We recently asked MJ readers to write about their favourite local mountain, why they are special, and why they matter.

Here is the first one we have received: from John McRae, who was a park ranger in the ACT for 17 years. His reflection is on Tidbinbilla.

My Tidbinbilla

Tidbinbilla is one of the most beautiful places in the Australian Alps. A broad valley, bound by an amphitheatre of mountains and limned by an enchanted sky. It has the unmistakable aura of deep time, as though the millions of years it took to create, have become potions in the air. Potions distilled by trees that pulse through your body as you breath. You don’t get that in a gym! I’ve been going to Tidbinbilla for decades now and am addicted to those potions. And as this uncivilized world becomes ever more unhinged, that addiction grows stronger. There is something transcendent about being in those ancient mountains.

Every season has its treats. In Winter, the peaks are often snow covered and lyrebird song reverberates across the valley. Spring is the time of wildflowers and dazzling rainbows. In summer, migrating bogong moths arrive on the summits and ravens gather to feast. Best of all, are the tranquil blue skies of Autumn. The season of magical stillness.

The broad valley, the mountains and the annual cycles make Tidbinbilla a haven for wildlife. There are days when you’ll see a dingo chasing down a kangaroo; a platypus backstroking through a billabong; a rakali sunbaking on a midden of carapace and claw. Days when you’ll see a Peregrine falcon stoop at 300 kmph or a Wedge-tailed eagle in a dogfight with a magpie. I’ve had countless ‘Attenborough moments’ at Tidbinbilla and yet there at still days when I’m left speechless and by something new and wonderful.

 

If I had to name a favourite place, it would be the sky-chair. To get there is a tough 600m climb from the Mountain Creek trailhead on a walk called ‘Short n Brutal’ (it’s both). It starts in lush forest, where ferns, mosses, and fungi grow along spring fed cascades. Then it branches onto a steep spur that climbs up through a mix of Peppermint, Ribbon Gum and Brown Barrel. These eventually yield to pure stands of snow gum. The sky-chair is perched on a rock ledge just below the ridge. It’s the highest chair in the ACT and has cracking views. No better place to catch your breath, sip coffee and stare aimlessly into the distance.

Above the sky-chair, the track continues onto a route called Mindjagari. This is a new version of an old track that was largely obliterated by regrowth after the 2003 bushfires. It meanders through sub-alpine woodland for several kilometres, passing over all the major peaks on the northern ridge. It’s hard to believe that all that granite was once molten rock encased in sediment beneath an ocean. What we see today feels like it’s been there forever. It hasn’t. It took aeons for nature to sculpt, and she’s still chipping away.

The brutality of the climb followed by the sheer grandeur of the traverse feels exhilarating every time. Even when that corralled sky conjures a storm from clouds that weren’t there five minutes ago, it just adds to the thrill.

Those mountains are my spiritual home. Whatever the slings and arrows of daily life, they pale in this place of deep time. Tidbinbilla is my healer and my counsel. I go there to grieve and to celebrate; to remember and to forget; to face demons and to vanquish them. It’s a place where I can refill my soul when this frenetic world has sucked it dry. But mostly, I just go there for a fix of potions and to practice my thousand-yard stare from the comfort of the sky-chair.

John McRae

Link to trail notes: https://www.tidbinbilla.act.gov.au/do/mindjagari-track

Who Am I?

I was a park ranger in the ACT for 17 years. At various times I was Ranger in Charge at Namadgi, Manager of the Australian Alps Program and Senior Ranger at Tidbinbilla. Towards the end of my career, I was the manager of Tidbinbilla. Despite pandemic, bushfire and flood, those final wild years were the best of times shared with the best of people. I am retired now, but I still visit Tidbinbilla nearly every week.