We left Black River & headed to Waratah on the way to Cradle Mountain.
Waratah is an old tin mining town that dates back to 1871. It has a number of attractions that draw us back there, the waterfall in the middle of town, the platypus in the lake & the beer at the pub.
The platypus were elusive & it wasn’t great light for photos..
Headed off t0 Tullah ,the main reason was to catch up with Wee Georgie Wood who was steaming on the weekend. Tullah owes its existence originally to mining & then in the 70/80’s to the construction of the hydro dams in the area. When construction finished the town went into hibernation. The lodge where we parked the van was originally the Hydro workers’ barracks.
Wee Georgie is one of the locos that was used on the North Farrell mine. It was built in 1924 in Leeds, England & is named after a famous comedian of the era. The mine closed in 1967 & in the 80’s the town brought it back as a tourist attraction.
Six weeks before we arrived a bush fire came within metres of destroying the train & shed. You can see in the photos how close it got.
Wandered around looking at the beautiful countryside in the area.
We then headed up for three days at Cradle Mountain. We had great weather. The first night we did the Devil Sanctuary at sunset. A great experience we would thorougly recommend.
We did a number of the walks that we hadn’t done before.
One of the more interesting walks takes you to Waldheim, a guest house Gustav Weindorfer built in 1909. He is the main reason that Cradle Mountain is now a National Park.
Saw a few animals. Did you know that Wombat poo is square.
As always we took in all the waterfalls.
And as always had a quiet drink at Peppers Tavern.
