I walked the Cradle Mountain Lake St Claire wilderness trail a few years ago and it is the inspiration for this story. I walked with Cradle Mountain Huts Walks. The company has been running guided walks for over twenty-years and of course, they have huts. Huts mean hot meals, hot showers, warm cabins and chilled wine. All this delivered by young, fit guides who take care of everything. Food tastes oh, so much better when you’ve trekked at least twelve kilometers and someone else has cooked.
Madison had to do all the things I had to including carrying her own pack. If she wanted clean clothes she had to wash them in the shower each night for which you pumped your own water.
There were so many highlights on the walk, but for me the greatest experience was climbing Tasmania’s highest peek, Mt Ossa. It stands at 1,617 metres in the middle of the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. Making it to the top does involve a lot of scrambling over huge boulders. The view is worth it even if you are a little intimidated by the climb (will all those boulders slide further down the mountain as I climb up?!?). From the top, a quarter of Tasmania is visible and not one man-made thing (well there’s an old disused mining road to the east, but we ignored that). When Daniel and Madison climb the mountain, they are in for the unexpected.
The guides on our walk were lovely, knowledgeable and fit. They were passionate about conservation and taught us lots of interesting ecological facts. We visited a myriad of beautiful waterfalls; explored a disused mine shaft featuring one lonely spider and lots of cave crickets (ugly little critters); held Fairy’s Aprons, sweet little purple flowers; splashed in freezing rivers and lakes; ambled through ancient rainforests and learned about the wonderful array of native fauna and flora. A number of these sites feature in the book.
Pre-order Wild for You now at Amazon, iTunes, Kobo and other e-tailers. I hope you enjoy it as I loved writing this story.