We decided to take advantage of staying in a nicer hotel this morning for two things. First, we ate giant, protein filled breakfasts. We have been mostly surviving on cereal that we’ve been carrying around so having a big real breakfast was a treat.

Then, we spent a couple of hours using the fast WiFi to research and book our next country, New Zealand. I’ve been panicking about oil prices so we even booked the long haul flight from NZ to South America. From there we’ll work our way North until we’re home. Even though we have another two months or so, it feels like we are in the home stretch.

While we did this, Millie watched a movie on her iPad. I previously thought our rules for screens were pretty strict… we allow the iPad on planes, on drives >2 hours, and for the occasional desperate times like today when we need to get things done. But even within these rules it feels like she is watching stuff alllll the time. I know it will get cut back again when we’re home but I can’t help but feel guilty about it. She has watched so many movies and talks about them ad nauseam.

At Noon we finally broke free and went to the national park. We took the shuttle in and to the car park of Dove Lake. This is one of the most well known trails and has amazing views of Cradle Mountain.

The trail is just over 6km around the lake and mostly flat. This is just long enough to need to bribe Millie with sweets but not too long to exhaust any of us. Nick had wrapped up two pastries from the breakfast buffet to get us through.

We stopped a third of the way in to dip our feet in the cold water. I think one of the best feelings ever is putting shoes and socks back on after walking through freezing rocky water.

The walk went through forested areas and was mostly all along a boardwalk. Side note: everyone says “walk” here instead of hike. Even the multi-day trail that goes up and around the mountain is a walk, not a hike.

We kept passing and then being passed by an older man who made jokes about how it cost a dollar to pass him. The last time it happened he actually gave Millie a dollar. It was very sweet.

Towards the end we stopped at this beautiful little scenic shack. We really lucked out with the weather.

We considered continuing the hike and adding on 2 hours to get back to the visitor’s center, but we decided not to test our luck with Millie’s patience and hunger. We got on the shuttle and the driver performed sit down comedy on his mic for the entire ride to a silent bus. It was highly cringey and I loved it.

We had burgers at the Tavern where we got our beers yesterday. I only ever eat a burger after a long hike and nothing is better. Millie got her ice cream for ice cream Friday.