A Devil of an Adventure - Part II

Hiking Cradle Mountain

Next up on the agenda was a trek to a cave that promised a close up view of glow worms. And giant spiders. It had been made clear from the beginning of the trip that NT was deathly afraid of all kinds of spiders, so the thought of giant spiders was, I'm sure, terrifying for her. But, the glow worms beckoned, so we all decided it was worth a spider or two. There were fancier caves in Tasmania, but this one was free and far from a tourist trap (we'd had enough tourism during the first half of our day). We walked the short distance over to the main cottage to pick up wellingtons and torches. Since we had already discovered that scorpions frequented the area, we each triple checked the wellies to ensure no unwanted travelers were hitching a ride inside.

After walking past a field of cows, we entered into a rain forest and wound around trees and creeks on a path made by the repeated migrations of wallabies. When the forest eventually opened up a bit, we saw the cave on our left. As we were on our own, we felt like quite the explorers venturing into an undiscovered cavern. We put on our wellingtons and prodded AG in first. He walked through the shallow water at the entrance and then a few feet into the cave. He spun around shining his flashlight (which he would continue to call a torch for the rest of the trip) everywhere and then came back out. He stood up tall and said, "Now N, I have to be completely honest. When they said there were giant spiders, they weren't joking. They're huge." Though a bit dramatic, the warning was welcome, and we decided to find all of the spiders ahead of NT so we could tell her where not to look. With AG in front, AB and NT in the middle, and me holding up the end, we ventured into the cave. And, right away AB and I saw the giant spider AG had first seen and were amazed at how huge it was. And we were even more amazed at the fact that we were still walking into a cave that had many more of those spiders inside. Once inside the cave and a little ways away from the bright sunny outdoors, I started to see glow worms. Everywhere. They were much smaller than I had imagined, but since I had imagined the stuffed animal glow worms from my childhood, that was to be expected. Interestingly, only their butt glowed (I seem to remember the head glowing on my glow worm doll). Since I was at the end, I think most of the rest of the group missed my first viewing of the glow worms, but they caught them on our way out. Exploring the rest of the cave was fun and very reminiscent of the spook house earlier in the day (minus the stuff, but plus several inches of mud and water).

We returned home on a nearby fire road and stopped for a while once out of the woods to enjoy the views and the cows. Then AB and NT took off to go see penguins, and AG and I stayed around the cottages to enjoy a nice dinner while the sun set on Mt. Roland.

Day four was an amazing day of hiking. We drove into Cradle Mountain National Park and tried to set up camp before taking off for the day, but we were thwarted by a family with the biggest tent I had ever seen. They advised us to "get acquainted with the kitchens and the bathrooms" while they finished packing up the biggest tent ever, but we drove off towards adventure instead, deciding it would be better to get started and set up camp when we were done for the evening. To get into Cradle Mountain, you have to either buy a day pass and drive in through a gate that was triggered to open by another car leaving (one in-one out kind of thing) or buy a super pass and take a bus in. We'd been told that the drive in was a one-lane road that had to accommodate two directions of traffic but that the bus had a special road to travel on that made it safer. We debated for a while, but since the line of cars to drive in was moving quickly, we decided to buy the cheaper pass and wait it out in the line. I ran in to buy the pass, and when I was coming back out, I saw that our car was first in line and another car was already headed out. I knew this meant the gate would open and our car would have to pull through. I was sure I could sprint fast enough to jump into the car just before the gate came up, and so I sped up. I felt like some sort of petty criminal trying to make a get away, which caused me to break into another fit of hysterical laughter. I jumped in the car just as the gate was starting to lift and screamed, "Go! Go! Go!" Again, no one knew what I was laughing about or talking about as they hadn't seen that a car was leaving. But, AG seemed to put it all together pretty quickly, and we pulled off into the park. AB later explained to me that I looked like a crazy person laughing hysterically like I was while dashing to the car.

The road was indeed a one-lane road with two directions of traffic, but it turns out that it was also the same road that the buses took. There were many tight squeezes. But, we safely made it down and were hoping we'd be lucky enough to find a parking spot in the sea of cars we'd been told about. We just about died when we saw the sea: maybe twenty five cars in a parking lot that could hold four times as many. We ate another wonderful picnic lunch looking over Dove Lake to Cradle Mountain and then were off on a journey to visit Marion's Lookout. We started our hike just after 1 pm--typical AG time. We'd planned to do a circle around some lakes, up to Marion's Lookout, and back around to Dove Lake instead of the more traditional out-and-back, and AG and I had secretly hoped to make it around fast enough that we could also add a climb to the summit of Cradle Mountain into the mix. We made good time, passing Wallaby Poo (the final "L" had come off the sign) in the allotted time noted by the trail signs. From there it was a climb to Marion's Lookout. The steep stairs and sharp wind combo should have been the first sign that today's adventure was not for the faint of heart. Energized from the views, we continued on the path that led across and over to Cradle Mountain.

After a few hours of hiking we met up with the trail that led up to the summit of Cradle Mountain. Everyone was up for the addition! The trail sign said it would be a two and a half hour return, and we had about two and a half hours to go from where we were to get back to the car, so we knew we were close to filling up all of the daylight hours with our adventure. Trying to be smart, we decided to give ourselves a time limit to ensure that we wouldn't be out in the wilderness after dark. We then set off up the mountain. I was very excited and basically bounding up the mountain. After making it a decent way up, the spectacular views started to become over shadowed by a growing fear of the bouldering we were doing at such heights. AB and AG seemed fine billy goating around on all of the rocks, but I felt the need to keep both hands, both feet, back, and butt against the rocks at all times. I was convinced that one slip would send me tumbling down the rocks and down the mountain. AG kept saying that we were actually very safe, that a slip might cause you to fall a bit, but there was no way you'd tumble very far. I kept pushing ahead, AB in front of me, AG behind, following the little metal poles with the tops painted orange until we got to the highest point we'd been able to see from the ground. The trail then dipped down on the other side before it continued up even higher. I made it down the dip and then started back up, but I hit a point where I was just too panicked to continue. We let AB go on so that someone in the group could reach the summit, and then AG, being the wonderful selfless boyfriend that he is, turned back with me. We met up with NT, and she also seemed fine with turning back. She was amazing though in having made it that far with a knee brace on. To ensure that as much of me as possible was making contact with the rocks, I literally did a squat on each rock as we moved back down the mountain. We finally reached a point with a little bit of dirt where we could still see the "false summit," and we waited for AB to appear. When she finally did, she was with a group of three others. She went first, climbing over a rock and looking like she was having an easy time of it all, but then all of a sudden she fell a few feet. I called over to AG and said, "AB fell!" Being his search-and-rescue self, he immediately jumped to attention and starting sprinting up the rocks towards her. She didn't move for what felt like ages. Finally, we could see her slowly getting up and starting to climb down again--a little slower than before, but still faster than I! When we were finally all together again, AB explained that she was a bit scraped up and had busted the screen of her camera (thank goodness for technology budgets!) but otherwise was okay. She didn't even seem that phased. Both NT and she were so impressive on that mountain!

The rest of the climb down went smoothly. I got my speed and confidence back as soon as I was on dirt again. We continued our hike, and following a map we had with elevation markers, we kept opting for the long way back at every trail junction in order to avoid steep downhills. It was starting to get dark though, and talk of snakes and ROUSes kept creeping up more and more. Fortunately, we had AG's game of "No, but if I were an animal, I'd be a lion" to enliven the ever deepening evening.

When the sun set in a magnificent pink-purple glory over the back of the mountain, we were almost back to the car. Despite my anxiety attacks on the top of the mountain, the hike had been quite a success! Low blood sugar got the best of me that evening, but it was an okay price for such a fun adventure.

The next day we went out searching for Liffey Falls. We took a 200 m detour over to see a giant tree and then were off to the falls. Team Zissou was very well represented. The rest of the day was filled with a drive back to Hobart to drop off AB and NT before AG and I continued on down the peninsula. We traveled through the center of the island and learned some interesting facts thanks to the Lonely Planet's guide to Tasmania. Yes, in Tasmania, two heads are better than one! AG and I finished the day in Eaglehawk Neck devouring what was supposed to be our next day's breakfast in a desperate attempt to replenish our energy for the rest of the trip.