37. Sheffield and Cradle Mountain

We packed up and left early only getting 2km down the road to Sheffield. We had a wonder through town looking at the many murals people had painted. Very talented. There is a mural park where every year people come and paint on a designated wall. These were currently all white as the competition was to start in a week. So the old ones had been sold or auctioned off already, to make way for the new ones.

We had a little look at a shop which was selling jackets and vests very cheaply so Rod and I bought one each for $20 each – bargain!

We left Sheffield and got to Cradle Mountain, over some very steep, windy roads and crossing over a gorge. Very pretty countryside and we wished we had seen it with some snow on it.

We arrived at Cradle Mountain and got our free ticket to catch the bus up to Dove Lake. There were three bright white patches of something on the tops of the mountains still, which I was convinced was snow – I was right!

We arrived at Dove Lake and did two short walks. One was to the boat shed and the other the glacier. Both had gorgeous outlooks across the lake and towards Cradle Mountain. We were lucky the clouds weren’t too low and you could see all of Cradle Mountain and Marion’s Peak, with minimal cloud cover. We could even see people on top of Marion’s Peak. Very cold.

We returned to the Information Centre toying with the idea of doing the Devils tour but decided it was too much money. We left and decided to look for the “local’s place” which was given to us by the bus driver. It was just 3km from Cradle Mountain called Lake Lea.

It was beautiful. Other than 2 other people there trout fishing, who left after an hour, we were the only ones there. It was very pretty. Mitchell tried to trout fish with no success. I left some sausages out for the animals, hoping to see a Tasmanian Devil, but no luck.

We were in bed very early after a nice warm curry. I could hear something running around outside but each time I got out of my very warm bed I saw nothing, so I gave up.

During the night the winds picked up, as they do in Tassie, and I didn’t get much sleep as I was cold. I checked the sausages in the morning and they were all gone....

We left Lake Lea and decided we didn’t have enough time to get to Strahan and Queenstown so headed north to Burnie.

PHOTOS: Sheffield and Cradle Mountain