Into the Cradle

I’ve just been on the most lovely getaway with the kids to Cradle Mountain in Tassie.

We spent three nights there and I am totally knackered from all the walking! I’d better get cracking on that New Year’s resolution to improve my fitness.

Cradle Mountain is stunningly beautiful. I felt a little emotional when I saw it up close for the first time.

Here’s how our adventure unfolded …

Accommodation is limited in the national park and it’s freaking expensive during school holidays. I booked a chalet at Reflections Holiday Park and I can’t bring myself to tell you how much it cost.

The financial distress was exacerbated by my credit card being declined at the front desk. I insisted that it must be a mistake and went outside to call the bank. A lovely call centre employee ran me through all my purchases over the last month and we both concluded that a scam artist had not gained access to the account.

I sheepishly went inside and paid with another credit card, which thankfully worked.

Our chalet was basic but comfortable. We threw out bags in our rooms and headed off to explore the nearby Enchanted Walk, a 20-minute, 1.1 km circuit filled with waterfalls, wildflowers and wildlife.

It was wonderful – we saw wallabies, wombats and a snake up close, along with gorgeous scenery.

Here are a gazillion happy snaps …

Afterwards we returned to the holiday park for dinner at Helleyers Restaurant, where the manager was having such a bad night that he was giving off Basil Fawlty vibes.

He announced that he wasn’t able to seat us for our 7.30pm booking yet and launched into a rant about what a bad night he was having due to his “dysfunctional staff”.

Too. Much. Information. Mate.

We retreated to the bar where I tried to order drinks, which were also refused due to it being too much for him to cope with due to there already being six drink orders to fill.

Right.

We contemplating a change of venue, but the youngest decided the theatrics were worth sticking around to watch.

I was a little nervous about the food after all the drama, but it was DELICIOUS.

The youngest and I ordered the handmade gnocchi with sous vide chicken, njuda butter, corn puree, aged parmesan and fried kale. Rapturously good.

As was the eldest’s duck with confit duck croquettes, beetroot puree and blackberry and cherry gel.

Not cheap though. And a bit too fancy for the kids. So we decided to dine elsewhere in future.

As we left the restaurant, we spotted young Basil storming off down a bush track, his arms gesticulating wildly as he ranted to someone on his phone, presumably about the heavy burden of his staff.

The next morning we bought tickets to enter Cradle Mountain National Park. These are also not cheap. I think we paid about $140 for our two-day visit.

But it’s clear where the money is going – the tracks and the shuttle buses that take you to the various stops are wonderful.

We started off with the Dove Lake walk, which is a must-do. The 6km track is regarded as one of the premier walks in Tasmania. The path around a glacially carved lake directly beneath Cradle Mountain offers both intimate and epic views of the famous mountain.

It traverses the lake beneath the mountain, then returns through magnificent rainforest to the starting point. Along the way it takes you through vegetation ranging from buttongrass to myrtle, sassafras, fagus and King Billy pine.

As we were there in summer, there were wildflowers everywhere, in shades of pink, purple, red, yellow and white.

There are no toilets on the walk, which was a little challenging for someone recovering from a UTI. Decisions had to be made and rules had to be broken.

Afterwards we rewarded ourselves with ice creams from the visitor centre cafe. The youngest chose a Maxibon original vanilla flavour.

She noted that it tasted like nuts, read the ingredients on the back of the packet and realised it contained hazelnuts. She is possibly anaphylactic to hazelnuts, the allergy scratch test result many years ago suggested it was possible.

The presence of hazelnuts would seem like something that should be mentioned in large letters on the front of an ice-cream labelled as being original vanilla, but no. Admittedly, the youngest should have checked the ingredients and should also have brought an epi pen with her.

The eldest freaked out and hustled the youngest off to the first-aid room. I was worried about leaving melting ice creams behind and collected them to look for a bin. Meanwhile, the kids had disappeared and I had to stand around hoping forlornly that there were epi pens somewhere on site.

Mind you, my St John’s Ambulance training has taught me that an epi pen only saves you for about eight minutes and Cradle Mountain is a loooong way from the nearest hospital.

Fortunately, we established that the youngest is probably not anaphylactic to hazelnuts, but we went back to the chalet – rather than embarking on another walk – to wait for possible delayed reactions … and got hooked on Toni Collette’s new Netflix series Wayward, which is very weird but highly addictive.

Once the danger period was over, we had dinner at the bistro at Peppers Cradle Mountain Lodge, which was heaving with hungry travellers, slightly less expensive than Helleyers and served up fairly average food.

On day two we tackled the two-to-three hour Crater Lake walk, which nearly killed me. It’s described as a beautiful walk around a series of delightfully different alpine lakes, which it most certainly is, but there are also hundreds of stairs involved.

“Parts of the track are steep” the website politely intones. Understatement. I only made it to the base of Marion’s Lookout and left the kids to scramble up that part on their own, which they managed in less than an hour, sometimes using chains for assistance to haul themselves up the more perilous portions.

I was totally shattered after that and managed a bleary second dinner at the bistro afterwards (there are very few dining options around the national park other than self catering), followed by another twirl around the Enchanted Walk as wombats waddled across the path.

Then we paid visit to Devils@Cradle, a conservation facility dedicated to ensuring the survival of Tasmanian devils, Eastern quolls and Spotted-tail quolls.

I really enjoyed our night tour, which included frenzied feeding sessions and cute joey viewings. 

All too soon it was time to check out and start our journey home, via King Solomons Cave, a richly decorated limestone cave in the Mole Creek Karst National Park. It’s an easy, stunning drive from Cradle Mountain through the most glorious forests filled with giant ferns.

King Solomons Cave offers lavish colours and a huge variety of formations, with sparkling calcite crystals decorating the chambers. We thoroughly enjoyed our tour and it was fascinating to hear about the cave’s history – it was discovered by Europeans in the 1900s and opened for tourism in 1912.

Unfortunately gas lighting was used back then to illuminate the chambers, so a lot of the formations have sooty residue on them, but it’s still a magnificent sight to behold.

Afterwards we popped into Melita Honey Farm in Chudleigh for fabulous Mallee honey ice-creams. Nom nom.

There was still time to kill before our flight so we made a dash for Ross to visit its famed bakery, which draws hundreds of Japanese tourists each year, as many believe it was Hayao Miyazaki’s inspiration for the film Kiki’s Delivery Service.

The 1989 anime film was produced by the famous Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli, which also made Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro.

The film is about a 13-year-old witch named Kiki who winds up working in a bakery and living above it in an attic room with her cat Jiji.

We feasted on the bakery’s famed scallop pies and luscious vanilla slice. I also did some Googling on scallop pies and discovered that they originated in Tasmania in the early 19th century on the Hobart wharves where local scallops were combined with a creamy curry sauce in pastry.

The addition of curry is put down to another Tasmanian invention, Keen’s Curry Powder, which was developed by British immigrant Joseph Keen in the early 1860s.

All too soon it was time to return to the real world. The eldest caught a flight to Melbourne, while the youngest and I headed to Sydney. The youngest hastily deserted me to visit her dad and the apartment was silent, due to the doggos still being at DD’s place. I’m collecting them this morning.

I’m so sad our family adventure is over.

Cradle Mountain was awesome. The real world is challenging. My first day back at work was an absolute nightmare and today is shaping up to be another hell ride.

Have a good weekend. It’s going to be a scorcher in Sydney.

Song of the day: U2 “All I want is you”