Visiting the wilderness

Just got back from Tasmania and Sydney. Liked tasmania a lot more. The highlight of the trip was "walking" around Cradle Mountain.

Walking is a term we who live in city-state use to refer to short visits to the toilet, strolling down a shopping mall or that hurried spurt to catch a bus. The "walks" at Cradle Mountain were not quite walks in that sense ... more like hikes and treks I think. Anyway I was already mentally prepared for this as I had learnt on my honeymoon last year that a "walk" isn't "a walk" (I had said to Ms Tan early one morning at the Lake District - Let's go for a walk - and we ending up "walking" for five hours, scrambling up rocks and navigating streams etc ...)

So on the first night we were there (Ms Tan, my mom, a friend and myself) we went for a "walk" around Dove lake which sits at the foot of Cradle Mountain. It's supposed to be one of the most famous and beautiful walks in the world and was thoroughly enjoyable. The vegetation was unique and at every point of the walk you would just catch a spetacular view of the lake. It was drizzling and about 7 pm so the mist was coming in as well, enhancing the whole atmosphere. The walk was a leisurely 6km circuit round the lake so peaceful and scenic you felt you didn't need to think a lot more about running in the rat race.

The next day we went back to Cradle Mountain and attempted a more challenging "walk". This one involved some pretty demanding rock climbing ... yes we did scramble on all fours at points. But my mom who turned 60 on that day amazingly completed the walk and made it to this high point called Marion's Lookout (they have names fro everything ...) Going down was less tiring but really quite treacherous. Being a sun filled day we got an excellent view of Cradle Mountain and the Lake. We walked for four hours plus so it was quite a good workout as well. Would have liked to negotiate Cradle Mountain itself - a 7 hour trek - but didn't have the time or right company.

Was highly impressed by all these middle aged - old people (all Caucasian) trekking with camp equipment and REALLY HEAVY packs. They were planning to walk for several days in the mountains. Really admire their daring.

Anyway - left really thinking about how the beauty of the landscape transforms an individual's view of life. If you live amongst the immenisty of nature - you'll see things in a very different perspective. The pace of life slows down - how fast you walk doesn't really matter cause the immensity of the landscape swallows up speed. Maybe I'll try to study at the U of Tasmania ... sometime in the receding future ...