AN EPIC TREK TO SHADOW LAKE

November 1, 2012 No Comments

Dylan peeking around a moss covered tree trunk

Water flowing down river near Lake St Clair, Tasmania

Mossy path winding through the Tasmanian bush

Knobbly tree trunk on Lake St Clair to Shadow Lake hike

Our day took and unexpected turn. It started as a gentle stroll through gently mossed woodland and ended

a lurching, dizzy test of willpower to make it back.

The morning had slipped quietly away so Dylan forwent his ritual coffee and we marched off on the Lake St Clair – Shadow Lake walk. Close to the river the air was damp and cool, every moss covered corner seemed a probably hiding place for a wee team of fairies or hobgoblins. We hopped across stepping stones and over fallen trees, and crept upwards towards daylight.

Almost two hours in we reached a prehistoric looking landscape of Buttongrass and swampy soil, and I noticed that Dylan was looking grey. His head had begun thumping in earnest when we turned the corner to see the spectacular Shadow Lake gleaming in the suddenly dazzling hot sun.

I ate a solitary lunch watching ants steal breadcrumbs as Dylan dozed in his hammock, he awoke little improved. Insisting on heading back, he shrugged it off as a little caffeine withdrawal; he would be fine with a espresso back at the visitors centre… two hours away.

Day hike from Lake St Clair to Shadow Lake with hiking packs

Dylan taking a break to gaze at Tasmania bush

Orange and blue lichen on rocks along path

Dylan’s progress became more and more ragged as the headache, after a brief gestation, emerged a full blown migraine, complete with nausea and faintness. I kept a chirpy dialogue of landmarks I didn’t feel or sometimes even recognise as we trudged downwards. In hindsight a running commentary on the familiarity of various rocks is not helpful to a throbbing cranium.

We met the river with relief and I left Dylan to trek the last couple of kiliometres to the Visitors’ Centre while I packed the tent. Alone, his migraine turned so savage he lost his lunch and it was luck alone that I didn’t find it as I followed behind.

When I found him at the cafe, coffee in hand, Dylan was the picture of rosy cheeked health. Who would have thought tinkering with your dopamine system in the form of a coffee a day could reap such havoc!

Buttongrass (mesomelaena sphaerocephala) plains near Shadow Lake

Shadow Lake, reflections of clouds in the water

Travel

A CAMPSITE BY A LAKE

October 9, 2012 No Comments

Walking around the lake, driftwood and leafless shrubs

Stones around Lake St Clair, rounded by the swirling waters

Clouds of fog reflected in Lake St Clair, Tasmania

Dylan looking for fish and platypus in Lake St Clair

Banksia seed cone, Lake St Clair, Tasmania

Sweet little Paddymelon near the Lake St Clair campground

Strange fungus, lichen, growing on tree trunks

Dylan fishing in the river, Lake St Clair

Dylan under the bridge over the river at Lake St Clair, Tasmania

Deciduous beech tree by the river, the only deciduous Australian tree

Edible Pink Mountain Berries are bush tucker in Tasmania

We’re back from a beautiful spring holiday in Tasmania and there is so much to tell you, I’m quite overwhelmed by how many posts I have planned and how many photos I have to wade through! I have so much to tell you!

We worked to a deadline, and then in a flurry of papers bid a cheery sayonara to our colleagues and took off to meet the Spirit of Tasmania. As we hummed and whirred across the Strait the nautical novelty began wore off and we bundled ourselves upstairs with the ghosts. We just had to escape the layer of modern tackiness of poker machines and overpriced, greasy food. The way up to the top deck is hidden away and only a dozen people out of hundreds found their way up there. The little empty stage and wooden benches were from another era, the flickering soundless TVs adding to the forsaken feel.

The water raged against the ship, cold, dark and scary until morning.

The sun rose behind grey skies and we drove and drove, away from the city, past farms and tree stumps, to a wild and windswept campsite by Lake St Clair, walking distance from a not so wild cultural centre with all the amenities one could wish. Darling Paddymelons were our neighbours, so fat and furry, and cute cute cute. A baby quoll ran across our path by torch light as the fire in the hut crackled. Tomorrow would be an epic bush walk…

Garden, Travel

DAYLIGHT FADING

February 18, 2012 No Comments

The tent glowed cruelly at 6am and a crow barked a laugh, a most inconsiderate neighbour. More slug than butterfly I wriggled out of my cocoon, with koala eyes and a bed head to match, my appearance proudly declared me not a morning person. The field had been deserted the night before, a goat, rope and picket gaily dragging behind, starred, chewing, just daring me to tell the interns she was free. Tilda Swinton in animal form, I find goats beautiful and alien, their rectangular pupiled eyes are a little bit intimidating.

Brought up on a delicious diet of Beatrix Potter and Brambly Hedge, picking raspberries for breakfast was almost too charming to bear and at that moment I could have shut up shop and left the city for good. The rest of the group gone, breakfast at Melliodora was delightful domestic, David pulling apart Su’s mothers electric hand mixer that had finally given up, WOOFERs and interns buzzing about, making herb teas…it all just seemed so lovely and so do-able. If my future family could live like this it would be perfection.

After that how could we go back to the city so soon? Clinging to the weekend by our nails, half way home, we camped our last night in the Lerderderg State Park. Gorgeous bushland, gurgling river, shadows, crackling fire and complete isolation. As the night settled in we quietly pined for the human company we had left behind and were ready to return home.

Travel

THE CROSSCUT SAW

August 25, 2011 No Comments

Yellow paper daisies, the Croscut Saw, Alpine National Park, Victoria, Australia

Our friend Scott doesn’t like to be soft. No huts for us, no breezy day hikes with our packs sweetly sleeping in our tents either. I felt an immense sense of accomplishment in having done it. Although Dylan did have to shoulder some of my load, I think he enjoys pushing his pack horse capabilities to the limit. I hope so anyway. We walked up hills and then down hills for hours, up and down, up and down. On the way up I would decide that going down was clearly the only way to go, on the way down my knees and toes protested that this was not the case. But it was beautiful, intensely so.

On this trip we inherited Scott’s old (in photographer years…months) Canon Powershot camera and we spent most of the time getting better acquainted. I hope we will get along well together.