Gismo Queen and her King

Day 4 - Friday 31 December 2020 - Gunns Plains

 Today was Cradle Mountain day! So we were up reasonably early and on the road for the 65 or so kilometres up the mountain. There were a few stops for photos and to take in scenic vistas and of course, the route was pretty windy somit took almost two hours to get to the brand new visitors centre. We booked our tickets and then decided to have lunch. Because of COViD, the cafe didn’t have dine in options so we got our lunches and sat outside in the sunshine. The new visitor centre is very flash and very grey although I can see how it would look nice with snow around it.

After lunch, it was off to the bus. With the new set up, you can’t drive into the park unless you have a very good reason so we were shepherded onto a shuttle bus with everyone else. We decided to go straight to the end, being Dove Loke, do some walks there and then we could decide wehther we wanted to stop off any any of the other points on the way back to the visitor centre. They are doing some work at the Dove Lake end too (building another new - you guessed it - visitor centre!) but it wasn’t much of a detour to start the walk out to the iconic boat shed. Heaps of photos later - especially after we realised we were holding up others wanting people free shots! - we headed off in the other direction. It was a lovely day but there were pleny of people, you had to stick to the walking path/boardwalk (which did make it easier for Greg) and I felt it was quite scripted. Even though we were in nature, it felt unnatural. So by the time we got back on the bus, we decided our only other stop would be the natural history museum, which was actually also a bit of a disappointment. Eventually we got back to the car and decided we wouldnt care if we never came back to Cradle Mountain again. Places like Leven Canyon that we saw yesterday were much better. Lisa and Paul and kids headed to just there, while we fuelled up and headed back to csmp as I was on dinner duty tonight, although most of my work had been done is morning and the corned beef was in the dreampot! By the time the Thomas’ got back I was ready to serve. The kids absolutely loved the corned beef (something they dont get at home) and ate extra serves of meat. Then it was another night around the campfire to round out a great day.

posted by Tracey @ 7:52 pm