Nestled in the heart of Tasmania’s World Heritage Wilderness, Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair National Park is a dream destination for nature lovers and hiking enthusiasts. With its rugged mountain peaks, ancient rainforests, glacial lakes, and abundant wildlife, the park offers some of the most breathtaking scenery in Australia. Whether you’re seeking a gentle stroll or a multi-day trekking challenge, Cradle Mountain has something for every kind of adventurer. 

From the iconic Overland Track to scenic day hikes like Dove Lake Circuit and Marion’s Lookout, the trails here cater to all experience levels—each promising unforgettable views and an intimate connection with the wild.

The weather in Tasmania is not what you can call «stable» and we thought we had plenty of time to traverse northern Tasmania between Bay of Fires and the Cradle Mountain area. Our plans were thwarted by a possible bad forecast for our intended hiking day and we had to pivot and leave the east coast in rather a hurry to make it to Cradle Mountain and a good weather forecast. 

After an super early start we drove though misty covered countryside to reach the Cradle Mountain area and the car park at the visitor centre. We packed our backpacks with all essentials for a days hike, plenty of water, snackpacks, lunch, second breakfast, ellevensies and chockolate bars. 

First hurdle is that you cannot pre-buy the bus pass you need to enter the park any other place than the visitor centre. This meant an hour in a queue, even though we came early, to get the bus pass that is valid for 48 hours. A bit of a faff, and after this line there was another one for the bus. We must commend the staff who were super helpful and full of information and tips. Remember that you also need a National Parks pass for Tasmania.

We will at this stage say that we did a wrong assumption and did a rather stupid thing, that we would alter if we ever come back. We took the bus all the way up to Dove Lake first and did a small hike to Glacier Rock for the views of Cradle Mountain, and this was awesome (we even saw a echidna on the path) but when we took the bus back down to Ronny Creek to walk up to Crater Lake we saw our mistake after a while. 

The trick is to start at Ronny Creek in the morning and get to see all the wild wombats roaming the plain, they had all gone into their burrows when we arrived. 

From the plains it is a brutal climb on nice paths via the Lord of The Ringsesque area of Crater Falls up to the Crater Lake boathouse.

From the boathouse the track keeps climbing up to Crater Lake Lookout. From here you can keep on up to Marions Lookout but we were slightly knackered after the hot midday climb up from Ronny Creek and we had no steam left. The views were spectacular and we could now also see down to Dove Lake below us. 

The decent from the lookout point down to Wombat Pool and then via Lake Lilla to Dove Lake and the bus stop there was another quite challenging hike. Had we know, we would have done the Ronny Creek to Crater Lake/Marion Lookout first and then hiked to Dove Lake for the lookout from Glacier Rock over to Cradle Mountain. This would also ment seeing more wombats on the way we think. 

In spite of our slight mistake we had a truly epic day hiking Cradle Mountain tracks and seeing some unique nature and scenery along the way. We are happy we had sturdy shoes, good gear and plenty of water and food with us. 

We spent the night at one of the cooler places we have ever stayed just outside the park, we would absolutely recommend Lemonthyme Wilderness Retreat.

Such a cool place in the middle of the rainforest with resident pademelons, great food and not least it was so quiet and tranquil. The starry sky was like a blanket, and the birdsong was a sweet lullaby after a long days hike in the spectacular Cradle Mountain National Park.