Waypoints
LIZ ROBINSON
The times I’ve had in these boots! Crazy tussock-hopping on flooded buttongrass plains, mud past our knees, drunk with love, altitude and light.
And remember climbing Feathertop, to watch the sun go down beyond range upon range of mountains, then dining from the billy like kings, the blue-black sky as deep as eternity.
These stains? Contour lines – gradients on a large-scale map: here’s the slog up Mount Terrible where I cursed, sweated and stank, each step gritty with resentment.
Here are scrapes from the boulder-field on Cradle where I finally gave up the ascent, bracing my feet on the sun-warmed dolomite, higher than wedgetails and hanging lakes, Ossa’s escarpments smudged with cloud.
My stride’s shorter now, joints ache and these soles are slick as wet rock.…
