Looking through my archived photos, I realise that one of the best aspects of living on my Mountain was that I was so close to the sky. I looked up as much as I looked down.
And the rewards were often spectacular, like this rainbow.
The sunrises and sunsets could be extraordinary.
Even when it was almost dark down here on the earth, the highest clouds to the north-east might still be able to reflect the glow of the setting sun in the west.
The higher north-east mountain range often caused a mighty cloud build-up to make a palette for these displays.
A low setting winter sun, mountain mist and filtering trees is all it took to create this occasional, and almost spiritual, sight.
On any given day, that higher range might snag clouds at different heights and let them build up into a panorama of sky architecture.
No wonder I feel rather suffocated here on the coast. I am still a mountain woman.
Having chosen the Highland Lakes Road because, to an ancestral highlander, it sounded romantic, I was disappointed that these lakes were basically a chain of dams for the Hydro-electric scheme.
Stocked with fish, especially trout, they are sporadically edged by several clusters, like Miena, of small cabins/cottages/shacks, for keen fishers and boaters.
It is harsh stony country, so not otherwise appealing.
Amidst these rocky Tiers like Baker’s Tier are the Steppes, where Steven Walker (the same sculptor who did the whale at Cockle Creek) had donated a series of complex bronze nature sculptures, affixed to standing stones.
They do not photograph well, as small, dark and complicated.
As the weather varied during the day, I often found myself driving past paddocks with mountains and mist behind them. So typically Tasmanian.
Or through forest-edged roads with rocky crags towering above them.
I know I am once again close to Cradle Mountain … but this is Tasmania… and to get a feel for the country I have been doing a lot of circling.
I passed over many similarly rushing rivers; I think this was the Mersey — or the Meander — or one such. Part of the reason for this post was to keep track of where I had been, but I drove for such long distances on back roads that I lacked the energy to stop and take photos… and it is the photos which drive the blog.
The Alum Cliffs (Tulampanga) are steep and stunning. This was an important site for women to gather special ochre for their ceremonies.
I did enjoy the walk up to the Cliffs, as it goes through eucalypt forest, where large trees manage to grow even in this extremely rocky ground.
Does this mean I am over moss? And tree ferns?
Whilst I’ve now driven on quite a few corrugated dirt roads, Tasmania has many small tarred roads, all numbered and leading somewhere, so criss-crossing the countryside or the forests is not a drama; I loved driving through the Mole Creek Karst National Park, for example.
But, heading for Launceston, I am dreading once more coming into a city… and getting lost.
It’s not very often that this river is still enough to be a perfect mirror, but as I was out early after sunup this morning, I was treated to perfection.
The mountain usually takes my eye above all, but today the ‘mackerel’ sky of altocumulus cotton buds and its watery reflection was the most impressive.
At my feet, the clouds dissolved into oyster-studded rocks, blurring perceptions.
The she-oaks lean over clouds… and rocks.
The mountain narrows to meet itself in water image.
How fortunate I am to be in lockdown in a place where it’s so worth rising early!
One of the benefits of wintry mornings is that the sun rises later according to the clock, so I need not bolt out of bed at 5.30 a.m. to catch the event.
In fact I can catch it from my bed now, being the end of autumn.
On this particular morning the light flooding my room was so glowingly golden that I knew a beauty was occurring. Bolt out of bed I did, and scurry for the camera.
It was chilly, but I didn’t wait to throw on more layers, knowing how very ephemeral the sight would be.
Pure gold … and not even a cheap thrill, but free!
As I write this and look over at the shades of grey and white that fill the sky where that glory had so recently been, I don’t like to say it’s banal by comparison, but it is!
At least it is changing constantly, being composed of clouds. Plain blue sky is but a background wash awaiting clouds to give it life.
It’s Autumn, so many locals are burning off their grasslands, or setting fire to their stacked bonfires of fallen branches and creek logjam clearings.
Being Autumn, it’s also a time of misty mornings and low-angled sunray surprises in this valley.
This particular morning I was treated to a combination of them both, as the sun’s warmth rekindled the night-dampened bonfire into smoke and released the paddock’s dew into rising mist. Only the smoke’s more blue colouring gave it away.
Autumn evenings bring early dark to the valley, while the far escarpment holds the last of the setting sun’s light. It also often holds the gathered moisture of the day in a long rolling breath along the ridgeline, hugging the last of the land before becoming sky clouds.
In one week, another 416mm of pounding rain fell, flooding the creeks and closing the roads, strewing logs and stacking beaver dams at fences and bridges and crossings that got in its way.
The skies cleared one evening and the moisture began to separate into creeks and clouds, as they should. It heralded the dawning of our one fine day… which just happened to coincide with our village Fair!
But the wet returned with soggy monotony, more of the driveway gravel came down the hill to visit … and even more fungi appeared, so large and so many that they were obvious even from a distance.
They popped in gold flushes out of palm tree stumps, in pale lilac ripples out of grass.
Parasols opened in pure white profusion while on the opposite side of beauty, two sole fat white drumsticks turned black and crusty overnight.
Daintiness returned with tiny white pinheads on an exposed dead root.
Mysterious red moss-like filaments on a long and alive casuarina root caught my eye… but is this fungi?
As at my old Mountain, the sky here is as important for my visual delectation as the land.
And I am as fanciful about what it offers.
Like this sunrise, where the billowing white foreground cloud looked so like bushfire smoke, unlikely as that was, that I had to go out and sniff the air to check.
Or this moonrise, where the full moon looked for all the world like a celestial bowling ball rolling down the ridge…
Or this early morning, where the upper grey cloud layer was moving quite fast to the north, while the lower dark one was pretending to be a further mountain range.
One of the reasons I just have to live near mountains is that they never look the same.
Sunlit or moonglowed, gaily golden, broodingly black or morning misted, their interaction with the sky and the light makes for a perpetually changing visual feast.
As at my old Mountain home, I can never decide which I prefer. But then, I don’t have to choose, because I can have them all!
Here on the mid north coast hinterland of New South Wales it’s been feeling like the subtropics: storms, showers, searingly hot spells and perpetually high humidity. Not pleasant, unless you are plant life, for whom it’s boom time.
To beat the heat, I get up very early — and so often begin the day with beauty like this.
Apart from what I’ve planted here, birds have distributed seeds and amongst the most noticeable of their crops are the scattered tall sunflowers.
This King Parrot spotted one whose flowerhead was nicely drying out to seed. It must have been too awkward to eat in situ so it yanked out a chunk as takeaway and found a more comfy perch.
I haven’t seen any parrots new to me, but I keep on seeing birds that are nothing like any I have ever struck before.
This one literally ran into my view as I sat at my desk. It ran across the grass in the rain, halted, turned and ran back again out of sight.
I need help with this one; the closest I can find is a female Chestnut Quail-thrush, but the patterns and the body shape don’t quite match. Any ideas, birdwise readers?
January is always a time for sales and specials but I’ve been getting the best specials of all, as they’re free.
Plus they are self-generating — no batteries! — and ever-changing, so I never tire of them.
Just as at my old Mountain, I arise early, rewarded by this sort of sunrise. Delivered in this first week of January 2015.
By late afternoon on 1st January, the eastern sky was full of combed clouds, fanning out like floating seaweed. I assumed they were Cirrus of some sort, the highest of clouds, made of ice crystals.
As if that wasn’t enough of a gift, I then spotted a tiny white moon amongst the more blurred fans. Look hard, centre, bottom third of the photo.
It’s risky to go indoors; I might miss another special.
Like last night, twilight, there was the full moon, underlined by a tiny cloud in an almost cloudless sky.
Luckily I have lots of windows here, so can keep an eye out for sky reasons to grab the camera and leap out on to the lawn before the special ends.
