Life
-
New Year, New Tree
For more than 12 months I had this scrap of paper under a magnet on my fridge. “What’s this?” visitors would ask, and tug at the note covered with my scribbly writing. “Oh, just some random sketchy details about how to find a tree.” “A tree?” “Yeah. You know what I’m like, it’s another tree I’d like to visit.” My obsession has led to thousands of photos, and hundreds of kilometres of travel with sore feet, aching muscles, and even broken bones. But I have a particular fondness for oaks; my beloved Quirkus. I grew up squeezing through this little gap in my hometown to hug the oak inside, and when…
-
Do You See What I See?
We moved to the side of the track, rested on some cold rocks, and pulled our water bottles from the backpack. Stew and I had left the impressive Hooker Lake, complete with icebergs and iridescent blue water from the Hooker Glacier, a few kilometers behind us. Shadowing the valley, Aoraki (Mt Cook), looked imposing even in this low snowfall winter. The mild snow season meant that instead of crunching through a valley of snow on the South Island of New Zealand, we were enjoying a vista of tussock grasses, under a bright but cold sky. “Whoa! Check that out!” Stew pointed to the snow-capped mountain in the distance. “What?”…
