Kindred: A Cradle Mountain Love Story

An updated edition with one last story of the Cradle Mountain lovers, laid to rest together.

This updated edition includes a new development in Kate and Gustav’s love story. When Kate died in 1916, she was buried in her family’s plot in Devonport, Tasmania, and Gustav, who lived another 16 years and died in 1932, was buried in a tomb in Cradle Valley. Kate’s body was exhumed and cremated, and her ashes were placed with her husband’s on 1 February 2024.

He was an Austrian immigrant; she came from Tasmania. He grew up beside the Carinthian Alps; she climbed mountains when few women dared. Their honeymoon glimpse of Cradle Mountain lit an urge that filled their waking hours. Others might have kept this splendour to themselves, but Gustav Weindorfer and Kate Cowle sensed the significance of a place they sought to share with the world. When they stood on the peak in the heat of January 1910, they imagined a national park for all.

Kindred. A Cradle Mountain Love Story traces the achievements of these unconventional pioneers and their fight to preserve a piece of wilderness. Neither lived to see their vision fully realised- the World Heritage listed landscape is now visited by 250,000 people each year. Award-winning journalist Kate Legge tells this remarkable story of the creation of the Cradle Mountain sanctuary through the characters at its heart.