Hiking in the Cradle Mountain Nationalpark
by Petra Bucheli
Tags:
Cradle Mountain
Crater Lake
Dove Lake
Lake Lilla
Tasmanian devil
animal park
hiking
kangaroo
platypus
wombat
waterfall
Saturday 11th February 2012
I enjoyed breakfast viewing two grazing wallabies. Then I took the shuttle bus until Dove Lake. There I hiked via Lake Lilla to Crater Lake. As it was not very far from Marions Lookout, I also went up there. The view over the lakes Lake Lilla, Dove Lake and Crater Lake is gorgeous. To enjoy the view I had to pass a very steep section. The steps were nearly to big for me and I had to pull myself on the steel rope. Down the same way for about 30 minutes. Then I walked down to Crater Lake and hiked further to Ronny Creek. The last part was a boardwalk and there I saw a grazing wombat.
Then I took again the shuttle bus to another stop and walked to two waterfalls. The Knyvet Falls can only been seen from the side. On the way there was also a dam constructed by platypuses. I did not see any animals as they only get out shortly before dawn.
In the afternoon it got sunny. I walked for another our on the boardwalk and enjoyed the nature. There were many lizards and I had to make sure I did not step on one. As I wanted to look for wombat in the later afternoon, I went first to the Devils at Cradle Park. There they showed first a film about the Tasmanian devils. The animals are endangered because many of them die due to a infectious face tumour. I could even pet a devil, it has a fine fur. The Tasmanian Devils seemed to be very relaxed and the keeper could go to them. Then it started to rain slightly. It got stronger and I decided to go back to the accommodation. As I arrived it was coming down in buckets.