A walk on the mountain

Yesterday was the solstice, and a perfect winter's day: warm, fine and mostly sunny. What better way to celebrate the returning sun than to hike up the Mountain?

Not all the way though! It's been a long time since I've been well enough for serious walking, so we took a fairly easy route to Junction Cabin, about half way up.

How stunning are these heath flowers? I didn't expect to find them in the middle of winter, but the fire trail was lined with a profusion of tiny pink, white and mauve blooms clinging to spindly branches. They soon disappeared as we headed on up, along the Old Farm track.

Up and up though the strange silence of the eucalypt forest^[1] until we reached Junction Cabin, the half-way hub for tracks spider-webbing their way across the mountain-face.

A light lunch, shared coffee and welcome conversation with a radio-physicist and his wife before starting down again, following the water's route down Myrtle Gully - all moss-slicked stairs and tree-ferns with their twisting stems, reminiscent of dadaist imaginings. ( But why don't you come along with me? )

The journey ending in the rush of white-water and an enchanted view.

[1] Strange to me: the sub-tropical gum forests I grew up with hum with insects and bird-call, but down here there are far fewer species and the handful of birds are eerily silent.