Sunday, June 15, 2008

Getting high

Women blocking the aisles in men’s clothing shops: stop treating your hubby like your own little personal teddy bear and get out of my way!! He’s old enough and big enough to buy his own clothes, surely! OK rant over, though I could start moaning about the challenges of finding summer holiday clothes in the midst of a southern hemisphere winter. And what’s so great about Fyshwick Fresh Food markets when half the ingredients you want aren’t even there!

Sounds like someone needs to cool off, and the best way to do this is to head to the mountains. While the Australian Alps may not measure up to any other “Alps” in this world, they are bigger than anything in Britain and pretty much begin to the southwest of Canberra, which itself is higher than the highest point on Dartmoor. I headed to Boboyan Trig in Namadgi National Park, which climbs to a lofty altitude of 1459 metres, greater than Ben Nevis. And a pleasant, if somewhat bracing spot it is too.



From a car park off a dirt road the walk leads through a variety of vegetation – a swathe of Peppermint Gum leading down to swampy grassland and then rising up through Snow Gums to a sparsely vegetated bluff, battered by cool southerly winds and opening up a view to the mountains all around. It’s a lonely spot… the kind of place where unwary British tourists go missing!! The only other life seems to be the numerous wombat tracks, although even these were in hiding.

Life and warmth returned back down in the valley, in fact, so much life that I had to stop the car a couple of times to let a huge flock of Cockatoos and Galahs pass. With all the noise and cackling it was like being in that clothes shop all over again!

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