Trip 55, part 3 – Thank you Kate and Gustav

So here we are, Tasmania. We finally made it after a failed attempt a in 2020, just as COVID was breaking out.

But, who the f#ck is Kate and Gustav you ask, and why is the blog post titled with them? We’ll get to that later, but for now let’s talk about Eugenana.

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Disembarking the ferry at 7am, we had a couple of hours to kill until we were able to check into our caravan park for the next couple of nights. Luckily the Devonport Coles opens at 6am, so it was off to the shops to restock food supplies as you can’t bring fresh fruit and veg into Tassie from the mainland. Then, I plotted a little drive out towards our caravan park destination, taking in Braddons Lookout where we managed to kill 45mins, and then we chilled on the lovely Turners Beach, watching the locals enjoy the conditions on a beautiful summers day.

Whilst Turners Beach was lovely, we were getting wearier by the second, but the clock finally ticked over 9:30am and on the dot, we pulled up at the Lakeside Caravan Park in Eugenana. We hadn’t actually planned to book anywhere for our first couple of nights in Tassie, as we’d figured it wouldn’t be that busy. Dumb arses, us, it was the Labour Day Long Weekend in Tassie and everyone was out camping. Making a few phone calls, whilst waiting to board the ferry in Geelong, we found Lakeside would be able to fit us in.

It’s a lovely little park, with fantastic hosts, but it was HEAVING with people. After setting up the van, we opted for a midday nana nap and then chilled around the van for a couple of hours, before going for a little walk in the late afternoon. About 50m from our van, there is a little creek wandering through the park, so we followed that, away from the crowds, down towards the Tasmanian Arboretum, which is just down the road, but can be reached through the paddock behind the park.

Walking along the little creek, we immediately spotted our first wild Platypus, just cruising and duck-diving in the shallow creek, only about 50m downstream from where a riot of kids were playing in a large creek pool. We watched him (or her) for 10mins or so, then wandered further downstream, disturbing a small wallaby from his rest, and entering the back of the Arboretum.

We noted a couple of ponds in the Arboretum and started making our way towards them when we saw a gaggle of tourists at one of the ponds and as suspected, they were all watching another wild Platypus. I was located on the far side of the pond from the tourists, so found a spot near a little culvert between ponds and watched and took pictures. A couple minutes later this Platypus decided his pond was no longer the place to be, so he swam over to the culvert where I was standing and passed through it to the next pond, moving literally underneath where I was standing. He was so close, I couldn’t zoom out far enough to fit him into a photo with my 100 to 400mm lens.

We then spent the next hour watching multiple Platypuses in the ponds, including witnessing a protracted Platypus orgy or territorial fight… Two Platypuses decided they either liked each other a lot -or- really didn’t like each other at all, and they rolled around in the water and mud, seemingly scratching at each other. It seemed to end somewhat amicably after 5mins or so, with one Platypus retiring under some long grass in the bank, possibly hiding the entrance to its burrow, and the other swum off. Very cool to see.

On our return to camp, we again spotted the first Platypus, still chilling out in his little pool, and we were well stoked to have spotted five wild Platypuses on our first day in Tassie.

All the Platypus observing, combined with a very shitty nights sleep on the ferry, then culminated in a very early bed and late rise the next day.

As suspected, the Monday morning of the long weekend signalled a mass exodus of at least 95% of the campers, leaving us with plenty of space by mid-morning and no noise. We opted for a chilled day today. I did a few hours work and Jules mucked about in the van and doing some washing. We did take a short drive into Ulverstone to top up the diesel in Sir Gwavin (our Ford Ranger), but they were out of diesel. The next servo we found was also closed, possibly also out of fuel?? But we did find a servo with fuel and filled up to the max. Hopefully this middle-east conflict doesn’t cause us, that is Australia, to run out of fuel or we might be stuck down here in Tassie for a bit. Although, that doesn’t sound too bad actually..

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It’s Tuesday morning, 10th March and we’re heading up the hill, into Cradle Mountain today! But en route we caught up with an old family friend, Dale, who also happened to be visiting Tassie this week. We spent a lovely hour with Dale in Sheffield, quickly catching up on the 37years since we’d seen last seen each other. Jules and I then did a quick wander around Sheffield, enjoying the many murals and quiet county town vibe.

Leaving Sheffield, we came across a roadside Sourdough Bread stall which we can’t resist. Leaving our payment in the honesty box, I grabbed a loaf of the lovely fresh bread and we continued on.

Driving up and into Cradle Mountain, the roads get steeper and twistier, but the vistas more magnificent. We found it very strange that most of the road is signposted as 100km, however, every few hundred metres there’s a sharp bend or crest, requiring you to drop your speed to as low as 25km. You’d think a safer and more realistic road speed would be 60 as a standard. Anyway, we made it up safely and were soon setup at the Discovery Park.

With a very wet forecast for tomorrow, suggesting up to 25mm rain, we extended our stay at Cradle Mountain by a night at check-in to account for the anticipated lost day tomorrow.

Following a cup of tea and some of that lovely sourdough for lunch, we wandered up to the visitors centre for some info on the walks and how to visit and enjoy the area. The visitor centre lady looked and sounded like she’d given this same information a million times already today, but we found out what we needed and started planning the rest of our visit.

We were advised that between the hours of 8am and 5:30pm, the only access into the main Cradle Mountain area and hiking trails is via a Shuttle bus. However, they do allow up to 30 cars into the park between the hours of 6pm’ish, after the last Shuttle bus of the day has returned, and 8am, before the start of the daily buses. With this in mind, we drove up just before 6pm but found the gate and access still barred, so we did the short Rainforest Walk and the Enchanted Walk. Both were beautiful and we managed to spot a tiger snake, some wallabies, pademelons and a wombat. On returning to the car, we noted the park gate was now open (lights were no longer flashing), so we decided to do a quick drive out to Dove Lake for a recce and quick look around, possibly a photo if we’re lucky.

The drive through the park, up to Dove Lake is lovely, but slow at 40kph due to the wildlife. Passing through Ronny Creek we spotted a couple of Wombats a wombling around, but opted to keep going to Dove Lake. Taking the short walk up to the old boat shed, we managed to get a couple of photos, but the clouds and temperature were rapidly dropping and the sky looked ominous with impending rain.

The rain had started falling as we arrived back at the van, and has continued to fall steadily since. As I type this, it’s now mid arvo on Wednesday (the day after) and we’ve had about 26mm of rain since last night. But the forecast shows improving conditions and the rain seems to be letting up now.

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Well I was wrong. The rain is still falling, albeit more lightly than earlier in the morning, so Jules and I decided to spend the arvo at the Lodge Tavern just down the road. We jagged prime, soft leather seats right in front of the open fireplace and proceeded to enjoy a couple of drinks, chatting to various fellow travellers. About midway through said drinks, it absolutely chucked it down for an hour and we were really glad we were in a warm dry place that served alcohol. So now as I write this bit, some 24hrs since it started raining last night, Cradle Mountain has recorded 44mm of rain.

It’s just stopped raining and we can see snatches of blue sky!

With a renewed enthusiasm for all things outdoors, we finished our drinks and drove down into the park to see if we could spot a Wombat. For awareness, we’d only had two drinks and a hot chocolate each, so we weren’t drink driving.

Pulling into Ronny Creek we quickly spotted a bunch of Wombats and Wallabies which made for some easy pics.

But what we noticed the most was the significantly higher and more vigorous creek levels which after all that rain were now heaving, check out the following comparisons. What a difference 24hrs and 44mm of rain makes.

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Thursday the 12th March, 2026 and it’s raining again. Oh, and now it’s also blowing a bloody gale as well. Max temperature today was 4.3C, but with the wind chill it was reported as “feels like -5C”, or lower, all day.

Come to Tasmania they said, it’s a beautiful place with great weather they said…

But we said “when in Rome..”, and with that motto giving us spiritual motivation, we donned multiple layers of clothing, a rain jacket, beanie and gloves and managed to squeeze through the caravan door and then we almost had to roll up to the Visitors Centre as we were rounder than tall at this point. Purchasing our shuttle bus ticket, we bussed out to Ronny Creek, which is about 6km into the park. Disembarking, we filled in the walkers registration book, having to wait for the other groups, as despite there being three books and 10 or so pens, only one pen was working.

Then we were off, waddling like penguins down the fantastic board walks.

First stop the Waldheim Chalet, which is the segue to introduce and talk about Kate and Gustav.

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Gustav Weindorfer a 25-year-old Austrian man, immigrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1899. A keen botanist, he met fellow botanist Tasmanian local Kate Cowle in 1903 and they married 1906, spending their honeymoon camping in the remote Mount Roland mountain.

Falling in love with the area, they bought land in the Cradle Valley, and after climbing Cradle Mountain in 1909, Gustav declared “This must be a national park for the people for all time. It is magnificent and people must know about it and enjoy it.“. He then set about building the Waldeim Chalet, having to manually lug in building materials as there were no roads at that time. Opening the chalet in 1913, which Gustav built by hand, they started receiving adventurous guests, who had to walk the last 8miles through the bush to reach it. In 1922, after years of informal campaigning, Cradle Mountain through to Lake Sinclair in the south, were proclaimed a National Park. Gustav finally got to see his dream fulfilled, but in 1932 he died at aged 58, and is now burried with beloved Kate at Waldiem Chalet, looking out over the valley.

So, thank you, Kate and Gustav. We loved experiencing and enjoying Cradle Mountain, and by the many people we met, so were they, as you hoped people would.

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We then did the short Waldheim Forest walk, through the magnificent King Billy Pines which are split by trickling streams across the hillside.

We had at this point planned to then head back to camp, via the Cradle Valley Boardwalk, however, we were distracted by an option to hike further up the valley to see Lake Lilla, which we did.

Upon reaching Lake Lilla we then realised it was only another 20mins walk to reach Dove Lake, so again, we opted for the longer path, only by the time we reached Dove Lake it was properly chucking it down again and bitterly cold.

A short rest at Dove Lake, with no photos taken as we’re going to revisit it again in a couple of days and we were sick of getting rained on. Then, it was back on the Shuttle Bus, back down to Ronny Creek, where it’d cleared enough for us to shove some lunch in our faces between showers, all the while stalked by a friendly Currawong who wanted a scrap (but didn’t get any).

Re-mummifying ourselves in our layers, beanies, gloves and anything else that might provide resistance to the rain, wind and cold, we headed off down the 6km Cradle Valley Boardwalk, back towards camp. This was a nice walk but we were well and truly over tramping through the rain by the time we reached the Interpretive Centre again.

We’re now showered, fed and nice and snug in the van with the heater on full whack, contemplating how far and where we’ll walk tomorrow – but that’s a future Tony & Jules problem. A good nights sleep is needed first.

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It’s Friday the 13th and it’s still raining – a bit.. It’s definitely slackened off a bit, but showers are still rolling through and the wind is carrying a high chill factor. Regardless, we soldiered on, again rugging up and after catching the bus out to Dove Lake, we did the shortish walk back out past Lake Lilla, then up to Wombat Pool, before returning briefly to Dove Lake. The wind was howling and very cold, so we decided to bus back to the tavern, where we sat inside, in the warmth and dry, and enjoyed a burger for lunch.

Friday afternoon and evening we visited and did the great tour at Devils@Cradle which is a conservation and rehabilitation centre for Tasmanian Devils, Spotted-Tail Quolls and Eastern Quolls. Once you’ve booked a tour, you’re allowed to enter the centre during the day and wander around which was great as we got to view the Devils and Quolls without the crowds and the animals were pretty active. We then returned later that evening to listen to the keeper explain what they do, how and why. As always it was sad to hear that these three species are now endangered, but they and others are part of a breeding program to help sustain and save them.

Even the keeper agreed that the older Tassie Devils aren’t a nice looking, or sounding animal, but the younger ones are pretty cute, as are the Quolls.

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Woken by the alarm at 5:45am, it was nice to hear that the rain and wind had stopped, but it was bitterly cold. Somewhat heroically, however, I managed to get myself up and motivated to drive down to Dove Lake before sunrise, arriving at 6:30am, in the dark and intense cold. I did see a wild Eastern Quoll on the drive in, however, which made my morning.

My plan was to shoot Dove Lake and the Old Boat Shed for sunrise. The conditions were almost perfect – almost. Like the whinging photographer I am, there wasn’t even a sparrows fart of wind and the lake was glassed off, but the skies were crystal clear, with not a cloud or wisp of fog to be seen. I was hoping for a little cloud or fog to add drama and sunrise colour to the pics but, alas, I had to make do with the perfect conditions. So I didn’t get the photo I had in my mind’s eye, but I’m still pretty happy with them.

I then hiked the 6.5km Dove Lake circuit in the rising sun which was glorious and fantastic to experience before the crowds arrived later, and warmer, in the morning.

I got back to the van about 10am, and after some brekky, Jules and I did the Knyvet Falls Walk, the King Billy Pine Walk and we redid the Enchanted Forest Walk, before taking a wander around the Discovery Park which is quite large.

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That wraps up our Cradle Mountain trip and tomorrow, Sunday, we’re off down the mountain to our next stop, which I’ll discuss in our next post.