Cradle Mountain
We left for St Helens where we had late lunch at a lovely 'bookish' cafe. A few hours were spent walking along the 'Bay of Fires', actually a number beaches broken up by rocky outcrops and then onto some lovely accommodation just outside Cradle Mountain. This is the beginning of the start of the world famous 4 - 7 day Overland Track through wilderness to Lake St Clair. Because it gets dark so late, after 8:30pm, we went out to Ronny Creek (the official start of the walk) where the plains were thick with wombats.
On the way to the Park's Visitor Centre . . . above and below
Ronny's Creek
Wombats have rear facing pouches because of the dens they dig, so youngsters can look out the other end of mum.Suz and I also got to see a spotted Quoll. Note that a 22kV powerline and a sewer run under the boardwalk..
The very large carpark, and dual chopper pads, put Niki off a bit. But this is world class wilderness tourism, the choppers were not so intrusive and the fleet of 4 buses got everyone to Ronny's Creek and back every 20min on the single lane road with wombats and paedemelons everywhere at night.
The following day we walked the high route around Lake Dove. Much harder than the boardwalk around the edge of the lake - thank goodness we had the Freycinet Pensiula walk in our legs. And again, the spectacular views!
The walk around Dove Lake was high or low. High was considerably harder and longer than low. Quite a bit of actual climbing with steel chains. Suz at a saddle above, and on our back down, below.
Strahan
Next stop was Stahan (pronounced Strawn) for two nights because I was keen on riding the West Coast Wilderness Railway to Queenstown and back. The restoration was around $1million/km and we attained speeds mostly at walking pace. Originally handcarved out of the rock and features 7km of rack and pin, 1:6 gradient vs 1:2000 for the Ghan. But for 35 years early last century, it was the only real access to Queenstown. It was spectacular, and the photos cannot do justice to the height of the trees or the steepness of the terrain. Annual rainfall may have been 3800mm/year but it was lovely weather when we were there.
Suz at the first stop. The steam engine took in water, twice each way.
Kings River and an idea of the terrain
Kings River on the return trip, above and how the rack and pin (invented by Swiss engineer Rommel Abt) system works, below;
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