Time to test and set up the new bike

I’ve christened the new bike The Steinbock

The name of a Bavarian Ibex

Im sure you can see the resemblance!

So the best place to test the Steinbock is in the trails of the mountains

Close to home on the trails of Otway ranges of Victoria

Where just of the Mount Sabine Trail is the beautiful Lake Elisabeth

But the real test for the Steinbock was on the high planes of the Mount Kosciusko National Park

Amongst the kangaroos and the wild horses

I was so glad to see that my favourite high country camp ground had been spared the 2019 bushfires

The Ghost Gully campsite is named by the stands of beautiful Ghost Gums that ring the campground

A couple of families with their horses were also sharing the campsite and we soon got to talking and sharing a cup of tea around the camp fire

Bushfires are such fickle things

While the Ghost Gully campground and the rest of the Long Plane were untouched by the fires

Just across the Snowy Mountains Highway the Yarrangobilly Caves reserve was badly burnt

But it was heartening to see the forest regeneration down at the thermal pool

And the caves totally spectacular

I was starting to feel the power and agility of the Steinbock both on the tarmac and on the loose and gravelly roads.

It’s a bike that asks to be ridden so I couldn’t stop here.

but that is for the next post!

A little walk in an old wild place

There is something about escaping to an old growth forest

A wild place

On a hot summers day and the beaches are crowded

There is something special about the cool air of a mountain

and a shade walk in an old growth forest

The view from the look out at the summit Mount Donnna Buang is a panorama across the top of Melbourne’s Yarra Ranges.

The summit walks are amongst alpine forests

Ghost gums and snow gums well spaced with low ferns and scrub

Even the remnants of an old alpine hut can be found.

Half way down the mountain the transition from alpine forest to temperate rain forest is complete

Giant mountain ash dominate the forest, along with myrtle beech

Along the gullies and waterways the tree ferns spread the wing like fronds

Parks Victoria provide some fantastic interpretation in Victoria’s parks. These two pieces I particularly liked.

There is something about being all at sea

The phrase ‘all at sea’

Comes from a time past, where ship navigation was much less certain

No GPS or accurate weather forecasts

I learnt to sail in the pre GPS days

In days of dead reckoning, bearing compases, cocked hats, noon sights, star sights and sextant

And you best friend was a lighthouse

At the entrance to ports, like the Point Lonsdale Light at the entrance to Port Phillip

Or looming large over dangerous headlands

Like at Cape Liptrap

Or at Cape Schank

While at sea

Companions at sea are the sea birds, terns, shearwaters and gannets

And of course the playful dolphins

Then finding that safe harbour

Or the sheltered cove

Birds Rocks Anchorage, Waratah Bay, Victoria Australia

Its good to be all at sea again.

A new year and a time to revisit an old past time

March last year the yacht Futura after 30 years ownership, past into anothers hands.

I thought my sailing days were over

But a chance to crew with friends means that the 2021 adventures start on the bright blue sea.

Sailing down the channels Port Phillip

Past ships waiting at anchor

Keeping a weather eye

Before entering into Queenscliff the beautiful small boat harbour near Port Phillip Heads.

After a beautiful seaside sunset it a day for some final checks then out into Bass Strait.

Dreaming of Bunjil the Eagle and all eagles

The panorama from the Bunjil lookout at Maude north of Geelong takes in a valley in the Barabool Hills where the Moorabool river has cuts its path

Bunjil the Eagle is the dream time creator of the lands and the people that traditionally inhabited the land now known as Victoria Australia

Bunjil is depicted as a Wedge Tailed Eagle, Australia’s largest bird of prey

A majestic bird in flight

The lookout Bunjil Lookout is shaped like an eagle its powerful bill in front and the huge wingspan behind

Many decades ago the air over the Barabool hills would be full of soaring wedge tailed eagles but after years of European settlement the great bird is listed ad threatened in Australia

I parked my Moto Guzzi in front of the look out

The emblem of Moto Guzzi is the eagle, a mythical eagle inspired possibly by the Golden Eagles that live in the mountains that surround Lake Como, the home of Moto Guzzi.

And looking at the two emblems together I could not help but think of how eagles have inspired us through the ages from the Dreamtime of the oldest culture on earth to the modern machine age

And despite this inspiration, this fascination the awe which these mighty birds install in us

We don’t treasure them, but have hunted eagles over centuries, destroyed their habitat and threatened the beautiful birds that are so inspirational.

The old gold mining town of Steiglitz is an interesting stop to look at an old settlement village

And in contrast to the indigenous names of Barabool and Morrabool the is the sister villages of Maude, Meredith and Elaine the run from south to north through the hills.

A stop in Geelong for a coffee and the view over the bay that was created in the dreamtime by Bunjil the Eagle.

On the Umbrial Pass in the Stelvio Region of the Italian Alps

There is a memorial to the to the Italian Aviators of WW1

And at the crown of the monument is the Golden Eagle in flight

Carlo Guzzi and his co-founders of Moto Guzzi were veterans of the Italian WW1 airforce.

And maybe that is their affinity with the eagle and how it found its way to being the emblem of the Moto Guzzi motorcycle.