Tasmania, Day Four

Wynyard tried to redeem itself on Sunday morning, but we motored anyway.


Back towards Cradle Mountain we go, but not before a quick stop at Hellyer George State Reserve. Just a quick walk down by the river, maybe 15 minutes or so. Pretty, but not a ton going on.



We made it to the mountain, and the weather was significantly better than the day before. We were very pleased with our choice to come back the next day. We opted to do a hike that was billed at three hours up to Marion's Lookout. That seemed like just about enough, because despite the lack of rain, it was still pretty cold and very windy. We had to pay attention to ice on the trail, and there was ice still on the top of some of the ponds. The walk starts at Dove Lake. You can see the base of Cradle Mountain proper in the background, with the peaks in the clouds.



All of 20 seconds into the walk, this cheeky wombat waltzed by, not phased by anything.


Some smaller lakes on the way up.


Crater Lake, just below Marion's Lookout.


Dove Lake from Marion's Lookout.


Cradle Mountain, still shrouded in clouds. By this time, the weather was starting to roll in fairly hard, so we started heading back down.



Cradle Mountain again from the bottom at Dove Lake. This was the best view we had all day, but you can still see the clouds we had been standing in.


After making a quick lunch back at the car, and being harassed by some rather aggressive ravens over it, we rolled on to the town of Railton, where stopped at the Seven Sheds Brewery. They had a few good brews, and we left with a couple tall boys. Being winter, there were no tours of the hop garden available, but from what I could see out the back, it would have been a pretty quick tour.

Continuing the gastrotour of Tasmania, we stopped at the Ashgrove Cheese factory, where they let you sample far more cheese than is possibly healthy. If you were to get there earlier in the day, there would be cheese making to watch, but alas, we had to settle for samples and a bit of history.

From here, it was a casual Sunday drive to Launceston. It was pretty, but rather uneventful. We did have a nice stop in Deloraine.


Launceston was a pretty sleepy town, possibly due to it being a Sunday night. Not a whole lot going on, and we didn't stick around much the next morning.