Discussion»Questions»Death and Dying» Do you prefer to look at pics of mountain scenes or actually be in one? It 's not all fun and games, but it is exhilarating.
I love looking at them, Ansell Adams' photos and all the rest - heart stoppers.
Many might call our mountain a molehill - poo-poo it. Or that's what the American ex-Buddhist monk Alan Clements did when he came to stay with us. For him, nothing could touch the Rockies or a Hawaiian volcano.
Maybe our mountain seems tame - it's not - it has plenty of dangers - but it has its compensations. Most of the plants evolved in the era of dinosaurs - so they have exotic shapes and attributes that one will find nowhere else. The mountain is a teacher. One learns something new about oneself every time one climbs it.
Wollumbin is only one kilometre high - time and weather have worn it down to half its original height. It takes a mere half a day through thick old-growth rainforest to reach the top. Not to be tried in a storm. A couple died one night when lightning struck their tent. The last 50 metres is a near vertical basalt plug requiring the aid of a heavy chain to pull oneself up.
The Githabul elders call it Wollumbini Wollomi, which means Scrub Turkey's nest. In the Dreaming, the Scrub Turkey scraped out the valley floor and piled the earth up into the mountain so his hen could lay her eggs in it. Then a warrior speared him in the head and he died there. It was a place for the burial of the dead and for the spring Midgin Berry festival or corroboree.
Wollumbin is an extinct shield volcano surrounded by the cliffs of a crescent caldera, the first place to catch the rays of the sun at dawn in Australia. One morning the sun lights it so it looks like a burning ember in a fire. Another, a soft silk scarf of cloud wraps around the peak and trails off to one side - lit to an apricot glow. No two mornings, no two moments are the same. There's no place one can go in our Tweed Valley without the presence of the mountain in one's sight.
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More Info on Border Ranges National Park
nimbinweb.com.au
Tweed Caldera, Wollumbin National Park ...
This post was edited by inky at July 5, 2019 9:16 PM MDT
A picture is worth a thousand words but being there is worth many thousands of pictures. Get out there!
This post was edited by CallMeIshmael at July 5, 2019 9:17 PM MDT
Element 99 
