Arriving at Cradle Mountain Visitors Centre was like being plunged into Touristville. So many vehicles and so many people! Most would leave their vehicles here and get a shuttle bus, which runs every 15 minutes or so, up into the Park.
I was not able to check into the Waldheim Cabins until 2pm, so I did a few short walks down here. The Rainforest Walk and the Enchanted Forest Walks took me into a green world of mostly unfamiliar plants and trees.
In the open there was a field of Buttongrass, a sedge plant that grows in mounds up to 1m diameter, edged by Alpine Coral Fern. I liked the clever signs asking walkers not to leave the path: ‘Plants grow by inches but die by feet’.
The forest was mostly of Myrtles (Nothofagus cunninghamii), ragged of bark and mossed on their buttressed feet. It is not deciduous, but the new leaves will be reddish.
Some lichen (I think) was such a bright green that it put the moss to shame.
The green was relieved by the many fallen Myrtle leaves, dotting the moss like confetti, or caught in spiderwebs on the bark.
Grotesque shapes were united by the green moss, somehow ratified…. or preserved. They had become more sculptures than trees.
On several occasions the green was shockingly broken by a flash of reddish orange, a fungus growing in the cleft of a tree. It seems to be Strawberry Bracket (Aurantiporus pulcherrimus) but mostly was more of a ball, not open enough to form a bracket.
But there were other similar colour notes, as in the berries of this prickly shrub, which I think is Native Currant (Coprosma quadrifida) but it could be Mountain Currant Bush (Coprosma nitida). I don’t have a Tasmanian Facebook group of boffins as I do in NSW and Queensland, so I’m guessing, depending on books… so don’t quote me!
I am sure of these prolific small plants, called Mountain Rocket for their hanging bunches of flat red papery fruits (Bellendena montana).
Dainty and simple white cup blossoms of this small shrub (unidentified) proliferated in more open parts of the walks.
Also white, but not exactly blossoms, were my favourites, and they were lichen that seemed to have opened up… again, I think!! Wish I knew more about lichens. They were scattered over the ground as if they were indeed blossoms, fallen from a tree.
Next post I’ll take you to Waldheim and the amazing world of Kate and Gustav Weindorfer.