Wineglass Bay Hike - (Tasmania, Australia)

What a great hike that day!

Scorpions - Always Somewhere

Experience a taste of the wild south on this delightful extended walk. Leave from the southern-most road in Australia and walk through woodland and open bush till you reach the cliff above South Cape Bay. It’s a rare day when the wind isn’t howling and the surf roaring at this breath-taking place. If conditions allow, take the steps down to the beach. There you can wander the sand and cobble beach as far as Lion Rock, and marvel at what the wild ocean has washed up. A few things attracted me to this walk. First, the lure of a geographical extremity - it provides access to the southernmost tip of Tasmania. Second, it forms the first (or last) section of the South Coast Track - one of Australia's greatest and most difficult wilderness treks. I'd love to walk the whole track but probably never will, so being able to walk a small piece of it was a sort of second prize. Tasmania
The other attraction, to me at least, was that most walking guides describe the track as "easy". In a mountainous state like Tasmania, many walks can feel challenging to an ageing and unfit dude like me. Walks of an easier standard therefore get my attention. I don't think "easy" is entirely accurate, as I'll describe later, but compared to other walks I suppose it is.
Getting there is a treat in itself. About 120km or two hours from Hobart, it's as far south as you can drive in Australia. I set out from from Dover, and south of there the drive is mainly through forests and near quiet inlets with a growing sense of remoteness. Arriving at Cockle Creek has a real end-of-the-road feeling, which is appropriate because it literally is the end of the road.

Cradle Mountain is a locality and mountain in the Central Highlands region of the Australian state of Tasmania. The mountain is situated in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park.
At 1,545 metres (5,069 ft) above sea level, it is the sixth-highest mountain in Tasmania.[1]
The locality of Cradle Mountain is a rural locality in the local government areas of Meander Valley, Kentish and West Coast in the Launceston and North-west and west local government regions of Tasmania. The locality is about 109 kilometres (68 mi) west of the town of Westbury. The 2016 census has a population of 66 for the state suburb of Cradle Mountain. Cradle Mountain was gazetted as a locality in 1966. Cradle Mountain (the mountain) occupies a small area in the north-west of the locality, which occupies the northern half of Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. Route C132 (Cradle Mountain Road / Dove Lake Road) enters from the north and runs south to Dove Lake, where it ends.

The area is covered in a variety of alpine and sub-alpine vegetation, including the colourful deciduous beech, itself an anomaly given that most Australian native flora is evergreen. Alpine coral fern and button grass dominate the alpine wet sedgelands near the mountain summit. Stands of Tasmanian snow gum can be found at slightly lower elevations alongside Tasmanian eyebright, scoparia heath, mountain rocket, waratah, Cheshunt pine and pencil pine. Within the valleys surrounding the mountain, species such as myrtle beech, pandani, sassafras, King Billy pine and celery top pine form thick temperate rainforest with dense, mossy undergrowth.

Fungi are also a part of the park's biodiversity. While the Management Plan from 1999 for Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park only mentions fungi in the context of their destructive effects (Phytophthora cinnamomi and Chalara australis), the park has a variety of fungi that perform beneficial ecological roles. Parasitic fungi—often regarded negatively—are a vital part of healthy ecosystems, regulating ecosystem functions.
As primary recyclers of organic matter, saprobic fungi break down fallen branches and leaf litter, making vital nutrients available to other organisms. Other fungi form symbiotic relationships with other organisms. Although rarely acknowledged, the great majority of plants in Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park (and, indeed, in the world) form mutually beneficial mycorrhizal relationships with fungi.
Given the diversity of plants, specialist habitats and micro-climates in the park, a diversity of fungi, including lichens, is also expected to occur. Several hundred species have already been recorded by field naturalists and interested individuals and can be found in the Atlas of Living Australia.
Despite their essential roles in underpinning terrestrial ecosystems, fungi are barely recognised as a vital part of Australia's biodiversity. Although Australia has national and state level biodiversity conservation strategies and has ratified international conventions, most overlook fungi, including Tasmania's Natural Heritage Strategy, which only makes one generic reference to fungi.
One of the more a conspicuous species found in the wetter parts of the park is the strawberry bracket fungus (Tyromyces pulcherrimus). It grows on myrtle beech (Nothofagus cunninghammii) and snow gums. The Australian citizen-science organisation, Fungimap is documenting and mapping the distribution of fungi including those that occur in national parks

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