Sunday, February 13, 2011

Cradle Mountain (and a rather odd habit)

Well my Uncle Harry tour guide hat goes back on tonight.
On our fourth day in Tassie we left the east coast and headed to the central highlands.
Our target Cradle Mountain.It was a wet and cool to cold (for summer) day.

We didn’t get to the Cradle Mountain National Park until after lunch.
The light was changing from minute to minute because of the time and the weather we weren’t very ambitious about walking. Over 300 days a year it is raining or cloudy here so the weather was pretty much what you’d expect.Deb and Lu did one walk of about half an hour return.

They followed a path around the east of Dove Lake to a high point known as Glacier Rock.
I dawdled a bit taking literally hundreds of photos.

Including this one of some scat on a rock. Yes it is what you think it is. ‘Scat’ is a polite naturalist’s way of saying ‘poo’ or ‘shit’.

I kept moving; the large rocky promontory (with the people on top) in the fore-ground is Glacier Rock.And to show how far I had got behind, the character in red on the top is Lu.
She (and Deb) waited at the top until I caught up.

I took this picccie of Lu from up there.Then she returned the favour.You will notice I was unshaven and well and truly in holiday mode.

Then for a moment we played duelling cameras.Then Deb and Lu headed back to the car because the afternoon turned freezing. I went on another walk around the west of the lake. Following a nicely formed trail
Again and again I saw
And
I counted no less than 17 piles of scat and more scat all carefully placed on the top of little rocks.

My destination this little boat house built to house rescue boats in the 1940s.So If you are like me (and maybe you aren’t) you want to know who was the obsessive creature who so carefully left these little markers of passing on all these rocks?

This cute fellow is the culprit. A wombat, they leave scat on rocks to mark their territory.

Alas the wombat piccie is not mine (this is from Wikipedia). They are very shy creatures, I have a couple of wombat photos but they are blurry piccies of a rapidly departing wombat rear end.

9 comments:

The Words Crafter said...

Marking their territory, huh? And I thought they were being nice and making sure no one stepped in it!

Your photos are lovely. I especially like these because I'm a cool to cold weather person and I could probably live there. Even with the rain (LOVE rain).

My father in law and I have played dueling cameras. We're usually the ones behind them and don't prefer to have our pics taken :P

Loving this tour!

Al said...

Of course it does have the side benefit of keeping people's shoes clean.
I am usually behind the camera too.
I have a slight advantage in dueling cameras against Lu. Mine takes photos about 100 times faster than hers :-)

Old Kitty said...

Awwww Wombats!! Beautiful fluffy gorgeous and ever so scatty Wombats!! LOL!! Awww they're lovely!! Great to see their erm.. markings all over the place, yay!! Well I love em and I'm all for wombats being wombatty!! We so need more wombats in the world please!!!

Ok, nuff of wombats!!! Tassie is such a wonderful place! I love the name Cradle Mountain!! Great to see your kidlets too!!!

Take care
x

Hannah said...

Ah the wombat! So adorable and full of scat. I love your pics!

Sage Ravenwood said...

Gorgeous scenery and I learned something about the wombat I didn't know. (Hugs)Indigo

Vicki Rocho said...

I don't think I've ever seen a wombat before. They're adorable! And quite tidy poopers, aren't they? (I'm laughing at myself. That is a sentence I never expected to write!)

Jai Joshi said...

Stunning pics! I'll have to visit this place some day.

Jai

Lisa said...

What a lovely place for a hike! I was hoping there was going to be a point in the end to all of the piccies of scat...how cool would it have been to get one of the actual wombat?!

Al said...

Hi Jennifer,
Thank you and no there can never be enough wombats!

Hi Hannah,
They are adorable even if they are full of it. Thank you

Hi Indigo,
It is a wonderful spot, most Aussies wouldn’t know that about wombats either!

Hi Vicki,
Wombats are gorgeous! They are related to koalas and I think cuter. They are quite large, about the size of a Labrador but on short legs. They also happen to be the largest burrowing creature in the world.
Probably not a sentence many people would ever write when you think about it.

Hi Jai,
Thank you! The problem is there are just too many places to visit and not enough times to do it in.

Hi Lisa,
It is a wonderful spot to hike or just look.
There was a point. But alas wombats are shy, so I have never been able to get a decent photo of one