Reblogged from Strathbogie Ranges Nature View, another walk worth a look..
Another glorious Victorian walk.
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Tag Archives: bushwalking
In Forests #02
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Victorian Disability, Sport & Recreation Initiative of the Year Award
Tonight I accepted this Award for the Walking and Rolling Together Project I led for Victoria Walks. It has been a privilege working with the awesome Victoria Walks team and recently retired EO Ben Rossiter. It has been a privilege to co-design and co-audit with so many people living with disability, their families and carers. Collaborating with Scope Australia, DSRV, RSV, RSAs GippSport, Sport North East and Valley Sport made all the necessary statewide connections possible. To the State Government of Victoria and Department of Sport and Recreation thank you for recognising our vision and funding it not once, but twice.
A closing statement: there are still many good people out there doing many very good things. Join them.
Woollybutt
An excellent walk in the towering Woollybutt Alpine Ash forest of Mt Stirling. Find my map and description here https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/5836
My furrowed brow
The Finch
with red brow and olive wings
presents a pretty picture
Upon its chosen perch
it even makes the invasive thistle look good
With pleasure I spy
scenery I would rather deny
The Lunette walk, Winton Wetlands
This is the second last of the ten walks to be mapped and published by me from Winton Wetlands. It has taken a while to get to, but it was worth the wait: Lunette walk
You can find the other Winton Wetlands walks I have published to date here: https://wintonwetlands.org.au/walking/
At one
I drink of life’s cup.
I adore its open doors.
Anticipation is best
when one thinks upon - there’s more!
As I pass on through,
into new areas to explore,
I reap the harvest of experience
for my keepsake drawer.
I find myself in other places
where nature’s spell is spun,
where my fears and failings
vanish into none.
I look upon the sky above
a sky will always stun.
I take my pleasure in Mother Earth
being at one under the sun.
Koetong “Spa” and Wildflower walk
Koetong Creek in Mt Lawson State Park runs through open woodland of Narrow and Broad-leaf Peppermint, Candlebark, Manna, Blue and Brittle Gum, Red Stringybark, Long-leaf and Red Box. You will also find Black Cyrpess-pine and Kurrajong. The combination of diverse forest layers, a cascading waterway (Spa) and beautiful wildflowers give this walk a real buzz. Take a hike.
You will find the walking map and details I have published on http://www.walkingmaps.com.au here Koetong “Spa” and Wildflower walk
Mt Timbertop wildflowers
Greenhood Orchid
Violet
Eastern Yellow Robin
Good Things Only #17
It has been a while since I have embarked on a GTO (or much in the way of creative writing at all for that matter). I have been otherwise occupied. Why? Happily, the reason is the subject of this GTO.
In retirement I developed my habits of walking, cycling and writing into something more like lifestyle choices. Combined with photography, I found myself outside often, roaming in new places, observing with pleasure, feeling fortunate and interested in the many ways and forms of life and ecosystems around me. It costs little, the prep is fun, the exercise is great and every outing opens your eyes that much wider and your mind expands that much further and you just feel good.
I found myself privileged. Here in Victoria there are so many diverse natural places to savour. Even where environmental degradation has occurred there is often evidence life will find a way. (Whether with or without humans takes on less and less significance exploring as an individual. You barely register on the scale of things so you don’t matter one little bit. You are simply lucky to be there and to bear witness).
I started mapping, photographing and describing these places for others to share. It seemed a good retirement project – to spread the feelings of well being experienced in diverse green spaces . To identify low cost beneficial outdoor activities for other people. To put walkers in these spaces as discoverers of beauty and advocates for deterring misuse and champions of habitat improvement.
Since then I have been asked to transform this hobby into project work for local government and a health promotion charity. As grateful for such opportunities as I am, and as good as that has been, I now finally get to the specific subject of this GTO.
Over the past six months I have been working on a new and wonderful project: “Walking and Rolling: accessible walking paths for people with disability”. Our inclusive team has co-designed an audit tool for assessing walking paths for accessibility. I have been co-auditing accessible walks beside people with disability.
We launched the first 24 Victorian accessible walks last week in a joyful celebration on a glorious day. We have made the audit tool publicly available as a free to use resource for people with disability, carers, families and land managers to do their own assessments and publish accessible walks they identify. Accessible walks are for everyone. There are more to come.
This is an incredibly worthy GTO for me to have fallen into. To my colleagues and the people with disability who have helped make this happen, I will be appreciative to the end of my days. In the meantime, let’s keep going!
Pioneer Mine Walk, Mitta Mitta
I loved this walk through an ancient revegetating open cut gold mine near Mitta Mitta. The atmosphere was one of enchantment.
You can find the map and descriptions here: Pioneer Mine Walk
Pioneer Mine walk, Mitta Mitta
One of my favourite recent walks published on VictoriaWalks walkingmaps. Here is the link: Pioneer Mine, Mitta Mitta
Bridges and Cuttings walk, Tallangatta
A new Towong region walk I have published on VictoriaWalks walkingmaps: https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/5472
Shipwreck and Geology walk, Loch Ard Gorge
Here is a link to the latest walk I have published on VictoriaWalks walkingmaps https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/5485
Living on the Edge walk, Loch Ard Gorge
Here is a link to the latest walk I have published on VictoriaWalks walkingmaps https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/5484
Port Campbell Discovery Walk
Here is a link to the latest walk I have published on VictoriaWalks walkingmaps https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/5483
5 Good Things Only #01
1. A Grey Shrike Thrush sang for us from the verandah as we ate breakfast while a Scrub Wren scoured the brickwork and window frames for its own breakfast.
2. Starting a new book and enjoying it from page 1. Shadow Hawk by Andre Norton.
3. Listening to a Late Night Live podcast while exercising.
4. Deciding not to walk amongst undulating hills of grazing land in the wind and rain.
5. Deciding to walk in the shelter of Strathbogie Forest instead. The rain stopped when we got there. It didn’t resume until we returned to the car. Adding to the pleasure of being in the forest, we observed many Greenhood Orchids.
Mountains old
Mountains old worn down by time and weather Peaks smoothed Summits rounded Rocks broken to new beginnings Stones to gravel sand to granules dust to mud growth to decay decay to soil Inclined to slippage Declined to fertility Treacherous nurturing home of the tenacious Boon to the potency of flood plains Mountains old are so much more alive than the hard sharp ridges and strewn craggy defiles of the young
strathbogie poetry #strathbogiepoetry
strathbogie photography #strathbogiephotography
ABC Breakfast Radio interview
This morning’s interview with presenter Matt Dowling regarding my work on tracks and trails promotion in the Strathbogie region. Commences at 43.30minutes.
Natural world spaces
Natural world spaces beckon. A track, a trail, a waterway, a forest, a desert, a garden, a valley, a mountain, a park. They call on us to linger in place, to appreciate and contemplate. They feed our souls and refresh our minds. They represent and deliver the simplest pleasures of life, observing and feeling part of the interconnectivity of everything.
Rewilding: an urban beginning?
I recently read David Attenborough’s 2020 book, “A life on our planet: My witness statement and a vision for the future”. Ever since, I have been contemplating how on earth it will be possible to action the plans he outlines for preserving functional global climate systems, biodiversity, and saving ourselves from ourselves.
Rewilding is one solution Attenborough envisages. A small example may be when many urban neighbourhoods develop their own small forests and foster biolinks. The cumulative effect could be significant. Just as each relatively small piece of new built environment and mono cultural agribusiness diminishes our capacity to recover, each relatively small piece of new ecosytem and forest enhances it. See www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-56003562
Walking
As I head
toward the door
Questions
head my way
Where are you going?
Walking.
Where to?
It doesn’t matter, I say
Walking
a destination in its own right
Walking
the easiest way
we can fully engage
With the natural world
In walking
we place ourselves
at a new destination every minute
we escape ourselves
And we expose ourselves
to genuine experiences
of our surroundings
and the elements
on the human scale
What will you look for?
I smile
knowing whatever I look for
I will also find many things different
I don’t need to look
for anything in particular
because I will find
small parts of everything
Walking always takes me there
Wallaby Gully, Upton Hill has the cutest little stream.
poetography.ink 