Overland under cloud and snow

Once you walk the Overland Track, you understand why it’s counted as one of the best in the world. Easily accessible, well maintained, visually amazing, it’s not surprising that people come from all over the world to walk it. I walked it in 2006 with some friends and ever since, I’ve been trying to get down there with Roland. It’s a place worth sharing. When we were in Tassie during the mid-year holidays, we did a few day walks, including one a Cradle Mountain. It renewed my desire to come back and do the walk together.

So Term Three was spent organising this little adventure; our first private bush walk together, no teenagers allowed! A quick plane trip to Launceston, afternoon of food shopping and a night in a hostel followed by a half day bus ride to Cradle Mountain saw us at the start of the walk. There was one hitch though – snow. There had been a two metre dump the previous week and there wasn’t any up-to-date info on how much was still on the track. We were told it would probably be alright to walk without snow shoes, but it may be necessary to turn back if it was too deep. Given such conditions, we stayed overnight in Cradle Valley to allow a full day to walk the first 10kms, rather than the five hours of remaining daylight we had left that day.

It was a good choice, and even though the day didn’t have the stunning sun shine of our arrival day, we really did need the full day. It took us about six hours to walk 10kms, and I was utterly exhausted by the end. The soft snow was nightmare to walk through but we met some walkers coming in the other direction who told us that there was no more snow to walk through once we were off the plateau.

Overall, we did the walk over five days, saw a few spectacular views, enjoyed the alpine environment and met some great people. It was a cold week, but a wonderful one none the less.

This is a side-on look at the walk (click to enlarge). As you can see, Day One, getting over Cradle Plateau is by far the hardest! We stayed at all the huts except Kiaora Hut.

Cradle Mt. on our arrival day

Two walkers about to set off

Example of some of the board walk.

Because of the melting snow, every water course was pumping!

A happy walker about to ascend onto Cradle Plateau

Crater Lake was spectacular

The steepest part of the walk - part of the ascent onto the plateau - not for the faint hearted!

The first patch of snow with Crater Lake in the background

A cold camper in some shallow now. It wasn't uncommon to fall though to my knees or waist in the deeper sections. (and I did put some pants on after lunch!)

Cradle Mt.

Barn Bluff

Night One: Waterfall Valley Hut - a wonderfully warm place after a hard day of snow walking.

one of many creeks

Brief views of the surrounding peaks from Frog Flats on day 3.

Above and below, examples of board walk. Not all the walk is board walk. There is still enough mud to make sure you know you're in the wilderness!


One on the majestic peaks that could be seen from our final hut when the cloud lifted.

Narcissus River. This water flows into Lake St. Clair, leaves as the Derwent River and passes through six power stations before ending up in Hobart and flowing into the Tasman Sea.