Mt Cordeaux and Mt Mitchell - Main Range National Park

This mountain has been becalmed; held still all night afloat an ocean of fog, which laps silently at the hull of trees beneath the summit. There are faint sounds of imagined movement coming from the valley below; like swells on a distant shore. Then the sun cracks the eastern horizon and golden light reveals that there is no better place than a mountaintop for watching and admiring and thinking and learning.

Circling the Crown - a glimpse of Warra National Park

For the first 5km of this adventure I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. The joy of rolling through the countryside was infectious: an icy wind at my tail, granite outcrops and boulders dotted the hills, fern drenched gullies lay in the moist shade of winter.

With a niggling foot injury putting me out of walking action for a while, Caz and I spent last weekend rediscovering another favourite type of outdoor adventure - cycle touring. It had been years since we had done anything like this and within the first two hundred metres I remembered just how much fun touring was. 

Diamond Head - Crowdy Bay National Park

My notebook from this trip has less than one page of scribbled thoughts and observations - vague descriptions of the golden ocean arch and waves firing through its aperture with the booming of an ordinance range, cormorants diving, a pale bellied dolphin spiralling out of the surf, a sea eagle dad showing junior the ropes of wind along the cliffs. All this, blurred by the haze of drifting cloud on a rain slapped headland. Who has time to make notes when there is so much to see around you. 

Sheer walls, sheer exhaustion - Dangars Gorge

It is in serious, hushed silence that we begin this challenging adventure. The dawn sky has turned dark with heavy clouds. We sneak over a fence and pick up a faint track that snakes its way down a gully towards the base of Dangars Falls. It's a wild little descent. The final third of the route is loose scree and dirt and steep. When we reach the bottom of the falls there are shattered rocks on the gorge floor and the signs and sounds of fresh rock slides are everywhere. But, the perspective is breathtaking. It's the sort of spot that makes you want to whisper. Which is not such a bad idea. The towering walls amplify every sound and as a tiny speck of person in the bottom of a big, moving landscape it is often best not to give voice to questions and doubt.

A freak of nature - Awabakal Nature Reserve, Newcastle

I don't know much about geology but I got a good lesson in wonder from this place.

The ongoing, and the visibly ancient, creation of land and rocks is on display along this small stretch of coast - seams of coal are exposed in the cliff faces, huge chunks of sandstone lie scattered like building blocks. The ocean is taking chunks of rock and earth when the swells are huge and driving. Landslips along the cliff face, especially after heavy rain, are sliding the bush into the sea. 

And beneath that dramatic backdrop is a littoral of rock platforms that have eroded into a beautiful mosaic of shapes and protrusions and grooves. These emerge at low tide and on calm days to make us question the randomness of nature.

Way down south - Southwest National Park, Tasmania

Here, where the world is quiet,

Here, where all trouble seems dead

Winds and spent waves riot

- A.C. Swinburne

Styx River - Oxley Wild Rivers National Park

I remember the descent; an open ridgeline to the river. There were forest red gums on the slope, very little understorey, fine shards of rock underfoot and towards the end it was easier to descend sideways, like a crab, inching our way down. A fire had been through before us, maybe only a week or so prior, and it had left us more view than expected. We could see down into the Styx River valley; from ridgetop to riverside we had to drop 700m in elevation.

As we descended, the elusive spotted quail-thrush nearly eluded us. Two of them took flight through the trees. We listened for their voice: it is a high pitched 'tseep tseep' that is almost beyond hearing and then when settled they call in far-carrying, repetitive notes similar to a treecreeper but slower, more plaintive.