So what's the fuss over Cradle Mountain?

Given the awful weather in Strahan we had a quick look around, filled up with petrol and food supplies and headed north to our next port of call: Mountain Valley Eco Retreat near the Leven Canyon in Tasmania's wild north-west.

On our way here it was but a short detour to see the famous view of Cradle Mountain from Dove Lake, so even though we assumed we wouldn't see anything, given the rain and all ecompassing clouds, we made the detour in the vain hope that the clouds might part and the sun appear. To our surprise, the visitors' centre car park was full, despite the inclement weather. Our only previous experience thus far of visitors' centres has been the one at Mt Field National Park, which is excellent, so we were sorely disappointed by this one. Jam-packed, nowhere near enough tables in the small cafeteria for everyone who wanted to sit down, inedible muffins, a 10-minute wait to get the coffee and a tea we'd ordered (although the cafeteria had emptied by then), just two grubby toilet cubicles for women and a longish queue to get aboard the obligatory shuttle bus to Dove Lake. And this is one of the iconic places to see in Tasmania. We fled. We weren't going to see the view anyway so instead just bought a postcard of what we would have seen had it been sunny!

The view we should have seen. Photo by Doug Beckers