Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Today’s photo was taken in October 2018.
On an overcast afternoon in Victoria’s “high country”, my beloved and I stood beside a fast-flowing stream, downhill (and circa 20 ks distant) from the summits of Mount Hotham et al, but still well above foothills and plains.
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The photo above looks down from Atilt Fort’s ramparts to the Hunza River.
Discover more here; more than one thousand years old, the now well-restored fort is the oldest “monument” in Hunza.
The Hunza River is part of the Indus River’s catchment.
Wherever one looks in the Hunza Valley, the vistas are almost unimaginably “epic”.
Among viewpoints that are easily-reached, those on the lower of the Hunza Valley’s almost-parallel rims are especially stupendous, particularly when no clouds obscure any part of its higher rim…and the most colossal of the mountains which tower above it.
At 7,778 metres, Rakaposhi’s is “only” this planet’s 27th highest-altitude peak.
However, as its Wikipedia entry declares:
The mountain is extremely broad, measuring almost 20 kilometres (12 mi) from east to west. It is the only peak on earth that descends directly and without interruption for almost 6,000 meters from its summit to its base.
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The featured image was not shot in monochrome.
Its colour palette is accurate; if my camera had looked straight up rather than almost straight down, the image would have largely been blue, flecked with white and grey.
I took the photo in a “remote” part of northern Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan province in May 2024.
What appears to be a rock is a rock; I have no idea of its mass, but am sure it would weigh at least several tonnes.
In the context of the relevant valley, however, that rock is a speck!
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If one were to stand atop the summit of Manakau – the Seaward Kaikoura Range’s highest peak – one would be 2,608 metres above the Pacific Ocean.
In a straight line, that Ocean’s shore would be just 12 kilometres away.
Rivers that rush down steep mountains and then meander across a coastal plain, do not flow in straight lines, but the Kaikoura’s rivers are all very short.
If I have correctly identified the pictured one, it is very steep indeed – descending 1,900 metres in just 26 kilometres!
(Australia’s longest river – the Murray – descends 1430 metres, over more than 2,500 kilometres)
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Unavoidably, a helicopter “joyride” is noisy, expensive, brief.
However, over several decades, every one I have undertaken has been a wonderful experience.
On the afternoon of 14 July 2010 our luck was “bad” – too-strong winds arrived ahead of “schedule”, so our eagerly-anticipated “landing in the snow” was ruled out.
It was, nonetheless, a glorious flight…all less-than-thirty minutes of it.
Comments closedThe featured image was taken from a modest altitude, as “our” helicopter was returning to its base, not far from Kaikoura township.
My photo shows the less spectacular (landward) end of Kaikoura Peninsula and town, the bay on the far (southern) side, and the hills (Australians would call them “mountains”) behind it.
Inland from town and peninsula, the northern side of the local terrain is very much more spectacular, especially in winter and spring.
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A suggestion to anyone lucky enough to be standing – with camera in hand – atop a suitably elevated vantage point, contemplating an “epic” alpine landscape:
don’t forget to remember that your “grand panorama” photo may well benefit enormously from it including what is immediately in front of your feet!
One CommentAfter days of almost-continuous rain the clouds suddenly lifted…and the nation’s two highest peaks revealed themselves.
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