Dramatis persona*

helenhead Helen Chick

I've always wanted a bumper sticker that said "I'm a female, LDS/Mormon, Scout leading, geocaching, piano-playing, bicycling, mathematics educator with a PhD in maths ... and I VOTE"!

I think this makes me a minority group of cardinality 1!

* Since there's only one of me and "personae" is plural (I think), I've gone with dramatis persona.
March 2024
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An afternoon jaunt up Collins Cap

Easter Saturday dawned pleasantly, allowing me to take the APs for a morning drive (through interesting countryside, but I didn’t take photos). In the afternoon, having returned them home, the day became more spectacularly autumn blue mild, and I couldn’t let it go to waste. I threw some snacks, a drink, a map, some warm tops, my good camera and my tripod into the car, and headed up to Collinsvale. Having squeezed into the last remaining car parking place I loaded my gear and started up the Myrtle Forest track, its dense rainforest dark and gloomy despite the sunny day (it shelters on the southern side of a hill, and so loses the sun quite early).

I made my way steadily higher—well, unsteadily higher, as the track got steeper—and started to be rewarded with a little more sunshine and the beginnings of some great views of the Wellington plateau. It was a relief to come out at the top of the track (I was dripping sweat, and my glasses kept fogging up), but it was a false relief because there was still another 160m of vertical altitude change to go in order to reach the summit of my target: Collins Cap.

By now, though, the views were spectacular, and I reached the peak, with its big rock cairn, about 1.5 hours after setting off. I rewarded myself by taking lots of photos, having a couple of hot cross buns and a drink, and popping down over the side to find a geocache. In the photos below, the peaks of south-west Tasmania are in the far distance of the first couple of photos, and the prominent peak—that has a photo to itself in the fourth photo below and is the backdrop to the second of the selfies—is Collins Bonnet (why Collins had mountains named after his headwear is your responsibility to Google!).

The late afternoon sun and resulting shadows created interesting effects on the nearby slopes, and the views of Collinsvale below and the Derwent River in the distance were also impressive.

I started heading back at 4pm, finding the downhill much easier on the heart and lungs, but perhaps just as painful on the knees. A fire had obviously gone through some of the area, as there was a forest of dead trees which had its own stark beauty.

I had a couple of brief stops to try to get some waterfall photos, but the one annoying thing about the expedition was that both the batteries of my good camera were flat … so I had carried the good camera and tripod to the top to no avail. Fortunately I had also carried my good little camera, but it is limited in what it can accomplish by way of time exposures.

Although I suspect some of my muscles are going to complain tomorrow, I really needed this walk for some rejuvenating mountain/sky/green/water/rocks.

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