I guess if you are anywhere near my age (worse luck for you!) you will know Dorothea McKellar’s famous poem, ‘My Country‘ by heart, at least this part: “I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her […]
Perhaps the last lovely canoeing day of 2021’s autumn. Time to spend a few hours on one of my favourite rivers. As I mentioned in this post Thomson River Packrafting Day Trip you can enjoy a number of different day trips on this beautiful river if you haven’t enough time for a multi-day trip like
I am so glad there are others who are also not wholly smitten by the ‘leave no trace’ extremism. In any number of unlikely places over the years I have come across ingeniously constructed huts and fishing/hunting camps sprinkled (without eg Government or Parks Vic’s blessing, or knowledge) throughout our wonderful Victorian mountains. 10,000 more
My Kevlar skid pad canoe repairs on a delightful overnight trip on a couple of beautiful warm days with abundant water from Kingwill Bridge to Hut Creek. We planned for a longer trip but Della began feeling unwell (and I blew up a clutch in one of the cars) so we had to cut it
Della and I are just back from a four day backpacking exploration of one of our greatest alpine wildernesses, the Mt Darling Snowy Bluff Wilderness created in 1983. This is a trackless mountain vastness suitable only for the most experienced outdoor adventurers. We return ‘bowed but unbroken’ Forbidden Wilderness: (Well they might as well be)
Della: ‘This evening’s harvest of Golden Queen peaches and apricots: How beautifully they glow in the early evening light! The wet spring and summer has given us bountiful fruit this year.The blood plums were ready over Christmas and New Year, and the bulk of that crop had either fallen or been eaten by the cockies
Nature Finds a Way. The Horsfield Bronze Cuckoo (which is what it turned out to be – first mentioned in this post) in our garden has at last attracted a mate with the calling which we were unable to identify for some weeks (al la Edward Thomas’ poem) – and here they both are. The
I was just doing some work clearing our new walking path in the bush up the creek behind our house yesterday (and again today) when this big guy suddenly turned up on my arm. I had been lopping some small branches with the machete and he must have been on one. Gave me quite a
This post is an accompaniment to my recent post Small Game. It is not so hard to supplement your hiking rations with some tasty protein after all. A couple of hundred grams of protein will meet your daily requirements, whilst 500+ grams will be nearly enough for your total daily food needs. This is just
(Della) Our sweet cherry tree bears lovely fruit, but the local birds of all varieties have it well marked on their seasonal tour map. Each year they strip the tree earlier and earlier. This morning’s raucous visit by a flock of cockatoos is probably the earliest I have witnessed, being only 2 weeks or so
