Cradle Mountain Hike (overland track)
4 Comments April 30, 2010 / Posted in Travel
Mai at Marions Lookout
Following the footsteps of Austrian-born Australia, Gustav Weindofer, who climbed Cradle Mountain in 1910, I decided to spend a day hiking a small portion of the Cradle Mountain National Park.
Cradle Mountain is one of the best multi-day walks and its overland track requires bookings in advanced due to its popularity and limits of hikers allowed to minimise environmental impact.
The portion of the National Park that I wanted to do was from Rooney’s creek to the peak of Cradle Mountain which is supposed to take 8 hours. Unfortunately though, it was a really foggy day and so climbing to the top would have been pointless without being able to see the magnificant views. So our walk was only from Rooney’s Creek to the base of the Mountain.
I still however, managed to enjoy my 5 hour walk and hopefully one day can return to make it all the way up.
Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre to Ronny Creek and Barn Bluff (5 hours)
Once I got into the visitor centre, I bought a national park ticket which was to be displayed on my hire car dashboard. Since I was travelling with 3 other mates, it was more economical to get a car ticket instead of individual.
I then joined a queue to the shuttle bus which took everyone to different stops of the national park, mine was Ronney Creek.
The walk started with a newly built board walk then gradually stepped up to a medium hill. Up the hills, the walk continues easily and the first view was a small waterfall. I did not make a pit stop as I didn’t really have much time to spare.
The beginning of Cradle Mountain walk - as you can see hikers are so small in the 1/3 bottom of the picture and it's so foggy the peak of the mountain was invisible
As I continued my walk, we got into a crater lake which was simply beautiful. I took a small break to enjoy the scenery and there’re so many interesting plants around.
Mai in front of Crater Lake
The walk continued up hill. As I climbed up, I had a better view of the lake and the crater – simply beautiful. Then next stop that we aimed for was Marions Look out which was quite tough as it required a steep climb, luckily a chain was provided to help you to get up.
Climbing up gave me a better view of the lake
It took us 2 hours to get to the Marions Look out in which we decided to take a break for lunch.
Marions Lookout view - perfect for a lunch break
After a much needed break, I continued my walk through the crater and further up to Barn’s Bluff in which I had a picture perfect view of Cradle Mountain Peak which was still covered by fog.
Mai with Cradle Mountain Peak (covered by fog) in the background
I continued to walk down hill and got to the base of the Cradle Mountain Peak hike. The fog was not clearing up unfortunately which forced us to walk back to the visitor centre.
The total walk took me 5 hours (as opposed to the recommended 6 hours). The Cradle Mountain walk reminded me of my Lake District trip in UK. I shall vow to go back and get to the peak next time and spend longer to explore the beautiful Lake St Clair which is located on the other side of Cradle Mountain National Park.
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- Mai at Marions Lookout
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- The beginning of Cradle Mountain walk – as you can see hikers are so small in the 1/3 bottom of the picture and it’s so foggy the peak of the mountain was invisible
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- Mai in front of Crater Lake
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- Climbing up gave me a better view of the lake
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- Marions Lookout view – perfect for a lunch break
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- Mai with Cradle Mountain Peak (covered by fog) in the background
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- Mai in the beginning of the walk via a broad walk
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- Crater Lake with the peak of cradle mountain (covered by fog)
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- The peak of Cradle Mountain (covered by fog) can be seen from the visitor centre’s car park
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- The start of the Cradle Mountain walk – see how small those hikers are
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- Walking along the Crater Rim
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- Emergency Hutt right at the base of the Cradle Mountain Peak Hike
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- Ginger Beer with Tasmania Devil in the label :)
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- The start of the gradual up hill walk off the broad walk
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- Crater Lake
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- Crater Lake
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- Mai in front of Cradle Mountain Crater Lake
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- Barn Bluff
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- The start of the Cradle Mountain multi-days walk – Overland Track
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- A wallaby right in front of my porch at Cradle Mountain
Related posts:
Australia is really a great place for nature-lover… Haven’t been there though
It’s a beautiful part of Australia. If you can find the time – we took 6 days – I highly recommend the overland track, starting at cradle mountain. It’s long but not particularly strenuous – we had a lot of first timers in our group who managed it fine. Here’s some more about it: http://www.two-shay.com/articles/hiking-the-overland-track
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