Cradle Mountain: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Cradle Valley was carved by glaciers, which left a string of lakes under a jagged dolerite ridge. The best day here links them on foot: the shuttle drops you at Ronny Creek, the track climbs past Crater Lake to Marions Lookout, and you come down to Dove Lake and catch the shuttle back from its car park. Allow four to five hours with stops. The weather turns fast at this height, so start early and carry a rain jacket even under a blue sky.
A short history of Cradle Mountain
Cradle Mountain, in north-west Tasmania, was known to the Aboriginal peoples long before white people arrived. In 1912 the Austrian explorer Gustav Weindorfer and his wife Kate built a timber chalet at the foot of the mountain, named it "Waldheim" and began inviting visitors. Weindorfer campaigned for many years for the area to be protected, and in 1922 it was declared a reserve. In 1982 the area became part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Site. The Overland Track, about 65 kilometres long, starts here and ends at Lake St Clair.
The ten best sights in Cradle Mountain
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1Dove Lake
The 6 km circuit is mostly boardwalk and takes 2–3 hours; take an early shuttle, the queue grows by mid-morning
2Dove Lake BoatshedThe postcard shot of Cradle; the light is best before 9 am, when the lake is often still
3Marions LookoutA steep climb with a chain on the last pitch; snow can fall here in any month, so carry a warm layer
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4Ronny Creek
Wombats graze the buttongrass by the boardwalk at dusk; keep a few metres back and no flash
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5Cradle Mountain summit
A full day with a long boulder scramble at the top; turn back if the cloud comes down
6Crater LakeAn hour up from Ronny Creek to a lake in a glacial bowl; the shorter alternative to Marions
7Enchanted WalkAn easy 20-minute loop along the creek by the lodge — the walk for a rainy hour
8Pencil Pine FallsTwo minutes from the road; carry on along the river to Knyvet Falls
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9Devils@Cradle
Go on the evening feeding tour, when the devils are awake and noisy; book ahead
10Lake St ClairThe far end of the Overland Track, on the Strahan–Hobart road; a good leg-stretch there
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Cradle Mountain →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Cradle Mountain:
Free walking tours in Cradle Mountain
The classic: over the top to Dove Lake
Cradle Valley was carved by glaciers, which left a string of lakes under a jagged dolerite ridge. The best day here links them on foot: the shuttle drops you at Ronny Creek, the track climbs past Crater Lake to Marions Lookout, and you come down to Dove Lake and catch the shuttle back from its car park. Allow four to five hours with stops. The weather turns fast at this height, so start early and carry a rain jacket even under a blue sky.
- Ronny Creek · This is where the Overland Track begins, 65 km and about six days to Lake St Clair. Between October and May walkers need a permit and must walk it north to south, so everyone you see setting off here is heading the same way.
- Crater Lake · The slopes around the lake are covered in fagus, Australia's only native tree that drops its leaves in winter. In late April and May it turns gold and orange, and Tasmanians come up specially for what they call the turning of the fagus.
- Marions Lookout · The organ-pipe columns of Cradle Mountain across the valley are dolerite, rock that pushed up as magma around 180 million years ago, when Tasmania was still part of Gondwana. The same rock forms the cliffs of Mount Wellington above Hobart.
- Cradle Mountain · Gustav Weindorfer, an Austrian who had settled in Tasmania, climbed the mountain with his wife Kate in 1910. On top he said the place must be a national park for the people for all time, and he spent the rest of his life pushing for it.
- Dove Lake · Since 1982 the lake has been part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, which covers about a fifth of the island. It is one of the few World Heritage sites listed for both its natural and its cultural values.
- Dove Lake Boatshed · The shed was built in 1940 by the park's first ranger, Lionel Connell, from King Billy pine, a slow-growing Tasmanian conifer. The tree can live for more than a thousand years, which is why the old wood is now protected.
Creatures of the dusk
Most of Tasmania's mammals come out when the light goes, and Cradle is one of the surest places to meet them. This route is for the afternoon of arrival: short rainforest walks by the river near the lodges, then the devils' feeding, and finally the boardwalk at Ronny Creek as the wombats come out to graze. Drive slowly after dark, because the roads here are full of animals. Bring a torch with a red filter if you have one.
- Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre · The park began as a scenic reserve proclaimed in 1922, after twelve years of lobbying by Gustav Weindorfer. Today the centre sits at the edge of a wilderness that runs, almost without roads, all the way to the south-west coast.
- Enchanted Walk · The path runs through cool temperate rainforest of myrtle beech and pine, the kind that once covered much of Gondwana. Its closest relatives grow today in Chile, New Zealand and New Guinea, the other pieces of the old continent.
- Pencil Pine Falls · The falls take their name from the pencil pine, a conifer that grows only in the Tasmanian highlands. Fire kills it outright and it regenerates very slowly, so a burnt stand can take centuries to come back.
- Knyvet Falls · The river below is tea-coloured, not dirty: the water drains through buttongrass peat that stains it with tannins. The same brown water fills almost every river in western Tasmania, all the way to Strahan.
- Devils@Cradle · A contagious facial cancer was first recorded in wild devils in 1996, and it has since wiped out most of the population. Sanctuaries like this one breed healthy devils as an insurance population, and the cancer is one of very few known to pass between animals.
- Ronny Creek · Wombats are the only animals known to produce cube-shaped droppings. They leave them on rocks and logs to mark their ground, and the flat sides stop them rolling off — look for them on the boardwalk edges.
The way up: caves, cheese and murals
Coming from Launceston, the drive to Cradle crosses the farmland of the north-west, at the foot of the Great Western Tiers. This route turns that drive into a day: a farm cheese shop, a glow-worm cave, a wildlife park, and the mural town of Sheffield before the climb. Fuel up and buy food in Sheffield, because there is nothing for the last hour. Count about six hours with stops instead of two and a half straight.
- 41° South Tasmania · The farm is named for its latitude, 41 degrees south, the same line that crosses Tasmania's north. It raises salmon in tanks and uses the water from them to feed ginseng and a wetland that guests can walk around.
- Ashgrove Cheese · Ashgrove is a family dairy farm that makes its cheese from its own herds, on the Bass Highway at Elizabeth Town. It is best known for traditional cloth-bound cheddar, matured the old English way, alongside a range of flavoured cheddars.
- Marakoopa Cave · The glow-worms on the cave ceiling are the larvae of a small fly found only in Tasmania. They glow to attract insects into sticky threads they hang below them, and the tour turns off the lights to show them.
- Trowunna Wildlife Park · The thylacine, the striped Tasmanian tiger, once hunted these hills; the last known one died in Hobart's zoo in 1936. Trowunna works instead with the devil, the largest carnivorous marsupial still alive.
- Sheffield · In the 1980s, with the farm economy failing, the town copied the idea of Chemainus in Canada and began painting murals of its own history in 1986. Today there are dozens, and an annual competition adds more.
- Lake Barrington · The lake is a dammed stretch of the Forth River, and its long, straight, sheltered water made it an international rowing course. It hosted the World Rowing Championships in 1990.
Getting to Cradle Mountain and getting around
- Devonport Airport · Flights from Melbourne land about 75 minutes' drive from the park — handy if someone joins mid-loop
- Burnie (Wynyard) Airport · The other north-coast airport, also with Melbourne flights; compare both before booking
- Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre · Park here and buy the Parks pass: shuttle buses run to Ronny Creek and Dove Lake, and private cars are limited on that road
Cheap eats in Cradle Mountain
The north-west is Tasmania's farm country, and the food on the road to Cradle comes straight from it: farm cheese, raspberries, chocolate, salmon and leatherwood honey from a tree that grows only in the island's rainforests. Bakeries sell the Tasmanian curry scallop pie. Up at the park there are only a few lodge kitchens, so the cheap meals are on the way up, not at the top.
- Elizabeth Town Bakery Cafe · Pies and sandwiches on the highway, about A$7-14
- Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm Cafe · Raspberry pancakes and desserts by the berry fields, about A$12-25
- Ashgrove Cheese · Free cheese tasting, a cheese platter or toastie about A$10-20
- House of Anvers · Chocolate café in Latrobe; a hot chocolate and a slice about A$8-16
- 41° South Tasmania · Hot-smoked salmon plates near Deloraine, about A$15-30
- Paper & Cup Café, Sheffield · Coffee and a light lunch among the murals, about A$6-18
- Cradle Mountain campground store · Basic groceries and snacks near the park entrance, about A$5-15
Museums in Cradle Mountain
- Waldheim Chalet · Weindorfer's rebuilt chalet and grave, near Ronny Creek
- Home Hill · A prime minister's family home in Devonport, kept as it was
- Bass Strait Maritime Centre · Shipwrecks and ferries of Bass Strait, by the Devonport river
- Sheffield murals · An open-air gallery of local history; pick up the mural map in town
- Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre · Displays on the park's plants and animals; check the weather board
Nature and day trips near Cradle Mountain
- Dove Lake circuit · Six flat kilometres under the mountain; the Ballroom Forest is on the far side
- Marions Lookout · The view over Dove Lake to the mountain; steep, with a chain
- Crater Lake · Gold fagus in late April and May
- Lake St Clair · The southern end of the Overland Track, on the Hobart road
- Leven Canyon · A lookout over the gorge and a long forest staircase down
- Cradle Mountain summit · A full day for fit walkers only
Things to do in Cradle Mountain with kids
- Devils@Cradle · Devils and quolls up close; the evening tour is the best
- Wombats at Ronny Creek · Wild wombats from the boardwalk, best in the late afternoon
- Enchanted Walk · Short and flat, through mossy forest by the creek
- Trowunna Wildlife Park · Feed kangaroos and see devils by day
- Marakoopa Cave · Glow-worms in the dark; tours suit children from about five
- House of Anvers · Watch chocolate being made, and taste it
Where to eat in Cradle Mountain
- Highland Restaurant, Cradle Mountain Lodge · Tasmanian produce by the fire; book, it is the main dinner in the valley
- Tavern Bar & Bistro · Pub meals and Tasmanian beer at the lodge, no booking
- Cradle Mountain Hotel · Hotel dining room near the visitor centre
- Mole Creek Hotel · Country pub dinner on the caves road
Frequently asked questions about Cradle Mountain
What is there to see in Cradle Mountain?
The top sights in Cradle Mountain are Dove Lake, Dove Lake Boatshed and Marions Lookout. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Cradle Mountain?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Cradle Mountain without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Cradle Mountain?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Cradle Mountain, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The classic: over the top to Dove Lake.
How do you get to Cradle Mountain and get around?
The main ways are Devonport Airport, Burnie (Wynyard) Airport and Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Cradle Mountain, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Cradle Mountain that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Cradle Mountain for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.