CAIT AROUND THE WORLD

Hey! This is the third day of my tour through Tasmania with Under Down Under Tours (check them out here — not sponsored). If you missed the first two days, find them here.

February 21, 2023 — Today was one of my favourite days of the tour. We got a very early start, leaving the hostel at 6:30am, but thankfully this was the earliest morning we had in the entire seven days. We made a brief bakery stop for breakfast and coffee. I’d recently rediscovered chai tea lattes and purchased one for myself before we got back on the bus to get going that morning. Yesterday’s rain was a thing of the past, as the morning dawned with sunshine poking through the clouds. The only good thing about being awake at that time of morning was the view out over the harbour. The heat hadn’t caught up yet, though: it was seven degrees out.

We made our way from Strahan toward Cradle Mountain, stopping on the way to check out a lookout that offered beautiful panoramic views of the ocean and the mountains. It took us almost three hours just to make our way to Cradle Mountain National Park, and by that time most of us had already been up for four or five hours. We took a moment at the visitor’s centre to fill up water bottles and use the facilities before splitting into groups: one for the easier walk along Dove Lake and Ronny Creek with views of Cradle Mountain, and one to Marion’s Lookout. I took the path to Marion’s Lookout alongside six of my other tour mates and our tour guide. Aside from just wanting a challenge, I also took this path because I was testing to see how well I could really handle hiking. One of my best friends and I have plans to hike around Iceland in another year and I wanted to know that I could be up for it.

Marion’s Lookout was intense. It is a 3-hour hike across 7.5km (we did the same distance, although we altered the course to follow part of the Overland Track back to Ronny Creek instead of heading back down the same way we came up) with elevation of 1,223 metres. It was a lot of fun to climb up, as hard as it was. There were actually chains along the track at one point, to help you climb up the rock, and the “steps” were so steep that I had my knees touching my chest more than once as I climbed. I have to say, though, the views at the top were so worth it.

As I mentioned on Day 1 with our stop at Lake St Clair, Cradle Mountain is the start of the Overland Track, a six-day hike that is 80km in length. We saw a ton of people starting their Overland Track journey while we were there, and not only can you tell that they are more energetic than the people at the end of the track, I also can’t believe how tough the first day is. We climbed down the Overland Track on our way back from Marion’s Lookout and it was steeper than we encountered on our way up. It’s also shorter, but I can’t imagine how gruelling it must be climbing up with a hefty sixty litre backpack strapped to you.

We finally made our way back down to Ronny Creek and caught the bus back to the visitors’ centre, where we caught up with the rest of the group. We clambered on the bus once more and started driving the rest of the way to Launceston, where we were staying for the night.

While en route, we made a stop in Sheffield, where they have a ton of murals on display both in a dedicated park area and around town, painted onto the sides of buildings. Sheffield’s murals have actually turned into an art competition that sees numerous artists submit their work in the hopes of being part of the town’s displays. Many are incredibly striking.

That evening, after an ice cream stop at Van Diemen’s Land Creamery (so so good), we finally pulled into Launceston and checked into our accommodations. We were actually staying in a hotel with hostel-type room arrangements as three of us ended up in a room together. We had a really good laugh while trying to sort ourselves out, though, because the room had two single beds and a set of bunk beds. We were originally supposed to be four in the room, but a couple of the guys got shoved into a room with only a single bed, so the couple from the Netherlands on our tour who were supposed to be staying separately ended up getting to share a room instead that night, taking the girls’ room down to only three of us and the rest of the guys reshuffled into another room to fit their numbers.

We were all pretty wiped after our day climbing the mountain and I had zero ambition to try to go out and eat or even microwave dinner (not that I could have without going to the grocery store; I didn’t have any leftovers to nuke). Instead, I sat and ate bread and butter, then we went to the grocery store. It was here, in Woolworths in Launceston, that I learned the true meaning of peer pressure: buying chocolate just because someone else did. 😄 (But in all honesty, chocolate is a modern miracle drug.)

We made it back to the hostel, where I suggested we play cards and we all just kind of managed to congregate in the common area. We didn’t even play cards, but we sat and chatted with a couple in our group who were from the States for a long time. A while later, when it was just three of us left, another of the couples on the tour came in and gifted us an insanely good bottle of Yellow Tail wine. We were all so grateful and touched by the gesture and we thoroughly enjoyed drinking the entire bottle.

Finally, we all headed off to bed, with another early-ish morning in front of us (only 7:00am this time!).

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