I wend my way up to the Central Plateau, creeping up from the farmlands on a series of hairpins, onto the Highland Lakes Road. A truck is plowing this high country highway, its scraping against the tarmac echoing between the mountains of the Great Western Tiers.
Projection Bluff is one of the dolerite summits of this range, a ramp of rock littered with scree. A narrow track sneaks away from the roadside, through wet forest, up to the summit. On a winter’s day like this one, snow hangs from the branches. Myrtle and sassafras trees wear burls of the stuff. In the dolerite’s many clefts, daggers of ice hang. Even fungi wears frozen little crystals.
A walker on this route will get damp boots, damp hair, damp everything. I wore shorts; I always wear shorts. My legs go pink from cold, but my torso is well-covered, waterproofed, and warm enough.
There is snow around, but it is not snowing. It’s a mild day. In the lowlands, the snow is a rumour: hints of its presence come in the chill of the breeze. For the most part, people in Tasmania live at low altitudes, near the coast, and don’t see much snow, even though mountains are omnipresent on this island, and frequently wear a white garnish. From the major towns, we often see the snow atop Ben Lomond, kunanyi, Black Bluff. They look like wedding cakes.
I did little mountain adventuring in my younger years and I didn’t see much snow. Nowadays I see it often enough. Beneath my boots, it crunches, it squeaks, it groans like old timber beams. Sometimes it blows in hard. I find flakes in the stubble of my moustache. Sometimes it accentuates the dark chocolate hues of dolerite, the gallant greens of rainforest. Sometimes it erases the landscape. It is magic. Snow is magic.
Working in Tasmania’s high country, I am lucky to see all seasons within the span of a few hours, and summer brings its fair share of snow. It is not always comfortable; it can be dangerous. But snow’s textures and movement contribute much to the whole of the Tasmanian landscape.
Once, on top of a neighbouring mountain – Ironstone Mountain – I, hung over, traipsed with heavy steps into soft piles of snow, pulling up handfuls and sucking on them to reduce my dehydration. The tiny footprints of a juvenile Tassie devil tracked off beyond the summit’s cairn. The appearance of such delicate grace embarrassed me.
Winter: the furs of wallabies and wombats grow thick. In the crevices between rocks, water freezes, and pushes the columns of rock apart, forcing the slow inexorable decay of mountains. If at home, I’ll pile the wood-heater high; golden timber will turns to purplish smoke and rove off into the treetops.
And the bushwalkers are heavy-laden. They take all precautions, they pull out the four-season tents and the thickest down sleeping-bags. Hopefully they have a better car than I do for driving on the mountain roads. Wintry conditions require a little more attention, but attention is something we have much to give. It costs us nothing to notice the finery of snow-limned leaves, of droplets on a spider’s architecture of gossamer, of the flat light of winter on a landscape of tarns and stones.
On this particular day, my mate and I get to the top of Projection Bluff, and the plateau stretches out before us. The westerlies barrel towards us, thrash the teflon of our jackets, whip around our bare, skinny legs. Below, the farms are calm and yellow, the rows of blue hills rolled off into the distance. We crouch behind a boulder for a quick lunch. It is winter, and magnificent.
Bert Spinks grew up in Beaconsfield and is now, mostly, a resident of Launceston. He is a writer, storyteller and bushwalking guide, each of which feed and reflect his interest in the way human communities interact with place and landscape. He focuses especially on journeys and movement, language and literature. Although based in Launceston, Bert spends much of his time without a home because he is in one of the world's wild or interesting places pursing local lore.
