On November 12, we drove almost entirely across Tasmania, relocating from Hobart to Cradle Mountain. Fortunately, Tasmania is small, so the drive only took us about 5 hours.

We drove through a high inland plateau before reaching farmland on the northern coastal plain. As we approached the Cradle Mountain National Park, the terrain grew more mountainous. Around 4, we reached the cabin where we’d be staying for the next couple of nights. The temperature was dropping outside, and we were excited to find that the wood-burning stove was already going, making the cabin even cozier.

Around 5pm, we set off to tour a nearby Tasmanian Devil sanctuary. It had started to rain, but the weather didn’t bother the devils.

I should add that this is not a sleepy Tasmanian Devil. This is the face they make when trying to convince the other devils to keep their distance. Oh, and they make terrifying noises.

Tassie Devils are solitary animals, but they are social eaters. We suspect it’s partly because tussling for the same hunk of meat helps them rip dead animals apart. They eat just about everything, including the bones, which they crunch with their powerful jaws.

The sanctuary also housed a couple of types of quolls, which like the Devils are carnivorous marsupials. They were some cute little killers.

We headed back to our cabin, threw a couple of logs in the stove, and went to bed. We woke the next morning to find that it was raining, snowing, and sleeting.

It was cold and wet outside. In our cabin, it was warm and toasty, so we decided to spend the morning relaxing. By late afternoon, the weather started to improve. We put on our rain gear, and headed off to the park to do a 2-hour hike.

Almost immediately, we ran into a snag. During the day, the park is run entirely on shuttle busses. Visitors leave their cars at the entrance to the park and then take buses into the park to hike. After 6, the shuttles stop running, and visitors can drive themselves into the park. Due to our late start, we had to split our hike in half, doing the first half via shuttle bus before returning in our car to finish up the second half of our hike.

We hopped on the shuttle, headed into the park, and were soon on the trail.

As we hiked, it started to snow again. Ah, springtime in Tasmania!

But it was still beautiful! We soon reached a waterfall, which was gushing from all the recent rain.

Our destination for the first part of our hike was the Wombat Pool. Our hope was that we’d spot a wombat there. Along the way, we stopped a few times to admire the scenery.

We soon reached the Wombat Pool, but sadly didn’t see any wombats, which was probably a good thing since we were running out of time. In order to make the last shuttle, we had to race back or we’d be stuck in the park. With a couple of minutes to spare, we reached the parking lot and boarded the shuttle. As quick as we could, we returned in our car and headed back into the park to finish our hike from the other end.

And the timing worked out wonderfully. Later in the day, more animals are out. After restarting our hike, we almost immediately saw wombats! Fat, furry, and adorable.

They were focused on eating grass and largely ignored us. From time to time, they came very close to the boardwalk that snaked over a grassy, flooded bog.

One of the wombats hopped on the boardwalk to cross a particularly wet area. His dink-toed gait was hysterical.

We lost count of how many wombats we saw, but it was in the dozens. Plus, we saw an echidna like those we’d seen on Kangaroo Island.

The trail then entered a forest with dense bushes on each side. A few minutes later, we bumped into a wallaby coming down the trail towards us. (We later identified it as a Bennett’s Wallaby.)

We looked closer and spied a joey in the pouch!

We finished up our hike and headed back to our warm little cabin, which was now even more charming with the snow and ice.

It was an incredible day!

-Will