Dove Lake Circuit

Dove Lake Circuit

There are many different day walks around Cradle Mountain national park, all as equally good as each other that it might be hard to know where to start or what works best for the time you have. If you’re short on time, you might find yourself parking up in Dove Lake car park to enjoy the view I posted above, walking 5 minutes to your left to Glacier Rock or walking 5 minutes to your right to visit the iconic Boat Shed.

You can pick yourself up a visitor pamphlet including a map of walks in the area (screenshot below) from most accommodation spots or the visitor centre.

We had 3 days to explore the region and decided to concentrate on the more popular walks from the heart of Cradle Mountain’s landscape.

We chose first to explore the most popular track, the Dove Lake Circuit. We started in a clockwise direction from the car park visiting Glacier Rock. The weather was freezing this morning, both of us wishing we had packed a beanie and scarf. The Dove Lake circuit is 6km and quite an easy grade. We stopped for a fish at Truganini point, stunned by the beauty of the landscape.

Majority of the Dove Lake circuit is along a board walk, taking you on the outskirts of the beautiful lake (which is so much bigger than I anticipated).

We had packed our lunch and decided to take the opportunity of a bench that sat right beneath the towering peaks of Cradle Mountain when we heard a rustle. The noise made me jump backwards. I thought the worst that the movement would be a snake or some other Australian animal out to get me, but out wobbled a friendly wombat having a scratch and taking no notice of us even being there. We couldn’t believe that no one was around as we took photos of him walking down the path like he was a tourist here to enjoy the scenery – such a cute little guy!

With each section of the track you walk, you really need to look and soak in everything around you. A lot of the time when you look in the opposite direction, the view is even more spectacular than the one in front of you.

The next part of the track led you upstairs and into what is known as the ‘ballroom forest’. This section instantly cooled down as you walked within the rainforest section filled with towering trees, a moss-covered forest floor and cascading water beds.

The last section of the track was a little trickier to navigate down as the board walk disappeared and turned into a rocky trail made slippery by the melting snow flowing down waterfalls from days prior. It won’t be long until you reach the second most iconic site of this national park; the boat shed. From here, it’s an easy 5 minute stroll back to the car park.