MY AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURE

PART II – Cradle Mountain                   by: Digney Fignus

Australians have a great sense of humor.  It permeates the culture in every way imaginable.  The ads on TV, the road signs that warn against speeding (“It’s a limit, not a challenge”), even the roadside shops leave you wondering what the heck is goin’ on sometimes.

There’s a reason they call it Oz.

My first week in Tasmania had been unbelievable, full of shows, interviews, and near mystical experiences.  Now I was off for a short adventure with American author Deborah Swiss.  We were headed out to one of the most wild and beautiful places in Tasmania, Cradle Mountain. 

It was the perfect weather, not too warm, not too cold.  The rain that had been drenching everything for the last two days finally decided to abate.   Everything exuded a clean washed freshness.  The mountains seemed to be calling.  I even spotted a good omen just after I brought the car through first roundabout on the road out of Devonport.

It was Anzac Day.  We had left pretty early, but I wasn’t going to head out into the wild without topping off the petrol at the local gas station/Post Office located, near as I could tell, in the center of the town of Forth. 

From there we were taking what looked like a somewhat sketchy road that started out right alongside the Post Office.  It followed a small river for a short distance then quickly turned away from the water into some really dense scrub.  The Gum trees were as thick as I’d seen them all through Tasmania.  There was a nasty underbrush as well.  Not very inviting if you were looking to lay about and sun over a couple of Pina Coladas.

The roads were narrow and twisting, mostly two, sometimes three lanes.  In general, they were pretty well maintained, but as we started to get a little higher up into the hills, signs started cropping up about slippery conditions and road ice.  After all, it was almost winter in Tasmania, and this southernmost island state of Australia is just a short hop from the perpetually frozen Antarctica.

No worries mate.  I’ve been on the roads of Tasmania for two whole days now.  Left hand driving is all but natural to a bloke like me.  Instinctual it is…I’m from New England for God’s sake...  Yanks know about motoring in the snow.  Bad weather, icy conditions...ha!   

I could afford to be cocky; it was shaping up into a pretty nice day.  Even the forecasters were on our side.  The radio was predicting no rain at least until nightfall.  That would still allow us plenty of time to get up to the mountain and back.

My inner chatter quickly subsided when we broke out of the scrub and started to approach the range of mountains that pointed the way to our designated destination.  The clouds rolled over and around the peaks dropping them in and out of sunlight and shadows.  The colors of the cliffs were constantly changing as we made our way down the nearly deserted two lane road that would lead eventually to the entrance of the Park.

We started to encounter a series of really cool mailboxes as we wandered through the pastures and rolling hills that made up the sparsely populated farmland approaching the gateway to Cradle Mountain.  There was one particularly exceptional sculpture of an angel that was my favorite.  The workmanship was excellent.  The impressive number of Victoria Bitters it took to complete the piece demonstrates that this was no ordinary project, but the work of a dedicated professional.