Kayaking at Dove Lake, Cradle Mountain, is a wild winter adventure in Tasmania

My encounter with Dove Lake seems over before it even begins.

I’m in Tasmania for what was touted to be a wild winter adventure: a chance to embrace the island State’s chill and explore the rugged wilderness of the untamed North West during the off season.

But like so many other things Tassie unexpectedly over-delivers on, the weather is more fierce than foreseen. Welcome to winter, Tasmania style.

As we roll into Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park after sunset, rain is threatening to put a dampener on what I was most excited to experience on this trip — a kayak tour of the majestic Dove Lake.

The contour of Cradle Mountain’s craggy form reflected in the mirror-like surface of the lake is a picture-perfect scene, sometimes with the historic first ranger’s boatshed in the foreground, that adorns postcards beckoning visitors to the region.

While most who venture here take in Dove Lake’s natural beauty by hiking the circuit that loops around its banks, there is one operator permitted to take the more intrepid among us out on the water in purpose-built boats.

Anthony O’Hern knows the lake like the back of his hand — and the weather patterns that can unsettle its usual stillness.

Just as we accept we won’t be paddling in the morning, he calls with a plan: if we start early, we should beat the rain.

Legend of the forest

We wake in the dark and pull on layers of thin thermals to guard against the icy air that hits us once we step out of our cabins at Discovery Parks — Cradle Mountain.

Our group is collectively still worried about whether we are actually going to get on the water, and if we do, how will we stay dry and warm?

Anthony is optimistic when he greets us, however, and it soon becomes evident we are in very safe company.

Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair National Park sits within the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area — one of only two places on Earth to achieve the highest classification for a World Heritage Site, meeting seven out of 10 criteria. The only other site to share this distinction is Mt Tai in China.

Protecting this pristine environment is of vital importance to the Tasmanian Government and tourism activities are, understandably, heavily regulated.

A couple of years ago, Anthony won a tender granting his company Cradle Mountain Canyons exclusive access to run boat tours on Dove Lake, partly owing to his experience with kayaking, his knowledge of the area and his special plan for the paddle craft.

He figured when you have a location as unique as this, the boats should be similarly exceptional.

There is a living legend in the ancient alpine rainforest surrounding Cradle Mountain called the King Billy, a slow-growing relative of the California redwood that can’t be found beyond this tiny pocket of Tassie.

Logging of the endangered species is prohibited, but Anthony located a stash of what was known as “the last King Billy in captivity” at a local family’s sawmill after they salvaged it from a fire in the 1960s.

Over a cuppa, he convinced the 92-year-old custodian to sell him some of the prized timber to hand-build kayaks for his Dove Lake tours, and then used YouTube tutorials to learn how to construct the vessels using a precision strip method.

The resulting double kayaks are works of art, each bearing the crest of a similarly rare animal that calls the wilderness home.

Through mist and moss

In Anthony’s boatshed (a modern upgrade to the ramshackle one down by the shore) we slip on cags, life jackets and spray decks to keep ourselves protected from the elements, grab our paddles and wheel the boats down to the water’s edge.

Cradle Mountain’s famous crest is cloaked in a thick blanket of fog but down here there’s a spectacular vista of Dove Lake and the dense forest that envelops its banks, with no rain to disturb the view.

When we glide out, I notice how unbelievably light yet stable the kayaks are — almost as if the thousand-year-old King Billy they came from had this exact plan in mind all along.

The frosty alpine air blushes our cheeks pink but otherwise we keep warm and dry as our paddles slice through the lake’s surface, taking us past the old ranger’s shed and hills ablaze with the rust leaves of the fagus, Tasmania’s only native deciduous tree.

We pull into a small pebbled beach and Anthony rewards our efforts with stainless-steel mugs of hot coffee and Arnott’s Kingston biscuits. Classic.

Refuelled from the pit stop, it’s now time to hunt for a living King Billy so we walk down a winding wooden path into an area called the Ballroom Forest.

The cool-temperate climate has covered the myrtle trees in velveteen moss and lacy lichen, their gnarled roots reaching for one another across the detritus.

There’s something Tolkien-esque to the scene: if one of the shaggy green stumps stood up and walked around it would hardly have come as a shock.

The forest giant we do meet across a trickling stream is a King Billy, which stretches high above us and yet is young compared to some of the others that lie deeper in the national park, according to Anthony.

Tranquillity to tempest

When we emerge from the overgrowth to our boats, the weather has taken a turn.

Grey clouds are rolling in, rain is sprinkling down and the wind has disturbed the surface of the lake.

In contrast to the tranquil, leisurely paddle on the way over, the return journey is a battle. Droplets hit my face like freezing needles, my nose is running and I’m using double the muscle power to propel the kayak forward against the current.

Maybe this would be a nightmare for some, but I find it invigorating. I did, after all, come for a wild winter adventure.

Anthony’s approach to the off season is to be agile and work with the weather, with a slight tweak to timing often making all the difference as to whether or not a tour can safely run.

We all arrive back bright and buzzing, revived by lungfuls of clean forest air and adrenaline (and the Kingstons, of course).

Hikers doing the Dove Lake circuit are just setting off for the day, committed to their quest come rain, snow or shine.

But with our mission complete, it’s time to thaw out by a crackling fire.

+ Jessie Stoelwinder was a guest of Tourism Tasmania and Cradle Mountain Canyons. They have not influenced this story, or read it before publication.

fact file

+ Off season in Tasmania is from May to November.

+ Cradle Mountain Canyons runs Dove Lake kayak tours year-round, weather dependent.

+ Bookings via cradlemountaincanyons.com.au