Ginger Without Borders

Our second Tasmanian National Park destination was Cradle Mountain, which required a further journey down the A1.  Since this is the main highway in Tasmania, it did have one section (of approximately 4 miles) that was a true four lane divided highway in the US sense.  However, instead of a grassy median, there was just a metal fence down the middle of the asphalt surface separating the two sections (Australia’s New Jersey barrier).  In the other sections, it was mostly a two lane road with ample asphalt soft edges (Australian for the road’s shoulder).  Approximately every 3-5 miles, the road would expand to three lanes and each side was provided an “overtaking lane” (passing lane) of about 1-2 miles.  When it was just a two lane, it did provide white painted passing lines (like in the US), but I knew I would have an overtaking lane soon, so didn’t risk passing on the right with oncoming traffic.  Trucks in Australia often have two carriages and some have three, so you really don’t have any idea how long a truck is until you try to pass it, which only added to my reluctance to pass without a passing lane. 

But after about an hour on the A1, we turned onto the B13 into the Meander Valley.  As I said, Australians are fairly literal with their place names and this was entirely true of this beautiful valley of rolling hills and farmlands of sheep and cattle. Also notice that on the B13 (pictured below), we were lucky to have marginal soft sides of gravel.  In some places, the water had washed gullies against the road surface so you actually had no soft side.  But, as in many other areas of Australia, we rarely saw another vehicle, which made the twisting lanes a lot of fun to drive.  Dawn would frequently ask “are you having fun?” because she knows I love to drive a twisty road.

After we made the climb from Meander Valley to the top of the mountain range, we stopped for lunch at a cafe just a few miles from our ecolodge.  I had my first pie (this one was lamb) while Dawn had her third chicken and leak pie.  And we ate on the deck overlooking the eucalyptus forest on a warm afternoon with two pug dogs.

When I finished, I checked the phone to see how far we had to go and the map had disappeared.  There was no cell service and the cafe had no wifi. Luckily there was only one road to Cradle Mountain. But in a couple of miles, we saw the sign indicating the turnoff for our Lodge. The sign indicated that we had 5 miles on a dirt road to get to the Lodge (and we were still 15 miles from Cradle Mountain). Lots of turns and edge of the mountain views later, we finally arrived at what is advertised as the largest log cabin in the Southern Hemisphere (made of US ponderosa pine that was grown 50 miles away). We were in one of their cabins but still had no cellphone coverage and only the lodge had wifi.

The Lemonthyme Lodge did have their own walking trails and we took one of the shorter ones before dinner. It included some really old fern trees and eucalyptus trees (over 100 years old).

The tradition at Lemontree is to feed the locals after dinner. The cold had come with dark, so we stood around for about 30 minutes waiting for the wildlife to appear. As with the little penguins, we were about ready to give up and go warm ourselves by the fireplace when the pademelons just started jumping into the feeding area. Eventually there were seven pademelons munching on the lettuces and melon rind.

So even though we were five miles down a dirt road and the staff had been feeding them for years, we saw wildlife.

PS., Lena this was another very nice ecotourist lodge, so your inheritance was well spent and Mom saw wallabies and had a good walk, so she is happy and I am safe.