Feathertop - Alpine National Park, VIC

I have not walked on the moon but I know the lightness of escaping gravity - it comes when I unbuckle my backpack and drop it to the ground on the summit of Mt Feathertop. The pack is loaded with my share of our 5 days of food, plus three litres of water, half a tent, clothes. It hits the ground with a thud and my first few steps on the summit of Mt Feathertop are just that - I am a feather on top of the world. Without weight, I walk in light bouncy steps. My muscles feel stronger now they only have to lift bone and flesh.

Mt Jaithmathang - Alpine National Park

Forty-seven crows are perched amongst the dead limbs of burnt snowgums. They call back and forth, discussing something more than murder or thievery and from their complex conversation I am sure we are not the only animals with language. It feels like my loss that I cannot understand them but, I never tire of listening to things in nature that I do not understand. 

Walking with the weather - Alpine National Park, Victoria

A storm is moving across the high country, coming in from the south-east. Wind clatters through the dead wood of burnt snowgums. The horizon is crazed with lightning bolts as they strike the adjacent ridgeline. Whipcracks of thunder echo around the hills.

We can smell the moisture and lightning-burnt air but the storm swings towards Kelly Hut and we get nothing but a dozen fat drops of rain.  It is a light and sound show - a wild introduction to summer in the Victorian high country, at the end of a lazy day exploring the beauty of the Alpine National Park, near the ski-resort village of Falls Creek.