Cradle Mountain & Surrounds
On the way to Cradle Mountain from Devonport, we viewed Mt Roland near the village of Sheffield. This mountain appeared quite majestic when viewed from the rural setting of Sheffield.
Tasmania's iconic Cradle Mountain is in the central highlands region and located 144 km from Launceston and 83 km from Devonport and is the central feature to the Cradle Mountain - Lake St Clair National Park, which is part of Tasmania's World Heritage Listed area. It is situated in the Cradle Valley which has evolved slowly, the most obvious plant community is Buttongrass moorland which favours the high rainfall of 2800 millimetres per year.
At 1,545 metres (5,069 ft) above sea level, it is the fifth highest mountain in Tasmania. Cradle Mountain is composed of dolerite columns, similar to many of the other mountains in the area. It rises above the glacially formed Dove Lake. Cradle Mountain was named by Joseph Fossey in 1826.
Gustav Weindorfer was a pioneer of the Cradle Mountain region. Born in Austria in 1874, Gustav Weindorfer came to Australia in 1900. He met Kate Cowle in Victoria and they both moved to Tasmania where they married in 1906, spending their honeymoon on Mount Roland.
They bought a 100 acre farm at Kindred and settled down to farming. In 1909 Weindorfer and Charlie Sutton camped at Dove Lake and on the 4th of January 1910 Gustav, Kate and Ronnie Smith climbed Cradle Mountain. Kate Weindorfer thus became the first white woman to climb Cradle Mountain.
According to Ronnie Smith, as they rested on the 1545 metre summit Gustav Weindorfer proclaimed "This must be a national park for the people for all time. It is magnificent, and people must know about it and enjoy it."
Gustav Weindorfer bought land in Cradle Valley in the late summer of 1910. In 1912 he started building his alpine chalet Waldheim, which means "forest home" and received his first guests in late 1912.
Kate Weindorfer died in April 1916 and Gustav Weindorfer died in May 1932, but during his lifetime his vision of a National Park became a reality when in 1922 an area of 158,000 acres from Cradle Mountain to Lake St.Clair was proclaimed a "Scenic Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary."
The short walk around Dove Lake is necessary to view Cradle Mountain from many different angles. The best views however (most photographed by tourists), is from the boat shed on Dove Lake with Cradle Mountain in the background. Heather and I enjoyed the views on a cool, crisp February morning.