27th January 2010
From our window in the cottage we have a fabulous view of Mount Roland and since we arrived the plan has always been to do the summit walk which is about a 5 hour return hike. Unfortunately, the weather conspired against us today, which was the day we had planned to do the walk. When we woke up the summit was shrouded in cloud and although the cloud thinned during the morning we decided to do a shorter walk to the summit of Mount Claude instead.
Mount Claude is another of the peaks that we can see from our apartment and in the same range as Mount Roland. We arrived at the disused quarry that was the start of the walk and started to climb. As we did it quickly became apparent that our legs were still tired after the marathon effort of doing the Cradle Mountain walk. After walking for an hour up very steep gravel and concrete tracks then scrambling over some rocks, we arrived at the summit, although we had had wonderful views (if a little hazy) right across to Cradle Mountain all the way up. We even managed to spot our accommodation through the binoculars from the top.
We decided to drive on further into the Cradle Mountain National Park to a lookout called Devil’s Gullet for yet more views of the mountain. Turning off the sealed road we hit a gravel track which ran for 14kms to reach the viewpoint, great views, but the car looked like it had been rallying by the time we finished. So much so that when we called into the neighbouring town of Sheffield for a coffee and closed the door clouds of dust rose up around it from the sills :D.
The rest of the afternoon was spent washing and getting ready to move on to Devonport tomorrow in preparation for our return to the mainland.