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.

Lamington National Park - Toolona Creek Circuit and Elabana Falls

Lamington National Park is like a glossy postcard but with scent and texture - dripping leaves, slippery rocks, whipbirds cracking and waterfalls that endlessly cascade and bring to my mind vague philosophical questions about the endless generations of fallen beech leaves and the way water can out-do rock.

A Royal Affair – Mt Royal National Park

Fireflies flicker through the darkening forest and thunder drums inside the roiling clouds moving in from the west. Frontal winds whip through the treetops. A storm is approaching.  Raindrops arrive, but they pass over quickly. Then after all the noise, silence moves in. Until an hour later, another frontal wind, lightning and thunder, more rain, followed again by silence. A second storm moves on up the ranges. I drift off to sleep but five times the routine repeats itself. Wind, lightning (counting it closer), thunder and rain, then silence. It's a long, fitful night. 

Glennifer Falls - Dorrigo National Park

Never Never River

Seeing Glennifer Falls for the first time was one of those 'wow' moments. I vividly recall being amazed at how this magnificent waterfall had been hidden in my backyard for so many of my bushwalking years without me having seen it.

Nymboi-Binderay National Park - packrafting

The valley is charged with heat. Only cicadas persist. There is no bird sound. Even the march flies disappear by noon. It feels as if the very air around us is ready to explode into flames. 

Exmouth and Echo - two journeys - Warrumbungle National Park

From the top of Mt Exmouth, the highest peak in Warrumbungle National Park, I can see east across the open valley below. On the horizon, amongst the jumble of spires and peaks, is a point called Echo Mountain. On top of that mountain, looking back across the same valley, is Caz. We are each alone - immersed in solo, overnight adventures on top of different peaks, each sitting quietly amongst the rocky mountains of this spectacular park.

Kings Plain National Park - a revelation

We drove out to Kings Plain National Park on a Friday night and arrived in the dark, pitching camp on a grassy site by Kings Plain Creek. It seemed a good omen that in the branches of a nearby tree a squirrel glider was happily going about its business. But apart from that, the car headlights gave little hint of the surrounding landscape. By arriving late we were arriving unseen and unseeing. But the beauty of this, was the revelation of a new landscape when we opened our eyes first thing the next morning.