which we think for a moment is going to be Marion's Lookout, but that's not the case. Still a good view, though, with Lake Lilla to the left and Dove Lake to the right. It's a lot less misty than yesterday, too: there's no chance we'd have seen the distant mountains on the horizon at all in those conditions.
The final ascent. The people behind are standing on that small plateau I mentioned. It's mid-morning now and any serious Overland Track walkers would be running quite late if they were still only here, so I think they are just park visitors, same as us.
And here we are. You can see much more of Dove Lake from here, but the views are not dramatically different than the previous pictures.
This is our turnaround point, We'll retrace the Overland Track back to the Crater Lake lookout point and then diverge from there.
Oh, and I have no idea who Marion was. The web is awash with pages about walking here, but will anybody tell me the origin of the name? No.
A currawong flies past us to land in a tree just after we leave the Overland Track for the rather splendidly named "Wombat Pool Track".
The pool itself. Some enterprising six-year-old has defaced every single Wombat Pool sign that we see.
Shortly after this, we rejoin the Lilla Lake track we walked yesterday, but in the opposite direction.
Funny how it looks different in reverse.
Near the end of the trail, I don't know if it's the same wombat we saw yesterday, but it's certainly close to the same place.
Our fellow tourists all want a bit of wombat action too.
Little streams have cut really deep but narrow meandering channels through the grass tufts.
Gaps in the cloud are now definitely letting the sun through from time to time, so you can start to see some shadows.
The bird is a Tasmanian nativehen -- all one word according to most sources - but the locals call it a "turbo chook" on account of its running speed (it's flightless). Wikipedia says it can get up to 35 km/h, 22 mph. It's another Tasmanian endemic.
Back at the Ronny Creek bus stop area, we find a bench to have a picnic lunch. The weather is brightening up, though you couldn't really call the sky clear yet, so we don't have to hide indoors for lunch today. Mind, if we had, Amanda wouldn't have been dive-bombed by a currawong after a bite of her wrap! She reckons it's just a bit of lettuce the bird manages to get, so it may be feeling a touch disappointed.
This is the Dove River, not Ronny Creek itself. The latter is a spur off to the left just out of this picture, but it's not as photogenic. We're just following an unlabelled trail to see where it goes.
It goes here: "Mount Kate Lodge". There's no indication of what this building is or was, although it clearly has a historical look about it.
But the Web knows everything:
"The house was built as the homestead associated with the Cradle Valley timber mill and was the home of Major Smith, son of the more renowned James "Philosopher" Smith. The Hut is now owned by Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service and is used for temporary accommodation by park staff, seasonal rangers and track maintenance crews.
At its peak in the 1960s, the Ronny Creek settlement had six huts and a sawmill. Today, the last remnant of the earlier Ronny Creek is the renovated Mt Kate Hut. The Mill, Joe Cohen's Hut, the Contractor's Hut, Wescombe's Hut and Campbell's Hut have all vanished and returned to rainforest."
From Ronny Creek, we take the bus back out of the park, but we're not finished for the day yet. And look at all that blue!
After a quick sort-out at the lodge, we walk back down to just before the park entrance to follow the Dove Canyon trail a short way.
This is Pencil Pine Falls from the other side of the river to where we saw it from on our first walk. It looks much nicer in the sun.
And here, Knyvet Falls, our turnaround point. The trail continues but that's for another day, perhaps.
And what do we see happily snufflingi in the grass beside the road on our way back?
An echidna, of course!
Perhaps we should drink a toast to my brother Tim, who lives in Lowestoft. That's the one in Suffolk, of course.
We are rather less sure about these. We will simply tag them as part of the local culture and move swiftly on.
J&M are still a bit poorly, so we're on our own this evening, but after dinner, Jo messages to say they're going for a short dusk stroll and so we join them.
We check out some more wallabies.
Evening falls, and so to bed.
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