Day 3 –Cradle
Mountain
 
In the morning we got up, packed
the tent and had our breakfast by the lake. If you were a
fisherman you would have been in heaven, you could actually see
the fish come the surface and grab the bugs floating on top of
the water they were a reasonable size to, good enough to eat.
 By this stage John had noticed
that the battery was not maintaining power and not being charged
by the dual system so he rigged a little system to run the
fridge off the main battery for a little while and then we would
see how it went throughout the day.
Today we were off to Cradle
Mountain. We tried to get there via Lake Gairdner and Leven
George but that led to a dead end so we had to go the direct
route via the main roads, deciding to see Leven Gorge later in
the trip. We drove to the northern side of Cradle Mountain,
Lake St Clair national park. The northern side has Cradle
Mountain and the south side has Lake St Clair. John wanted to
see the famous Mountain so that’s what we did.
 We started out only intending to
do a short walk 2-3 hours long which turned into 5-6 hours. The
short walk was to the Twisted Lakes, but by the time we made it
there Cradle Mountain was so close that we just had to keep
going.
The walk to twisted lakes was extremely
challenging with steep loose stones and the wind being worst on
top of the high ridge line. The wind was so strong in places it
nearly blew you of your feet we needed to keep low and almost
crawl in places. Tearing at your cloths and forcing air into
your lungs if you faced the wrong way. Not only was it windy it
was extremely cold and wet in places even with all the layers on
the wind managed to penetrate. I have never experienced any
thing like it. Even with all that, the view was pretty good.
 It was a
great relief when we saw Ranger hut around the corner which
would be good for a lunch stop. We hadn’t really packed for
lunch so we ate what we had which was some chips, sweet
biscuits, fruit and stewed fruit not really all that hardy,
especially considering the walk we had just undertaken. But it
was great to be out of the wind and cold and to get something
into our stomachs.
Form the hut Cradle Mountain seemed only
about one kilometre away and not too far to walk so we decided
to press on, the track was a bit of a goat’s track which slowly
ascended up the mountain. The challenge continued with the wind
and loose stones, as we reached near to the top the scenery
changed and turned into a bit of a bog with boards separating
the walker from the bog below. Not only did the track change
but the weather just got worse, the wind became stronger once
again and with it came rain and mist, it was becoming late in
the day and we decided to cut our losses and head back down,
being just below the peak and not being able to see a thing we
were satisfied with our final destination.
On the way down we went a slightly easier
way which passed a small lake sitting up in the hills and
continued back down to Dove Lake and around the lake edge which
was very easy in comparison to what we were doing previously, it
was all boardwalks and man made steps which was a nice way to
end the walk.
Now that it was late in the day
we had to find some were to camp. We had planned to stay the
night at Leven Gorge but after trying a number of short cuts,
and finding they were all forestry roads and blocked off we had
to make new plans, heading down the main roads we managed to
find a nice spot at Hellyer Gorge, which was really nice. I was
glad because I thought we would end up somewhere in the high
country sleeping on the plains exposed to all the bad weather.
What made Hellyer Gorge even
better was the fact that there was a river and we were able to
test our shower for the first time. After the day we had it was
great to be able to have a good meal, hot shower and a
comfortable night sleep. We didn’t even have to share our camp
site with anyone only the local Pademelon’s.
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