After years of holidaying in the Northern Hemisphere we finally experienced our first real snowfall at Cradle Mountain in Tasmania. We had heard that a cold snap was expected over the weekend and that there was a chance of snow falling in the higher regions of the island. We took a chance and drove to Cradle Mountain on Sunday morning.

The trip up saw us watching the temperature sensor on the Jeep slowly drop down but it still seemed too warm at 5 degrees to expect to see snow but as we came up out of Moina the temperature dropped to 0 degrees and we could see traces of frost. As we closed in on Cradle Mountain we noticed more and more oncoming cars had snow and ice on them and assumed they must have stayed the night at one of the hotels in the area.

Then we crested the last hilly section out of Moina and came across a completely different landscape with snow lying in the paddocks on either side of the road. Rain started to fall and our hopes lowered until the rain on the windscreen softened to a light pattering. SNOW! Two crazy Queenslanders had smiles from ear to ear.

From the turn off onto Cradle Mountain Road the landscape turned white and the road slushy with the remnants of the last fall. We drove to the carpark, jumped out of the car and were formally snowed upon for the first time. We had experienced a fleeting snow fall on Mt Wellington in January 2018, but this was voluminous, cold and wet and we couldn’t be happier. We wandered through the village and visitor centre amazed at how much the scenery had changed since we were here last time.