A winters walk

Being a long weekend and having beautiful winter weather, with frosty mornings and bright, clear sunny days, we thought it would be a great opportunity to go somewhere with the family while Chrish is down from Sydney.

We had a few different ideas of where to go - Wineglass Bay, Dismal Swamp and the Nut, Port Arthur or the Tahune Airwalk. I was really keen to go to Wineglass Bay but we knew it would be tough taking the younger kids there. In the end we decided on going to Cradle Mountain as lots of us haven't been there for ages.

It would've been great if we could've all gone together but unfortunately mountains are not made for wheelchairs. We did read that there were a couple of short walks up there that were suitable, but we knew the walk around the lake wouldn't have been, so Aaron was happy to stay home and spend a quiet day with Noah for his last day of school holidays. Becky and Jared are having major car troubles too, so unfortunately they couldn't make it either.

After bit of a drive first of all to pick up Mum and Dad and Chrish and then having to wait for a shuttle bus to take us up along with 50 other people trying to get on a 21 seater, we finally made it up to the Dove Lake carpark. It was worth all the fuss as it was an amazing day - so sunny and clear and the mountain had snow on the top.

We all got rugged up in our warm gear as we thought it would be freezing. We couldn't stop laughing at Dad's 'hat' if that is what you could call it. Looked more like a tea cosy!

We grabbed a Japanese tourist to take a photo for us - he was so funny trying to get all the kids to look. He didn't do a bad job.

We finally headed off on a walk around the lake. It actually got really warm and most of us ended up stripping off our warmer gear.


The kids loved going up high on the rocks to look over the lake. It was just a little bit scary having little ones up there, so we didn't stay up there long.


It was supposed to a nice leisurely walk around the lake, but walking with an inquisitive two year old is not much of a walk at all, but more of a dawdle. Kobe decided to stop at every single bush along the track to smell it, stopped at every little creek to listen to and watch the water, and joined in with Lachlan in wanting to pick up every rock along the way.

In the end I gave up trying to keep up with everyone and turned around with Kobe and decided to start heading back to the carpark. I knew by the time we got back there, the others would almost be back. It took forever to get back as Kobe had to stop every metre or so to check something out!



Kobe had lots of fun at the carpark and I got to sit down and relax and take photos :)


When the others got back I saw that Steph had given up on Lachie walking too and had put him in her backpack pouch thing. That is something I should've thought of for Kobe.

Kobe was so cute when Jalen came back. He ran up to him and gave him a big kiss and then put his hands up in the air, like he was asking 'where's Harri!?'.

Steph's brother, Max came along and had lots of fun collecting ice for the kids to eat.

It was getting dark just as we started to head home. Luckily we got to stop at the murals at Gowrie Park just before sunset.

Chrish is awesome to hang out with as he thinks just like me - wanting to stop here and there for different photos. All the way home I kept pulling over so he could jump out and take a shot of something, or put his camera out of the window to get a good photo. Just as we were about to Mum and Dad's the fog started rolling in and looked beautiful.

Thanks Chrish for coming down and helping us play tourist while you are here. So glad we had the perfect winters day for it.