Whilst much of the east coast of Australia is assulted by incessant rain, floods and storms and the West Coast has received some of their highest Summer temperatures on record and are now battling bushfires, I am reminiscing about mild Tasmanian Summers….. I spent one mild Summer morning wandering through Mt Field National Park home of many waterfalls, stunning Alpine flora and the tallest flowering plants in the world. What I would give to be back there now.

These Eucalypts can reach up to 100m tall popping above the canopy of rainforests in Tasmania and Victoria. The trunk is smooth and sheds in long thin stringy bark strips, the base is rough and wide. It is the bases that really struck me, they widen out and anchor into the earth, covered with moss and fungi, hosting a whole microcosm of life at eye level.

They have historically been used as pulp for paper in Tasmania and also for building, so of course forests of these giants are now few and far between. They are a novelty and people travel from all over the world to see the last of these stands.

Eucalyptus regnans and Dicksonia Antartica

Mt Field National Park also has its fair share of Water Falls, due to the alpine slopes of the ski fields, water is everywhere.

Creeks and rivers bubble alongside the walking tracks and small lakes are a plenty up on the mountain (more of that later) they are gentle in movement and sound.

I am not usually a Rainforest person, my appreciation tips more towards the scraggly Alpine regions or the exposed wind blown coastal heathlands but something about these trees combined with the equally majestic Dicksonia antartica got under my skin this time. There is a calm in the cool climate rainforest which is hard to attain elsewhere.