Cradle Mountain, Tasmania

After leaving Strahan we cycled to Rosebery and then we had our hardest day of cycling as we had to climb up to 930 metres. We were so excited and relieved to arrive. We celebrated with a bottle of red wine and a huge spag. bol.

The following day we had a lot of drizzle and mist but we did venture out into the national park and had a lovely walk.


We also booked a night time animal watching trip as we still hadn't seen a wild wombat. Imagine our surprise when we then saw one as bold as brass waddling about the campsite. Here he is:


We did have fun on the animal spotting trip though and saw loads of wombats, pademelons, wallabies and possums. We also saw a quoll (small spotted carnivorous marsupial) , which was fab. We didn't see any wild Tasmanian Devils but never mind.

The following day we had some sun and we had a lovely walk around Dove Lake with the fabulous Cradle Mountain looming above us. The day before we couldn't even see the lake never mind the mountain due to the mist. Here we are posing with the lake and the mountain:


Due to the forcasted poor weather and the enormous quantity of wildlife that would like to eat our food and shoes we decided to swap the tent for an Alpine Cabin (shed). We had 3 nights in this and on the last night it was so cold we couldn't sleep but at least we didn't get any unwanted night time visitors.


We left the stunningly beautiful Cradle Mountain and cycled downhill back to Devenport in pouring down rain.

The following day we got the ferry back to Melbourne. We had 10 hours to fill so we watched 2 kid's films, learnt how to draw cartoons and listened to a wildlife talk.

We had a night in a hotel room with the comfiest bed that we've slept in since staying with Jeff and Yvonne in Perth.

The following day we collected our 'as good as new' van and we were very excited to have it back. Unfortunately the battery was flat so we bump-started it and then I stupidly stalled it while we were in 3 lanes of traffic. Luckily a man came to help us push it and we got it started.

We have now left Melbourne and we saw some flooded roads on the way out. Hopefully all of the rain has stopped now and we can continue our journey back to Sydney.