Saturday 17 February

The night is about 40 degrees colder than it was in the outback of the Flinders Ranges! We use the spare duvet to keep warm. It rains 7 out of 10 days here, and is cloudy 8 out of 10 days....and today it's raining and cloudy! Pademelons come very close to our van .We walk to the Cradle Mountain visitor centre and buy a map and get the shuttle bus into the park to Dove Lake, and then walk along board walks above the button grass, see Lake Lila, Wombat Pool and Crater Lake. The route goes through deciduous beech, grass trees and various pines: pencil pine, King Billy and celery top pine, some of which can live for 2000 years. Black currawangs with their yellow rimmed eyes squawk in the trees.

We eat our sandwich at the walker registration point at the start of the Overland Trek, and get the shuttle bus back to dry off with the heater on in the van!

We then walk down to the Waldheim Alpine spa, and see an echidna close up by the side of the road. They are like porcupines. The spa is heavenly, we have a sauna, steam room, jacuzzi and icy plunge pool to ourselves. The jacuzzi is outside, with the rain forest and the torrential rain as a backdrop. We even have a bottle of fizzy wine! Then we go to the restaurant with its roaring log (the size of tree trunks) fire. Ellie has wallaby steak, Clare has Tasmanian quail and I have salmon.  It's still pouring down when we finish so they very kindly give us a lift back to our soggy camp site.