Of Maze & Snow

It's fun being trapped in the world's largest maze and it's scary at the same time as there were some corner that were so dark I felt like i was in one of M.Night Shyamalan's horror movies. Brr... someone or something might just pounce on you in the middle of nowhere. Thank goodness there were 8 of us so we split according to pairs ala Amazing Race style with checkpoints.

Oh yea, forgot to introduce the place. Welcome to Tazmazia in Sheffield, the Town of Murals. It the World's Largest Maze and there's a mini village in the maze called Lower Crackpot, with chieftain Crackpot and his wife, Lady Crackpot as the mayor of the village.

It's a cool place to be but unfortunately it was raining when we were there so it was freezing and muddy at the same time. It would be more fun if the weather's good. There are several mazes in The Great Maze so you're bound to get stuck in all of them as it's really tricky. There's a lavender field as well but since it's winter, everything died so it's only one brown patch.

We all travelled up to Cradle Mt. after that to our cabin in YHA. We got lost (again) on the way there as the place's really "ulu" and the road signs were bad. No help whatsoever. We ended up being stuck near a dam and it was already dark. The road was slippery from the rain and frost so it's really scary. Poor Darren have to get out of the car to navigate the Kia Carnival Jeremy was driving. Haha... he was freaked out when he was sent ot face Mother Nature alone.

We had a nice steamboat for dinner and it's the best thing in the world since it was 0 degrees celcius outside. The cabin kitchen had a traditional fireplace so it really felt like Christmas. All that was missing was the carols and turkey. There was a fat possum waiting outside the door for food but obviously, we're not going to give it to that fat guy! The room was warm and nice so I did slept like a pig throughout the night.

I was greeted with massive snowfalls the next morning and the whole place was just covered in white white snow. It's cold but i still need my shower. Don't care.

I can't really see the snow then i woke up at 5.15am and it's still very dark outside. Only about 7.30am that I managed to see the full effect of the snow. The whole forest was white and it was like in the movie, "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "LOTR"!! (I know Bern wanna diss me with NZ stuff dy...) We took tons of pictures together as well as having massive snowfights. The snow is basically ice but it's soft so you can throw it at someone without having to worry that person will get a serious concussion. But it was too cold and i think my camera can't really take it. So it kaputed when we were hiking around Lake St. Clair which is below Cradle Mt.

It took us 3 hours to finish the whole hike trail and this was when i started to despise the snow. The snow wasn't altogether consistent as in certain parts, it rained then 5 minutes later, it snowed again. FYI, it doesn't snow gently, it was buckets and buckets of snow pouring down on you that you'll be drenched by the end of the day as our body's warm enough to melt it. Cis! It also rain hailstones occasionally. Luckily, it's not the golfball-size hail or else die... But it's painful la, like having lots of small pebbles hitting you.

Overall, i had fun but driving in such extreme weather can be dangerous. The road's really slippery with snow and water (our car got stuck halfway to the lake because of the snow. Thank goodness there's an irritated ranger who might be cursing the stupid Asians to perdition for driving in 3 inches of snow when they're not supposed to) and we travelled back on the same day Masa got into the car crash. Scary~ Lots of time we almost drove into the boulder on the side of the road due to the bad view (our windscreen was fogged up with vapor) and sleets.

Thank God we arrived in Hobart in 1 piece.

Therefore, going to Cradle Mountain in winter is strongly recommended.

Warning!

Beware of balck ice and very slippery (i mean it!) roads.