Today,
the first stop was in Wynyard, a place that we had missed on our way out to
Stanley, where we got enough petrol and groceries to keep us fed and fueled to Cradle Mountain
and on to Strahan. Wynyard is a
good-sized rural town, but nothing of special interest for us.
We
then followed the A10 highway down through Hellyer Gorge State Reserve, which
was our lunch stop, and an opportunity for a leg stretch, then on to Cradle
Mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park. The park sits at around 1000 metres above sea
level, with Cradle Mountain rising to 1549 metres. Vegetation is largely alpine.
After
an early dinner, we drove into the National Park in hopes of seeing wildlife
around dusk. As we were leaving our accommodation
we saw a wombat ambling into the bush, which was a good omen. In the park we saw many more wombats and a
pademelon (small wallaby-like marsupial) with a joey. The pademelons were too quick for a
photograph, but we managed to get lots of shots of the wombats, including fresh
wombat poop, which is square in shape (imagine square brown marshmellows). So although you can’t put square pegs in
round holes, it seems that you can get square pegs out of round holes.
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| Willy the Wombat |
At
8:30 pm we attended the feeding at Devils@Cradle, one of several captive
breeding locations for Tasmanian Devils.
The Tasmanian Devil is the largest carnivorous marsupial, but its
population has declined by 98% over the last twenty years, due primarily to a
facial tumour which is passed from one to another by contact. The captive breeding programmes are referred
to as “insurance populations” and they do release some of the offspring into
the wild, but the primary purpose is to ensure that the Tasmanian Devil does
not become extinct, as the Tasmanian Tiger did.
Devils@Cradle also breeds Quolls (could perhaps be the official mascot
of Qualicum Beach?), which are the second largest carnivorous marsupial, and
which do not suffer from the facial tumour of their larger relative. We watched a group of 6 young devils fight
for a piece of the possum which was provided for their dinner, and were able to
listen to the shrieks which earned them their name, as they ripped the carcass apart.
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| Tasmanian Devil |
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| Quoll |
Traffic
within the national park is severely limited, so although we had been able to
drive in during the evening, the next morning we had to take a shuttle bus, as
the maximum number of cars had already been reached. We took the shuttle bus up to Dove Lake (as
far as you can drive within the park), and then walked the 6 Km track around
Dove Lake. The track was well formed,
with lots of boardwalk sections, and is the most popular of the many walks
within the park.
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| Cradle Mountain reflected in Dove Lake |
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| Boardwalk on Dove Lake Trail |
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| The 3 Siblings on Dove Lake Trail |
Marlene
would happily come back here, stay for a week, and walk every trail within the
park. But we did not have even one full
day, as we had to be in Strahan that night, so after coffee at the visitors
centre, we were on the road by 2:30 pm, for the two hour drive to Strahan on the
West coast.
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