To finish off our Tasmanian holiday we spent a couple of days around Cradle Mountain.  We did a few short walks around the main tourist area and fortunately had the best weather we had seen in 3 weeks.

While there was quite a lot of people around, the Cradle Mountain area is very accessible, great for families and offers spectacular scenery. Although navigation is easy and the tracks are very well defined and signposted – Garmin users planning to go further afield should be aware that the current Garmin Topo maps (v4, Sept 2012) do not cover tracks in this area at all. Even the iconic Overland Track is not shown.

While it would have been great to make it to the summit of Cradle Mountain – it was too far and too hard to do with kids. Marion’s lookout is about 3.5km each way with a total climb of 370 vertical metres which was just right for us.

Action man narrowly avoided injury during this wet rock jumping session

We really enjoyed the area and look forward to going back….and I am now a little closer to convincing Mrs Bretto that we should walk the Overland Track this winter……

Note: Due to the popularity of the Cradle Mountain National Park, the area is tightly controlled by the Parks & Wildlife Service. The park entry fee is pretty steep but provides reasonable value as the park offers good facilities and services.  Also be aware that you may have to catch a shuttle bus from the Visitor Centre to Dove Lake as private vehicle access is restricted at peak times.