A Drive in the Hills

One of the beautiful things about Melbourne is the surrounds it finds itself set in.  Probably what makes it one of the world’s most livable cities.  Perched on a sweeping bay, with sandy beaches just five minutes’ drive from the skyscrapers of the city centre.  With some of the world’s most dramatic coastline- the Great Ocean Road, for example- an hour to the south-west, while to the north lie ranges of small mountains and, closer to home, vineyards set in gentle countryside.

Directly north of the city, closer still, you find hilly farmland, where suburbs melt into the bush and become picturesque roadside towns engulfed in seas of grey-green gum-trees, where galas and cockatoos flit among the branches by day, and where kangaroos can be seen sipping from household ponds as the sun goes down.  Just half an hour’s drive from sprawling shopping malls like Westfields in Doncaster, the rural idyll couldn’t be more removed in atmosphere and setting.

I came up this way looking for something to photograph, just a few days back.  The winter afternoon was clear and the air was cool but refreshing.  I accidentally left my Melway (road map) at home- something I should do more often- as it meant that within fifteen minutes I was on roads I didn’t know.  That I found my way out of the maze that is the Northern Suburbs is in itself a miracle.

I’d love to tell you where I ended up, but truth be told I don’t actually know.  After getting onto one smallish country road, I turned down a gravel access road, and then down another, and quickly found myself wending my way down a narrow dirt trail lined by white eucalypts, while the late afternoon sun turned golden and flickered between tree-trunks, low above ridgelines quickly turning to silhouettes.  Mailboxes dotted every couple of miles along the pathway were hints to farmsteads set on rises out of sight of the road.  Green council recycling bins reminded me that although the bush felt isolated and in the middle of nowhere, I was still in easy access of the municipality.

After driving for a while and trying (unsuccessfully) to catch a shot of shafts of sunlight filtering through the dust in my wake, I came to the top of a hill and found this old wreck.  It was lying at the corner of a hilltop paddock just by the fence, nicely accessible, and I couldn’t resist lining up some shots.  Nearby was an old weatherboard shack also worthy of some photographs, but sadly the light wasn’t cooperating, so I focused on the vintage farm truck instead.

The light in fact did let me down- and these shots are courtesy of some graduated neutral density filters applied in post-processing which have allowed me to expose the darkened foreground without blowing out the sky (though a couple have used fill-flash as well).  The gentle evening light was lovely to look at and gave the countryside beyond a soothing feel.  The red colour of the rusting chassis set against green fields and landscape however is so striking, and I am determined to go back and find it again, when the light is fully on the vehicle and not lost behind the trees, hopefully reducing the need for as much work in post.  But for my first photoshoot out, I was quite pleased with the result, and was given a beautiful sunset to boot.  While I stood at another gate lining up the final shots of the day, a herd of grey kangaroos loped past to graze fifty yards away- they’re terribly tame, even in Melbourne’s environs.  I couldn’t obviously take any photos of them, lacking both the light and the telephoto lens, but it was a lovely moment to enjoy.

If I learned anything from my little excursion, it was a reminder of how much fun it was to get lost.  I must remember to leave my map at home more often…

In the Foothills

Although our trek through the Annapurna Conservation Area was all about the mountains (or at least, for me it was), the foothills had a beauty that was worth the passage in its own right.  We started our journey from the hamlet of Phedi, at the roadside running north away from Pokhara.  Up a staircase for a couple of hours to the little town of Dhampus, where we spent the first night, then on through the Maoist checkpoint and into Annapurna country proper.  The path varies, from winding, uneven staircases that break the heart on the way up and the knees on the way down, to overhung forests of rhododendron and other matted trees, dense and moist and cool out of the strong sunlight.  The path doesn’t stay on one level for more than a few minutes at a time.  No sooner have you crested one ridge than it’s time to plummet down into the next valley, and within a few minutes you’ve undone all the good climbing work you’ve sweated out for the previous three hours.

But this ‘gentle’ hill-country (gentle when compared to the fierce and sweeping heights of the Himalayan peaks that surround) is well worth it for its own sake.  The forests are full of life and sweet, clean air that fills the lungs.  The villages- each with its own tea-houses for weary trekkers- thrive off the back of the tourist trade, but have a benevolent simplicity about them.  Truth be told, despite the physical nature of the journey across these valleys, it’s quite a relaxing experience.  We’d start early in the morning, take a tea-break by ten, a ninety-minute lunch-break by noon, and be off the trail by three and looking for ways to fill our time outside another little guest-house, until the passing of the sun left us too cold to be outdoors again.  These Sherpas will tell you they’re all about the mountain-climbing, but I reckon they’ve gone soft… 

Day two, the afternoon after leaving Dhampus, we come across the panorama above.  Steep terraced hillsides notched into the slope with the contours, green and glowing beneath a clear blue sky.  Above it all, Annapurna South basks in the afternoon sunshine, and between it and its shoulder-peak Hiun Chuli, the crown of the gargantuan Annapurna I, 10th highest mountain on Planet Earth, can be made out just behind and to the right of Annapurna South, slightly masked by wisps of cloud. 

We spent the night just around the spur you see here, in the quaint little village of Landruk.  These lower villages have a certain charm that is lost higher up, in that these are genuine settlements in their own right, and although they take a huge portion of their income from the tourist trade, so too there are shopkeepers and farmers and herders and schoolteachers and children and all the other trappings of rural life.  I assume that living in a place like this, growing up beneath a mountain such as Annapurna, you become a little blasé about it.  I wonder if the villagers stop seeing it after a while?  But then, growing up in Switzerland I never tired of seeing Mt. Blanc towering behind the lake, so maybe they don’t.

From Landruk it’s another day to Chomrong, memorable for the two-thousand-step staircase that is Main Street.  I kid you not- there is over a vertical kilometre between the top of the town and the houses near the river at the bottom.  If you had to commute here you’d keep fit and healthy, no doubt about it.  From Chomrong inwards, virtually all of the settlements are seasonal, existing only to cater to trekkers, and once the winter snows roll in and the passes into the Annapurna Sanctuary close, they empty for the season.  Places like Bamboo, Deurali, and half a dozen other little blue-roofed hamlets spotted along the footpath that skirts the Modi Khola river between Machapuchare and Hiun Chuli.  These places are set in stark landscapes of rock and the dwindling forest as the altitude climbs.  Tall cliffs rise up around them and the scenery is striking.  They’re exciting to be sure.  But they have none of the beautiful simplicity and lush variety that makes the hill-country such a pleasure to trek through.

Photos:

1. Foothills: Terraces and homes as the trail approaches Landruk in the Annapurna Conservation Area.  Annapurna South (L- 7,219m), Annapurna I (C- 8,091m), Hiun Chuli (R-6,441m).

2. Chomrong Marigolds: Flowers frame Annapurna South and Hiun Chuli in early morning sunlight.  Minutes later we were descending 2,000 steps…

3. Annapurna Massif: The eastern arm of the Annapurna Himal is viewed from a ridgeline a little north of Dhampus.  Annapurna IV (7,525m) is the pointy bit at the leftwards edge, and Annapurna II (7,939m) is the giant bare-faced pyramid behind and to the right.  Lamjung Himal (6,931m) is the other prominent peak to the right side of the range.  It should be noted that the four Annapurnas are numbered not in any geographical location to one another (indeed there are a host of named peaks between Annapurna I and Annapurna II) but in descending altitude.