Read, Write, Ramble

 It’s been just over a year since my mum died. Recently, with the sale of her home about to reach settlement, and the headstone on the grave she shares with her husband of 55 years, reworded to the satisfaction of my children and I, I decided it was time to reopen the boxes Tess and I had so carefully packed and labelled early last summer. So much of what Edna had owned – and there was a lot of ‘stuff’ – had already been distributed to local op shops, a huge January garage sale, failing to move many of her possessions and clothes on to new and loving homes. In this era of ‘downsizing’ and ‘decluttering’ it should not have come as a surprise that people just didn’t want more ‘stuff’. Financial times are such that many people no longer have the disposable income to spend at garage sales, no matter how low the prices are, and they know if they   wait long enough, they will eventually   be able to acquire them, or something similar, free on local ‘free stuff’ Facebook group...

 Anyone who knows me, knows I  love to read, but that is a superficial statement. What I love is to surround myself with books and the stories within them. When I read, I want to lose myself in the world the author has created in the pages of the book. I want to be absorbed by the story. While I am in those pages, the rest of my life should be subsumed by the life in the book, whether it be a classic like Pride and Prejudice, which takes me on a journey to an unfamiliar past; a Jane Harper crime story set in the harsh Australian outback with clever and unexpected twists; or a Trent Dalton ‘love’ story, exploring the importance of human connection in its many forms.    Not only do I cherish books and reading, I prefer to hold the physical book in my hands and turn the pages myself, an old fashioned notion I know, but for me, there is something visceral about reading the last word on a page and hanging onto that as I turn the page to find the subsequent word and see ...

  Retakunna Hut to Fortescue Bay   via Cape Hauy – 14 km ‘You may seek, but you will not necessarily find!’ And suddenly, it was day 4, our last day on this magnificent adventure. We were awake early and watched the sunrise from the deck of the camp kitchen with our coffees in hand.   We then breakfasted and packed and were on our way by 7:30am, despite being booked on the latest bus out of Fortescue Bay, we wanted to savour every minute of this final day on the track. The day promised sunshine and no rain. We had ample time to walk the 14kms up and over Mt. Fortescue, out to the end of Cape Hauy and back, and reach Fortescue Bay in time for a swim before our 4pm bus back to Hobart via Port Arthur. No rushing involved; a perfect plan! As we had done previously, our intention was to stop at each of the sculptural seats along the way and read their accompanying stories from the guidebook. But even with the best intentions, although we sought to locate all of them,...

  Munro Hut to Retakunna Hut via Cape Pillar – 19 km ‘Life is too short for a cold breakfast’ Today was to be our biggest day distance-wise, but in many ways one of the easiest, as we could leave our big packs behind at Munro and take a day pack with us for the 16 km ‘out and back’ section to the tip of Cape Pillar. We were up early at 6am, Tess and I packing up the bunks while Phi did the all-important work of preparing the coffees, which we then carried out to the helicopter pad to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately the cloud cover made the sunrise a little less than spectacular, but we did enjoy watching the local pair of sea eagles soaring overhead, and we were pleased to see that the rain from the previous day had dispersed. In accordance with Tess’s philosophy that ‘life is too short for a cold breakfast!’ we heated the milk and enjoyed our muesli before making lunch, packing the remainder of our belongings and heading out for the longest day yet. Stashing our big packs...