Cradle Mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park of Tasmania

Cradle Mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park of Tasmania

This is one of the most prominent landscapes of Tasmania, Australia; the Cradle Mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park. Approx. 1,545 meters above sea levels, it is one of the most popular tourist sites in Tasmania and Australia.

The national park is listed under the Unesco Heritage List under the Tasmania Wilderness. You can read about it here as extracted from the official Unesco Heritage List:

Cradle Mountain-Lake st Clair was re-proclaimed as a national park (124,848ha) on 18 July 1971 under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1970, subsequent to which various extensions and boundary adjustments have been made. Cradle Mountain was originally established as a scenic reserve (63,943ha) on 16 May 1922 under the Scenery Preservation Act 1915 and extended by 60,705ha to include Lake st Clair and Oakleigh Creek Conservation Area on 1 December 1936. These areas have also received sanctuary status at various times (31 May 1927 in the case of Cradle Mountain) under the Animal and Birds Protection Act 1919. (Oakleigh Creek conservation Area was not upgraded to national park status along with the rest of the scenic reserve in 1971).  – http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/181

Beautiful scenery but we were devastated by the heavy rain. I took this in the car as we were traveling in the national park.

I was excited to visit this beautiful Cradle Mountain as I’ve seen many amazing photos of it. However, luck was not on our side. It has been raining since morning and it was a very wet day. Traveling in the car, what I can see was gloomy sky with heavy rain.

Another beautiful scenery in the national park.
The landscape reminds me of the scenery from “End of the World” train ride in Ushuaia Argentina as geographically as they located at the same bottom half of the world.

Cecilia from Hong Kong in her rain coat embracing the rain and wind. 
It was a decision time as the rain didn’t go easy for all of us. Luckily, the sweet people from Tourism Tasmania prepared raincoats for me. We decided to go for a short walk and try to take the best shot of the Cradle Mountain.

The panoramic view of the Cradle Mountain and the lake. Click to enlarge it. This is taken with Samsung NX-11 with Panoramic mode.

Ms. Vivian Chow from Tourism Tasmania talks about the rain in Cradle Mountain in Chinese.

The initial plan to venture more of the short walks near Cradle Mountain but we decided to cut it short due to strong winds and the rain. I pity the TV crews from China as they needed to cover the story of Cradle Mountain.

The list of varieties of places and also map of the Dove Lake. You can always pick and choose the best for yourself.
Short walks are popular in Tasmania and there are quite a number of short walks available in Cradle Mountain. Some might take minutes while some might take hours, it depending how much time you allocated for this pristine national park.

We took the Overland Track, basically no time limit needed just a brisk walk around the lake. There are natural pathways around the national park, most of the vegetation was untouched and still at its natural state. That is the beauty of Cradle Mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park.

The Chinese TV crews filming the scenery under the rain. It was an uphill task for them to get a clear view of the Cradle Mountain.
One of the highlights of this national park is the wooden hut by the lake. The pictures of the wooden hut with the backdrop of Cradle Mountain are everywhere from magazines to books. With the rain and fog, we couldn’t achieve it on that day, no-where near.

Diana our tour guide trying to show us how the peak of the mountain looks like.

The Dove Lake and its surrounding area.
The peak was totally fogged out and everyone was disappointed. We could stay long at the rain was totally unbearable.

Can you spot the famous wooden hut by the Dove Lake?
We loved the fresh air and wind but it was pointless to stay there as it was too foggy for pictures. We were also did not have the opportunity to come back again as we had full schedule on the next few days.

However, I received a picture of Cradle Mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park on a sunny day thanks to our guide, Rosemary. She took the effort to email me this picture so I can share it here.

If you are looking for nature at its best state, you should visit the Cradle Mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park. Since it was raining we were not lucky enough to bump onto natural wildlife such as Kangaroos, Wallabies or such. If you are really lucky, you could spot a Tasmanian Devil, that is the beauty of Cradle Mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park.

Short Walks in Cradle Mountain National Park:

Dove Lake Loop Walk (one-two hours)

Cradle Mountain Summit (six-eight hours)

Crater Lake Circuit (two hours)

Enchanted Walk (20 minutes)

Multi-Day Walks in Cradle Mountain National Park:

Overland Track and its side trips (approximately six days)

Park and Wildlife Information:

Phone: 61 (0) 3 6492 1133

Fax: 61 (0) 3 6492 1120

Email: [email protected]

Tourist Information:

Sheffield Visitor Information Centre

5 Pioneer Crescent

Phone: 61 (0) 3 6491 1036

Email: [email protected]

Wilson Ng