Summer Alpine Walk Among Wildflowers

Hello Friends,

This is Part 2 of my walk in the Snowy Mountains. You can find Part 1 here.

Last week ( 6-9 February) I set off with two of my dear women friends for a camping and bushwalking adventure without children, something I have not done for about 25 years. I left behind the roles of mother/partner and was just myself for a few days.

Our base camp was at Thredbo Diggings, a wonderfully natural campground in the Snowy Mountains National Park, right on the Thredbo River. Being mid-Summer, the weather was mild enough to sleep under the stars (but we were prepared for anything, even snow!). The following days we would be up on top of the ridge we could see above the river (in the picture below), above the tree-line.

We collected dead wood (from outside the National park) for our campfire, and set up tents with a great view of the river. I slept under the stars and was kept awake by a marauding possum sorting noisily through our pots and pans looking for food. I wondered if he'd have the audacity to climb into my sleeping bag with me, as he'd come right up to sit at our camp table to help himself to our food as we ate our dinner!

A great river for a quick cold dip after a long hot walk...

A dragon fly...

A crow's nest...

Sitting in a snow gum...

The start of our trail...

Almost above the tree-line...

Mt Kosciuszko is at the far left. It doesn't look much higher than the surrounding mountains, because it's further away in these pictures.

I love the wide expanse of open sky... the clouds change all the time in the wind.

Granite rock sculptures covered in lichen...

A funnel web spider hole... no fingers down there thanks!

Rivers begin here at the top...

My favourite flowers - the blue bells. These are the biggest I've seen anywhere.

The flower below is one I thought of as an anemone, but I 

found out it is Muellers Snow Gentian (Chionogentias muelleriana).

What a beautiful bridal bouqet this would make!!!

I love the herbal smell as we tread through the alpine plants, (never stepping on flowers, of course!). Such a fresh and unique scent - though I feel guilty treading even on the grasses, but they are so hardy.

Looking up to the top of Mt Kosciuszko, you can hardly make out a few dots of people on top.

I love the papery everlasting daisies...

A hollowed-out granite bowl...

Paper daisies in drifts at the foot of Mt Kosciuszko...

Some yellow daisies too...

So windy up here on the highest point of Australia -Mt Kosciuszko!!!

We walked 35 kilometres in two days. I was a bit sore afterwards, but it was worth it!

Old worn fence posts from the days when cattle were brought up to the high country to graze before the National Park protected it...

A few fresh  snow daisies...

Looking back over the start of our walk...

 The friendly duck at our base camp...

Driving home up the coast for 4 hours, a rainbow graced the sky...

Thanks Annie and Mini for a great walking trip!

Thank you, friends, for joining me on my journey...

Hugs,
Jesse XXX

Work Always - Day 21

A work of art is a world in itself,

reflecting senses and emotions of the artist’s world.

Hans Hofmann

Art is a spiritual path for some, a way to reflect on what is within us, and on what is important in our lives, a way to grow. We need to commune, to communicate with others. Speaking words calls for a listener, just as an author longs to be read, and just as making art calls for a viewer. We can be own listener or our own viewer (as in a diary) and this can be all the purpose of our art. But when someone else shares this communication with us we feel “listened to”. One comment is enough for me to feel that someone has listened, and the satisfaction of seeing my blog grow with an archive of my own work helps too.

If we have the opportunity to have many comments or be featured somewhere (like a gallery exhibition) we feel affirmed, that we have said through our art something timeless and beautiful, or relevant to others. I'd be proud of that, but it's the process of becoming myself that's most important, and seeing how my work is changing and growing with me as I learn more techniques and sensibilities.

The artists I choose to be my guides or inspiration (like you, Kim!) help us begin the process, but it's those who take it further to produce something uniquely their own who are truly artists. I feel that I'm in the 'copying the master' stage, but the skills I am learning excite me and give wings to my own ideas.

Kim's excerpt from Julia Cameron's Artist Way is a relief:

'As artists we wish we could always work well, but we must settle for always. The 'always' we can control. The 'well' we cannot control. For this reason, we do well simply to serve, to focus more on the process of doing our work than on the 'product' of work produced.'

So here is a treasure of my heart...