Pawenyapeena (Spring); Lake Belton, Tasmania

And winter only just turned over on that man-made bureaucracy known as a calendar as we set off walking for two nights and three days of sanity saving spring sunshine - finally, a three day forecast of no rain; clear skies. It is spring; technically, and, I’ll come back to that later.

The aim of this trip is to introduce two new awildland team members to the world of wild places. Blue and Yella are secondhand packrafts purchased months earlier. They have been waiting patiently in the garage as winter cold fronts have swept, one after the other, over the Tasmanian mountains. They’ve heard rumours of snow camping and frozen boots. They’ve seen the awildland team returning wet to the bones. They’ve glimpsed photos of white-capped mountains and ice-covered tarns. Now it’s spring. This is to be their maiden voyage. We choose something simple for this first adventure, and, it turns out something totally sublime. 

Rumble in the Jagungal - Mt Jagungal, Kosciuszko National Park, NSW

“A lot happened today” is the opening, understated sentence in my journal on Day 3 of an eight day walk in the Jagungal Wilderness of Kosciuszko National Park. 

“Up at 5:30am,” it continues. “The sky east was clear, the sky west dark with clouds. The frontal edge of the approaching storm is drawn in a straight line directly above us. Re-checked the weather and not much change but, hints that the bad weather should be gone by the afternoon.”

So, of course who wouldn’t set off walking into that uncertain sky. We started walking that day at 7:30am, leaving the safety and shelter of O'Keefe's Hut with plans to stick to our Plan A, which was to climb the epic 2,061m high Mt Jagungal and spend a night on its impressive summit; despite the menacing pall, despite the storm warning and with us using the untracked, steep, thick-scrubbed direct approach from the weather station on Grey Mare Fire Trail.

Standing Guard - The Sentinel Range, Tasmania

Kalbarri National Park, Western Australia

We arrived during a wicked thunderstorm; driving headlong into clouds the colour of the bitumen road. Then, torrential rain and the wipers banging madly left to right. The unsettled weather lasted three days. The rainfall meant dirt roads to the Murchison River gorge walks were closed. So, we began our explorations of this national park along the coast. 

We had stumbled into Kalbarri National Park, following a tip-off from a friend who rated this park as their favourite in the entire state of Western Australia. A vast state, in our vast continent, with this astoundingly unsung pocket of country. The coast walks showed us shifts of colour, brilliantly combined. Then we finally got access to the Murchison River gorge and the dramatic, swirling cliffs and flooded Murchison River took this park to a whole new level of scenic. The impressive beauty was deeply surprising and the sense of discovery hugely satisfying. 

Mt Twynam, Mt Tate and the Rolling Grounds - Kosciuszko National Park

The sweeping, grassy hillsides are thick with daisies; their bright, white and yellow faces smiling away as I walk past. There’s an ancient snowgum halfway on the climb to the summit. Its canopy is a storm-swept tangle of twisted branches; its bark has those steely subtle hues of grey and green. As we walk, there are grand views across the range. Ravens are circling distant rocky peaks in huge flocks. Their loud conversation carries on the breeze. The weather is sublime, a sunny day; cool nights are forecast. 

This is how I remember this walk. Sweet memories. I could pour a swirling glass of nostalgia from this walk until I nearly drown in it. The long sunny days and isolated, scenic campsites. 

Seeing is believing - Mt King William I

There is meant to be a mountain above us. I keep looking up in hope. I see nothing but a ceiling of cloud - the sky, overcast and low. It seems, if I stood on tippy toes I could touch it. As we follow the track towards the base of this invisible peak, it is tempting to turn around. I am wondering, what fun could we possibly have on a mountain in grey, wet soup like this? We keep walking, despite. There is, after all, a mountain above us, whether we can see it or not. 

The lure of hidden monoliths...

I love bushwalker log books; but, this one is particularly unforgettable. It is housed in a silver box, attached firmly to a rock on the summit of a little-known mountain. The lid of the box is beautifully engraved with the mountain’s latitude. Due north is marked with a bold arrow. All the surrounding peaks are named and distances to them are also given. The logbook is an unexpected surprise because the walk here is rare, untracked, unlisted (in print or online) and hard, physical work.

“I wonder how I got to the top...how could I let myself be dragged into this adventure...[but] a very beautiful place, superb!” - Stephan Delabre, 4 July 1991 (written in French). 

'The Monarch of Tasmania's west' - Frenchmans Cap

Picture this: a large rock midstream in a fast flowing river. The rock protrudes above the water. A swift current races around it and on the downstream side is a pocket of calm water. The current causes the sides of this calm to change and swirl with movement. But immediately behind the rock is complete stillness. 

Now imagine the protruding rock is Frenchman’s Cap. The river's current is the wind and the water is dense cloud. The mountain’s bare, white quartzite peak holds firm above it all. Picture two little bushwalkers, sitting in that calm spot on the downstream side, sheltered from the howling south-westerly wind. A tongue of clear, still air stretches away before them while either side, the dense clouds whip past, whirling on the edge of the eddy in a dance of mesmerising flurries. Then the sun rises above this streaming world. The light is crystalline but diffuse. Picture the two bushwalkers sitting in the morning sun completely entranced, watching this wild show of streaming clouds, backs leaning against the bulk of the mountain. Sudden pirouettes of cloud rise and fall on either side. They are alone, for more than 4 hours, bewitched. The day warms. The flood of streaming cloud slowly disperses, swept away across the world.