Kayak the majestic Dove Lake with Cradle Mountain Canyons’ Excursions
Paddling in kayaks crafted from trees hundreds of years old gives visitors a fresh perspective on this treasure in the wilderness.
We are gliding across a lake carved out in the last Ice Age in kayaks lovingly built by hand from ancient King Billy pine, a rare remnant of the Gondwana continent. Above the end of Dove Lake, the celebrated craggy outline of Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain has ducked behind some low clouds. The majesty of the moment seeps in quietly; the only sounds are birdsong from the shore and the lake lapping the sides of the kayaks as we pull our paddles through the icy water. Oh, and the odd cry of “Right! Left!”, as I attempt to get the hang of the foot-pedal rudder.
In a world of gaudy hard-plastic watercraft, Anthony O’Hern has created something precious with Dove Lake Kayak. Co-owner – with his wife, Anna Paice – of Cradle Mountain Canyons, O’Hern taught himself to build the craft after winning the tender to add Dove Lake kayaking to their long-running canyoning and packrafting tours in northern Tasmania.
O’Hern says it was Paice who had the idea to make the kayaks from timber, which led them to “the last King Billy in captivity” in Queenstown, about 1½ hours by road from Cradle Mountain. There, third-generation sawmiller Ian Bradshaw is custodian of King Billy logs that his family toiled to retrieve from the slopes above Franklin River after a fire in the 1960s killed hundreds of trees without incinerating them. Tasmania’s remaining living trees are listed as endangered.
There’s a whole process to go through before Bradshaw will sell his remaining stockpile. “You go down and have a cup of tea with the old boys and explain what you’re planning to do with it,” says O’Hern, who drove to Queenstown to make his case. “The clutch in my ute went, so I ended up being stuck in Queenstown for three days, which ended up being really good. They gave me a tour of the town and told me great stories about bringing the King Billy logs out of the wilderness.”
O’Hern’s vision for the rare timber, which boat builders love because it’s strong and light, struck the right chord and he got his King Billy.
Building on my theory that Tasmanians are somehow more resourceful than most mainlanders, the bright-eyed adventure guide spent hundreds of hours turning the wood into kayaks. He followed the strip-built design of American kayak builder Nick Schade, who helpfully has a book and YouTube videos demonstrating his craft. The first tour went out on Dove Lake in December 2022.
As he kits us out in spray jackets, life jackets and spray skirts, O’Hern reassures us that no one’s fallen in but tells us exactly what to do should we break that dry streak. The paddling is easy as we head out past the 1940s King Billy-built boatshed towards the southern part of the lake. We’re travelling in a historic wake; a century ago, Cradle Mountain’s Austrian-born eco-tourism pioneer Gustav Weindorfer took visitors out on Dove Lake in a flat-bottomed punt made from the same timber.
Time flows quickly, and about an hour later we pull into a tiny beach on the lake’s southwest corner. After coffee, tea and biscuits with Cradle Mountain peering over us, O’Hern guides us along the boardwalk into the Ballroom forest to find some of the last remaining living King Billy specimens. These mighty pines (actually conifers) are more than 1000 years old and are found only in Tasmania. O’Hern also shows us pencil pines, myrtle beech, sassafras and the famous fagus, the native deciduous beech that attracts phalanxes of photographers in autumn. He waxes enthusiastically about many unique botanical specimens in this cool temperate rainforest, but the King Billy is the star.
On the way home, there’s a light headwind. We paddle by Honeymoon Islands and carve across Dove Lake. The sleek kayaks catch the light bouncing off the ripples, as though they were born to ply these waters, as indeed they were.
In the know
Cradle Mountain Canyons runs kayaking excursions on Dove Lake go for two to three hours, including refreshment stop; available Wed-Sun from December to April. Adults $160, concessions $135, minimum age six years. Off-season outings available on request.
Jane Nicholls was a guest of Discovery Parks Cradle Mountain and Tourism Tasmania.
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