Winter

Blazing farewells

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It is winter, but the deciduous trees and vines don’t all drop their leaves at once. It’s a nicely timed taking of turns to blaze out their seasonal farewells.

This beauty is the very last leaf on the whole Glory Vine. On a misty morning, its bright pink is almost shocking. I want a lipstick exactly that colour. And look at the perfect jewel suspended from its tendril.

The Liquid Amber is the last, and the most spectacular tree, glowing even inside a cloud.

The Crimson Rosellas must relate to the crimson fallen leaves;  they are almost camouflaged amongst them.

Winter wallabies

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Now that the rain’s stopped, my yard is a sheltered sunspot for the wallaby population, which seems to have exploded.

I guess they give the kikuyu grass more attention now that it’s winter and there’s not a lot happening elsewhere, growthwise.

This morning they seemed as ‘herded’ and as focused on the task as a mob of cattle grazing.

The hillside is still seeping moisture so there aren’t many dry spots but this lot sensibly chose a higher bank. Two were drying off and warming their fronts, and two their backs, just as we would in front of a fire. Eating grass was not the purpose here.

There’s been a lot of wooing going on lately; much grunting and chasing and sniffing. One male nearly knocked me over yesterday as he belted past after a female. Desperate days to see which best man wins, but so far the ladies are all saying ‘no’.

Magical Mallacoota

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It was just on dusk when I reached Mallacoota, 23 km east of the highway. A stunningly beautiful spot, and quite a large village, but, as I discovered when I drove to the inlet foreshore, its population must explode in summer.

What I thought was just a pleasantly green and tree-edged park proved to be the largest camping area I have ever seen, with ‘streets’ of numbered empty sites continuing around the point. Hundreds and hundreds of sites. Rows of moorings edged the inlet itself. Mallacoota was clearly a boating and fishing paradise. Darkness was too imminent to explore further, but I vowed to get up early for the sunrise, thinking it would be over the sea, perhaps best viewed from Bastion Point.

 But I was totally disoriented, for by 7am the sun was rising over the inlet itself. And what a sunrise!

Within seconds the vivid colours had softened and, turning to where the river met the sea, I was met with almost unbelievable pinks and mauves. If I saw this on a greeting card or calendar I’d assume it had been ‘doctored’.

Back towards the mountains the pinks had taken hold too, with the small islands of the inlet beginning to show colours other than black.

By the time I got to Point Bastion, my original destination, the sun had risen. There seemed to be islands and a lighthouse floating in the sea — or the sky? — detached and wavering, like a mirage. Gabo Island is real, so I guess that is what I was seeing.

I walked around the Point itself, no easy feat, as the rocks run in long narrow spines towards the sea. I found myself walking sideways to cross them. By the time I left, there was a large yellow machine of some sort — a front-end loader? — revving up noise and black smoke, preparing to help launch several large boats. To my ignorant eyes, they looked the sort in which Hemingway types chased marlin, so I assumed deep sea fishing.

Imagine how this would be multiplied in summer. The magic of Mallacoota is best by far in winter.

Victorian gold

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At Devonport, waiting to board the night boat, Tasmania farewelled me with rain, as it had greeted me a fortnight before, then withdrew its forces to the now familiar lowering dark clouds over its mountains — and turned on a perfect double rainbow. Day or night, Tasmania, your wild skies have won me.

In the Macedon area of rural Victoria, where I had won a three-week writers’ residency, it was colder than Tasmania, and the long low clouds often found it hard to lift off the land. 

I had missed all the showy Autumn reds and burgundies, but it was still more autumnal — and European — than I’d experienced. 

Roads were lined with elms that had dropped the top half of their yellow leaves to carpet the road edges, but held them on the lower branches — as befitted the cusp of winter. 

I loved that so many fallen leaves were yellow, not brown. I had thought they died — ‘sere and brown’ — before they fell off the twig, if you’ll pardon the pun.

The bicycle track that ran beside this road was thickly edged with the clear bright  yellow leaves, saved by the grass from being scattered to and fro by the winds.

At Rosebank Cottage, the tortured willow filled the lap of the forgotten summer chair with pale lemony gold, and generously strewed it over the lawn. The quince leaves hung on to glow a deeper yellow.

In the morning fogs they joined forces to catch the first of the struggling sunlight, steal it from the rest of the cold and dripping garden, and warm the spiders in their webs.

Sun streaks

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streaks-1It’s a late winter dawn, too cold and too early to get up really, but, since I’m awake and I have a million things to do — I toss back the covers and start the day.

By the time the kettle has boiled, the first stripes of sunlight are fingering the tops of my gum tree surrounds. This is natural, as they are the tallest, but what I love is the way the sunlight finds narrow reconnaissance paths through the north-eastern forest and shines long streaks of gold on surprising levels.
streaks-2Against the still dark mid-forest, the tops of wattle trees are spotlit as becomes their role as winter garden stage stars.

It’s a brief solo act, as soon the sun ‘rises’ above the treeline and sunlight becomes general, changing greys and blacks to full colour, and hitting my solar panels to start the day’s generation of the magic power by which I am writing this post!

My winter roses

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camellia-1-280This being August, it’s still winter. Yet there’s plenty of flowers: the wattle is out, the jonquils are in full bloom and the first daffodil has opened to the spring-like warmth of the sun.

Unfortunately it’s woken up the snakes too, as I have seen my first black snake — sunning itself on very short grass in the orchard where I had gone to give the citrus an overdue dose of seaweed spray. They didn’t get it; I’ll try again in the morning when it’s too cool for sunbaking — I hope.

I’ve also seen the first Welcome Swallow dashing about in the sky over my clearing, although I don’t yet know where they’re going to nest this year.

But even before this warm spell of weather, one of my young camellias has been putting out glorious red buds amongst its dark green and glossy foliage – so unlike the bush behind it. Grown from cuttings taken from camellia trees that were higher than the old house that they surrounded, this red one has done best of all here, even in this unimproved soil where most plants turn yellow.

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It’s especially valued by me because it’s an old variety, and because as the buds unfurl they look like roses before they fully open to show their central stamen cluster. And to have roses is rare here because the possums eat them, buds and leaves and thorns and all.

I’m almost afraid to say that they don’t eat camellias — in case I jinx such a glorious gift and they start munching on my beautiful winter roses.

If only they had a scent I’d pull out all the poor twisted twigs that the possums made of my rose bushes, and give up hope of a bloom in summer.

Winter sunrise

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In winter my morning policy is not to arise until the sun is in my house, but I was forced to do otherwise when this was the first sight of the day.

Knowing how quickly such skies change and fade, I leapt up, threw on a thick dressing gown, stepped into my oversize fake ugg-boot slippers and raced outside with the camera.
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This sunrise was as boldly beautiful as I’ve seen in ages. Zooming the camera closer, the texture and colour of its serried centre reminded me of a slab of our Australian Red Cedar timber at its glorious best.
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Within seconds sungold was introduced to the palette and the vibrant orange and vermilion tones were softening a little into prettiness.

Seconds later and the glory was all lost, washed flat by grey daylight. 

Fleshy blooms

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There are few flowering plants in bloom now. The wattle is almost ready but as yet is grey-green with just a promise of gold. Most of the bulbs have shot through the grass but only one or two isolated jonquils have opened their scent to the light and air.

And yet from the damp edges of my verandah I can see clumps of creamy-beige flowers pushing up old mown grass. They are not something I have planted; I have never seen these in my yard before.
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blooms-2When the rain eased I went closer. Not flowers, but extremely over-populated fungi. Cream to pale caramel, delicate yet fleshy all at once, their lightly fringed caps upturn like the faces of flowers. Fighting for space and light, they fold and layer and then triumphantly open — my blooms.

 

 

 

 

 
blooms-3 A few days later they are still there, and then I think I see a new colony several metres away, near the leafless birch trees.
These are in two separate spots. The lower one is definitely the same sort as my fleshy beige blooms, but a small cluster right amongst the jonquils seems whiter.
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Indeed they are, perhaps because the most recently emerged, but they are also more convoluted and this I think must be because they have had to grow through the jonquil bulbs and around their leaves, tougher than grass.

Tree light

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tree-light-1As Autumn becomes Winter, under perpetual grey skies, the intermittent thin drizzle keeps the saturated ground weeping down the hillside.

In all the dimmed-down garden and bushland, one light shines each day to greet and cheer me with its brightness.
 
My Liquid Amber tree is incandescent with warm colour, from yellow to purple and every pink and red in between, yet it still holds some green at its heart. The ambient daylight is so low my camera admonishes me to use the flash, but I trust my tree light.

This tree was burnt to a dead stick in the 2002 bushfire but it shot back from the roots and grew strongly to be the tall beauty it now is, seven years later.

I wonder if, forged in the intensity of that fire, it was given new genes, genes that hold the memory of the colours of fire, to warm my heart with the sight.
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Final winter flurry

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As August came to an end, the season decided to show a bit of properly wintry snow.

Not at my place, unfortunately, although I’m just high enough at about 1000 metres, but opposite me in the Wilderness Area, where the range is about 1500 metres.

It was cold, 2 degrees, which is about as low as it gets here here, 4 or 5 degrees being the average on a cold morning.

I love to see some snow each year, and I was cosy, with the slow combustion wood fire banked right down, gently beaming fire glow and warmth day and night.

When the snow clouds lifted, all of the upper southern faces had patches of snow, which isn’t unusual.

The surprise was that they stayed there, brightly, whitely visible, although this range is quite a long way off, for the next 4 days. It was sunny down here and not snowing up there, but clearly a lot colder.

Yet the very next week I saw my first red-bellied black snake in my yard!

Rainbow rays

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I’m being given the gift of many rainbows this winter, but they’re not in the sky. On my mountain, low cloud rising and and low sun setting makes for some spectacular combinations.

This striped beauty lasted only seconds before the last fine drifts of misty cloud dissipated. Being stuck too much at my desk at present, I was extremely lucky to have looked up at just the right time.

I’m not sure whom I’m addressing, but I have to say ‘Thanks!’ for such gifts.

Haildrops

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Although it’s winter, when sleet or snow would have been more normal, we’ve had a surprising number of summery-type storms, where small hail falls. Not for long, but often.

The horses don’t like it, but it doesn’t do any actual damage, so I just enjoy the visual effect while it lasts.

My naturalised snowflake bulbs – which I called ‘snowdrops’ as a child – seem to be made for such a white dotted setting.

They don’t often get the chance for a real snow backdrop.