Travel

Winter Wonderland in Overland, Tasmania

The overland Track in Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain is one of the most beautifully scenic, nature-immersing hikes you can possibly do. It will reset you into the rhythm and awe of nature. I went in late April when the Tanglefoot Fagus, an endemic deciduous beech endemic to the Tassie highlands leaves were turning and littered the track like orange & yellow snowflakes.

The weather is always unpredictable and we had snow, rainbows, rain, sleet and sunshine. It does not matter , it is beautiful in all the moods and shifts your focus and how you observe your surrounds. We walked for 6 days amongst forests of Sassafras, Celery Top Pine, King Billy, Needle Pine, Pandani, & Myrtle and plains of Button grass , lemon-scented Boronia, Cushion plant, Mountain Pepper & endless lichen & mosses. My goal was to be able to look at the mass of green of the dense forest and be distinguisd the different tree species as we finished the hike boarding a boat on to glacier Lake St Claire. And that i could do.

I concocted a perfume inspiration to make one day to capture the scent of my time in the high country

SCENT

Water | rain

Mushrooms - fungus

Oakmoss - lichen

Juniper Berry - celery top G&T tree

Black pepper - native pepperberry

Cedar - pencil pine

Boronia - lemon scented

Earth - mud

Creeping pine (strawberry)

Cider gum - alcoholic like Cointreau

Stringy bark - camphor

Sassafras- nutmeg, aniseed, vanilla, licorice

BOTANICAL OBSERVATIONS

Sassafrass - nutmeg, sarsaparilla - once used for pegs and fine furniture King Billy’s grow 1cm per year Lemon scented boronia Celery top tree - smells like G&T, can grow for 800 years and was used for boatbuilding

Mountain Ash Blackwood Tarns - small Rivers Pencil pine smells like cedar pencils hence name, family Cypress Oakmoss essence is made from lichen Stringy bark is Tas Oak , grows to 90m Tas snow peppermint is the one with the coloured bark (not actually a gum)

Necklace Sheoak Myrtle - lichens & moss love these trees and are in rainforest , can gage over 50 specimens on them Native rosemary

Needle Hakea Native currant Grasses -wet Lichen is a fungus & algae combo

Native pepperberry Old mans beard Tanglefoot (Fagus)- deciduous Beech

Tasmanian waratah Cushion plant - ancient plant , grows 1/2cm per year Moorlands

Grasslands Alpine herbfields Buttongrass

COLOUR OBSERVATIONS

Pink

Coral

lake

Celadon

Payne’s grey

Ochre red

Ochre orange

Every shade of green

I went with Tasmanian walking Co.

Shop the Look

Keep Reading

Travel