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N O R T HER N TA S M A NI A
CRADLE M O U N TA I N [ 140 KILOMETRES FROM LAUNCESTON ]
On a stunning hike that pays homage to Tasmania’s majestic Cradle Mountain, Andrew Bain is rewarded with every step.
PEAK PERFORM ANCE > On the boardwalk, I stop and wait for the traffic to pass. Two wombats amble down the track towards me, as unhurried as time itself. Just centimetres from my feet, they turn away, bustling on through the buttongrass clumps at the track’s edge. I walk on but it’s as though the wombats have triggered a change in the day, for at this moment, the most familiar shape in Tasmania finally appears. Dawn mist lifts from the land, rising like a stage curtain to reveal the bowed summit of Cradle Mountain. From where I stand, the mountain’s cliffs look as puzzling as the Rubik’s cube. Rising sheer and severe from above Dove Lake, they look impossible to anyone but rock climbers, yet for hikers like me, there is a way to reach the top of Tasmania’s most famous mountain. This 1545-metre tall mountain is the centrepiece of the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park in Tasmania’s north-west. It doesn’t yield easily – but it can be climbed
