Tasmania - Day 3 & 4 - Bay of Fires to Cradle Mountain to Tarraleah

There was no way I was getting down to
my pants in that temperature!

We spent our third morning partaking in the not-so-glamourous side of campervaning washing and drying most of our warm clothes! But as that’s not particularly blog-worthy I’ll move swiftly on…

We travelled north from St Helens to the Bay of Fires – recently voted the second best beach in the world, although it’s not actually one beach but many strewn up the northeast coast of Tasmania.

Eddystone Point lighthouse

Our first stop (and largely because we took a wrong turn!) was Binalong Bay, probably one of the most famous of the Bay of Fires beaches. It certainly was rather picturesque and we got the obligatory photo of me posing next to the town’s ‘welcome’ statue before turning around and heading further into the depths of the rugged Tasmanian coastline.

We weren’t too confident of our choice of activities for the day when thesealed road ran out and the heavens opened on the drive and continued for at least an hour and a half. We stopped at a few bay’s on the way but admired them from the comfort of our heated van – except in Anderson’s Bay where James braved the pier for a photo opportunity!

We’d read in the Lonely Planet that there was a lighthouse worth a visit at Eddystone Point, as far north as you can go in the Bay of Fires so set our sat nav for there and ventured on in the rain.

Our own private beach for the afternoon

Fortunately, about 10 minutes before we arrived the sun broke through the clouds and the weather turned glorious! We parked up the wagon and took a short trek up to the Eddystone Point lighthouse that had awesome views down the whole northeast coast of Tassie.

On our stroll back to the carpark we noticed a little sign indicating that there was a beach down a small dirt track so we decided to give it a shot. 15 minutes later and feeling like we were in that scene from ‘The Beach’’ we were wondering whether we’d made a good decision, but then we were emerged from the bush we saw the most gorgeous little beach appear. All white sand and turquoise water, and not another soul in sight. We scrambled our way over a few hefty boulders and spent half an hour admiring the few and forgiving the state for the hideous weather it had subjected us to on the drive there.

Only seagull footprints in sight

We knew we had a pretty hefty four-hour drive in front of us so we didn’t linger too long before heading back to the camper and taking the road west and inland to Cradle Mountain.

We’d found a campsite in one of the brochures just outside the national park and apparently popular with bushwalkers – so we opted to stay there as it worked out a bit quicker and cheaper than staying on Cradle Mountain itself.

Scenic morning camper

We arrived at the site after dark (again!) but the owners were friendly and welcoming and directed us to our site. There was only one other camper owned by an old guy from Sydney who’d managed to get a huge log fire roaring the games room so we toasted up for a while before hitting the sack – probably at 9pm like the party kids we are… (it’s all the fresh air!)

When we woke up early the next morning we really got to appreciate exactly where we were staying we we hadn’t even noticed in the dark. The campsite was completely surrounded by mountains and watching the sun rise over them was quite a treat.

We made an early start and headed to the Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park – we’d visited on our last trip to Tassie but only had time to take a short walk, and it was also the first place we saw our favourite Aussie creature – the wombat – in the wild, so we were hoping to spot one of the furry little critters again this time.

Back to Cradle Mountain

Being slightly more adventurous than the last time we were in Tassie, we opted for the Dove Lake to Ronnie’s Creek boardwalk, the guide on the wall in the visitors centre reckoned the walk was about 90 minutes and graded ‘easy’ so we knew we’d be fine. We discounted the walks that were two hours or more as we figured we had another long drive ahead of us in the afternoon.

Luckily the weather was holding off on the mountain and we set off on our walk from Dove Lake pretty chipper. We were a bit confused however as we were expecting a boardwalk (given the name of the destination) however after 10 minutes we soon found ourselves scamping over rocks and having to leap like gazelles over streams…

About to embark on our trek

Halfway in (and wondering if we’d taken a wrong turn) we saw a signpost for ‘Wombat Pool’ veering left into the wilderness. Convinced it would be a forest haven for hundreds of them we were quick to make the decision to take the detour.

We bounded into the undergrowth, giddy at the thought of frolicking through open fields surrounded by thousands upon thousands of wombats, however the track soon started ascending at a fairly rapid pace, then turned into particularly steep stairs. We battled up the first 80 or so telling ourselves that the fabled ‘Wombat Pool’ would be just around the next corner, but unfortunately every turn just held more steeper and steeper steps!

James does a wonderful job
of camouflaging himself in the
Tasmanian wilderness

By that point (even though the air was getting too thin to breathe) we knew we’d come too far to turn around without having set eyes on it so we battled on, even though I did mention to James that if we were struggling, I felt it unlikely that those stumpy little fellas would have made it up this far…

Finally we set eyes on it…it was a nice looking lake for sure, but I’m not sure I would have bothered climbing 40,000 stairs if I’d have known at the bottom what it looked like, and needless to say, not a wombat in sight! What was impressive however, was the view on the way back down – it was top of the world type stuff and I’m glad we made the trek up there just for that!

Bit of a trudge!

Back down at the bottom and already two hours into the trek that was only supposed to take 90 minutes we rejoined the trail we were supposed to be on and continued through the wilderness. Before long I was able to use my super-tracking skills to determine that there were wombats in the vicinity as the little blighters had been pooing everywhere!

From there on in, every rustle in the bushes we had to stop for 10 minutes just to wait and see if one of them was going to emerge (it was always birds) and every rocky outcrop James took the opportunity to climb and act as ‘wombat spotter’, but alas, not a wombat in sight.

Wombat spotter extraordinaire

Soon we hit the boardwalk part of the Ronnie’s Boardwalk track (and 3 hours later than planned) and even then it looked like it went on for infinity. I told James we needed to write a fairly harshly worded letter to the local council about their estimated walking times!

All along the boardwalk the wombats taunted us – literally every inch was covered in wombat poo! Then James cried out with glee and pointed to the horizon where sure enough, a particularly chubby one was wiggling his way out of his burrow for an afternoon snack.

Feeling rather pleased with ourselves for making the ridiculously long trek in order to see one we continued on down the boardwalk for another few minutes before James spotted another couple – a mother and baby – chilling out on the hillside in the distance! We continued on probably another ten metres before spotting another, and another – soon it became a competition of who could spot them first and who could spot the most!

Just as I was saying the James it was a shame they were all just a bit too far away to get a good photo of, and how good it would be to see one right next to the boardwalk – sure enough, as we turned the corner, one that had been munching out in Wombat Plains (as we were now referring to them) started sprinting (well, the wombat version of a sprint) towards us, on to settle in for a snack right next to the boardwalk!

The never-ending boardwalk

By this point we’d lost count of how many wombats we’d seen, and as we turned what turned out to be the final corner we spotted the carpark and realised that if we’d have just walked for ten minutes in the opposite direction rather than three hours into the wilderness we would’ve seen a lot of wombats a lot sooner!

Nevertheless, we consoled ourselves with the thought that we’d at least earned the Tassie cheeseboard that was awaiting us in our camper fridge – and, as chance would have it the minute we made it back to the van the heavens opened once again and unleashed an almighty storm which would have drowned us as we ignored the woman in the information office who said to pack raincoats!

Wombat!

We stopped for a spot of (late) lunch whilst it smashed it down with rain outside before hitting the road again – we were headed south, deep into the central highlands of Tassie and our jaunt around with the wombats meant we were going to be arriving A LOT later than planned.

We were glad there was still a bit of the daylight left as the road into the central highlands was spectacular – this is where most of Tassie’s lakes are and we soon found ourselves crisscrossing them as the sun set. Unfortunately as soon as that happened driving on the winding roads became a lot less fun and more like a computer game of trying to dodge countless possums, wallabies and multiple other furry creatures that decided to shoot out of the bushes and in front of our van at the last minute. What should have taken four hours actually ended up taking us five and a half just because we had to go so slowly to watch our for wildlife after the sun had set.

Not sure which one is furrier...

We literally saw no other sign of life on the journey there until we hit the tiny town of Derwent Bridge after about four and a half hours. The only thing visible in the town was the Derwent Bridge pub lit up as we emerged from the forest. It was at that point I heard the words I always dread hearing from James in the driver’s seat – ‘I think we’re going to need some petrol soon…’

Scenic bustop

Now, James doesn’t usually tell me if we need petrol soon, he just pulls into a servo and fills the car up without a word. For James to say that we need petrol soon means that we’ve probably been running on fumes for the past half an hour and he’s been too scared to mention it. He says that we should pull into the pub to ask where the nearest petrol station is.

From the outside, the Derwent Bridge pub doesn’t look like the kind of place that you should wander into unless you’re a local, but what choice do we have?! James tells me to wait in the car while he goes in, so I do, and he is gone for what seems like forever. I’m already wondering whether I could drive the camper should the owner of the pub come out brandishing his bearded head on a stick… but fortunately just as I’m getting to grips with the controls he appears in the doorway and tells me we’re sorted, but there’s a catch…

The local petrol station is just five minutes down the road but they’re closed (as it’s now about 8pm), fortunately the guy who owns the pub has called them and they’ve agreed to turn the pumps on just for us in return for two cans of Wild Turkey whiskey and coke!

We have to wait 15 minutes though as they’re in the middle of their dinner so we headed into the pub for a drink – fortunately once we passed the stony-faced locals playing pool in the entrance and entered the bar the owners were lovely and had a beautiful old fireplace that we could huddle in front of while we waited for our on-demand petrol station to open.

Lake country

15 minutes later we rolled down the road and into the servo to be met by ‘Greg’ and his wife, who informed us that they were fairly happy for our misfortune as they had a lot of washing to fold that night and two cans of whiskey would definitely help! 

We filled up and trundled on our way, and luckily it wasn’t too much further dodging wallabies until we found our campground in Tarraleah. Fortunately it was attached to a pub so the owners were still up and we were able to check-in without any dramas, and needless to say we both slept rather well that night!

A well-earned cheeseboard in the camper!