Friday 6 March, Burnie

There was a great shemozzle trying to get to the tour that I had booked through the cruise company, rather than through Cunard. It was looking like I was going to miss it but thankfully they waited for me at the meeting point, which I eventually found by chance. The other participants had also received bad instructions and the tour guide was most apologetic.

Lisa drove us in a sixteen-seater bus but there were only five of us, so it was a lovely, comfortable trip. We drove straight out of the lovely little town and headed for Cradle Mountain National Park, an hour and a half trip, with a comfort stop on the way – no food, just public toilets. The vegetation varies from place to place, sometimes rainforest, sometimes the low scrub that grows at higher altitude, lots of beautiful lower height trees of different species. Lisa is an agriculture/botanical expert and explained lots of the plants and the terrain. She even found us some “bush tucker”, a pepper tree of some sort with edible leaves – very hot in the mouth but would be great with a strong tasting meat, like kangaroo.

When we got to the reserve, we had to follow a coach along the road to the lake, because it’s very narrow and coaches have UHF radio contact to warn of approaching buses. Little buses use the coaches to make a path for them. At Dove Lake, at the foot of Cradle Mountain, we had a picnic lunch in a very small hut which was empty until a busload of tourists arrived. Then we did a short fifteen minute walk around to Glacier Rock, an excellent spot for pictures. There was still cloud covering part of Cradle Mountain, but by the time we walked back down and then around in the other direction to the Boathouse, the rest of the cloud had moved away and we got some great shots. What a beautiful, peaceful spot down on the lake, looking up at the mountain! A very special place and a gift to be able to see it.

There were little tunnels on the walk for the kids to go through, with pictures of wildlife.

On the bus trip back, Lisa spotted a wombat, so we got out for a few minutes and watched him. He walked right up close, sauntered across the road and then ran off down the hill – they can certainly move for such a big, heavy animal.

Further along the road, she screeched to a halt a couple of times over the next few kilometres because she spotted echidna, but when we reversed to look, they were gone – a bit scary with the driving! We were back in town at the Maker’s Hut in plenty of time to catch the shuttle back around to the dock. The only downside was that doing this long excursion, I didn’t get a chance to look at Burnie. It’s such a pretty, unspoiled, clean town, so I plan to get back there one day for a better look – easy to do from Launceston!

We sailed on time, heading for Melbourne in fairly pleasant weather. More dancing tonight after dinner. Simmo and Alison and Becky had a busy day, going to the caves, which they really enjoyed. They were all tired and had an early night. I was in bed a little later.