We were up with the frost this morning after about 12 hours of sleep. Luckily we felt heaps better. The campervan bed was actually surprisingly very very comfy. We packed up the van and got ourselves organised as today we would be doing a bit of driving around before settling into cradle mountain for the night. We made a brief stop at Woolworths to get some supplies and then we were on our way. The roads around here were beautiful. We went past many farms and then crazy areas of fog and frost. We pulled over for a look at the Batman bridge which crosses over the Tamar river and we’re distracted for a while watching the fog roll along with the water. We hiked back up to the campervan and then continued our adventure. By this time we were feeling a bit peckish and we were driving through the middle of nowhere. We saw a sign that said there was a cafe further down the road and we were pretty excited to pull into Blueberry Barn Cafe. This place is the front of someone’s farm so there were chickens and cows running around. The ladies here were an absolute delight and we got a hearty breakfast (or in my case scones) and some great coffee and. Tea. The area around here was beautiful.
Fueled we continued to The Tamanaian Arboretum which is up near Devonport. The Tasmanian Arboretum is a collection of trees of the temperate world in a beautiful 66ha park. Although the trees were pretty and cool we were here to see one thing and one thing only the wild platypuses. This is meant to be the most likely place in Australia to see a wild platypus at anytime of the day. Even though we had detoured here I was not feeling super confident in seeing one. However as we walked around the lake we saw three different platypuses. It was amazing, we relaxed for a while and watched the platypus swimming around everywhere. Finally we had to leave as we had to make it south to Cradle Mountain. On the way back we got to see some parrots too.
The drive to cradle mountain was lovely. We saw 18 kookaburras and drove through sections of fog. As we got Higher up the mountain we came across huge sections of frost and ice on the road which meant we had to drive really slow. However we made it and settled into our most beautiful accommodation at Cradle Mountain Wilderness Lodge.
At 4oclock we headed down to our Joey encounter at Devils@cradle. This place is amazing. They are privately owned Devil Sanctuary who are operating a breeding program to make a insurance population of devils that do not have the face cancer. They have so many devils on site and the enclosures are all around the native environment which huge mossy trees that would be so old. It is amazing to see. We got taking on a Joey encounter tour. We got to see a beautiful baby eastern quoll and give him some pats. Then we got to wander around and see pancakes the wombat and scratch and pat him. He weighed 14kg and our guide was holding him like a big baby. Then we got to see Barnes who is a 5 year old devil who really just loved cuddles. We got to pat him and listen to him make crazy devil noises. We then were treated to marshmallows at a fire surrounded by heaps of adult devils. This was awesome. The devils were running around making noises and playing in the frost. Such a great experience. We decided to get some stuff from the shop and decided to adopt a devil. Last time we were here we adopted a devil named Max this time we adopted a beautiful little baby devil named Jem.
Our last activity for the night was a small little tour I randomly found called the Cradle Mountain night spotting tour by McDermott’s. The idea is they take you into the national park at night to see what animals your can find. We made it just in time for pickup and found out that we were the only ones of the tour. Belinda our guide got us on the bus. Gave Anthony a spot light and we were off. This tour was amazing. Even though it was just the two of us Belinda was full of information and stories and was a delight to listen to. We stopped multiple times on the way in to look at pademelons, Bennet’s wallabies and wombats. We arrived down at Ronny Creek and jumped out for a walk. It was soooo cold but we got to see some amazing animals and up close. We even had a wombat climb up on the boardwalk to investigate us!!! Also the night sky out here was truly breathtaking. To top it off on the drive back we spotted an Eastern Quoll. What a night. There is something so special about seeing these guys in there natural habitats just being themselves. What a great day we had.
