Autumn - Amazing Autumn

What can I say about Autumn ?? Except that for an Australian the experience is entrancing, absorbing, awe inspiring. We have been watching the trees gradually change colour, the flocks descend, snow fall and the days shorten, but nothing can quite prepare us for the experience of walking in the forest on a sunny day after snow on the peaks and rain in the valleys. A brilliant blue day, with the air so sharp and clear it hurts your eyes, distances are shortened and colours brightened, hard against each other, stark in relief. The forest - beech, pine, oak and ash, an awesome display of colour - yellow, gold, brown, russet, red and green, the ground covered in a deep, soft layer of leaves. Rocks and logs, covered with moss, bright green, almost iridescent in the sunlight, appear through the omnipresent leaf fall, every now and then through the trees silver water appears shining in the sun as it tumbles down the mountain. All the time, through the trees the peaks stand clear, white and close. If you stand or sit still you will see leaves falling softly and ever so quietly through the forest, leaving the branches high up, fluttering and floating silently to the ground.

High up above the tree line, where we walk the snow has melted and frozen again to cover the grass in clear cold ice. Izard are bounding above us as always and today, below us as well, they are moving down toward the forest as the snow arrives.

We come down later through the trees, the forest floor and the sound of our passing softened by the deep layer of leaves, afternoon sun slanting through the coloured trees bathing all the forest in a gentle golden light, long shadows, green, green rocks, water falling noisily through the trees - the whole forest is alive with the rain, the sun, the fresh, cool air and the change of autumn. I can feel the change as well, somewhere deep within and part of me is hurrying, seeking acorns to stash somewhere or at least firewood to store for the winter, attempting to take advantage of the dying light and the warmth.