The open road: there’s no tonic like it. Today I drove out of the urban sprawl, past the strip malls and industrial estates, into the farmland and vineyards of the Yarra Valley. I wound up past wee small villages greeting the chill autumn day with tendrils of blue wood smoke and leaves turned orange, up to Warburton where the Yarra River runs clear over shallows, up into the ferny Yarra Ranges National Park where the trees tower straight and bark-dripping. And there I found clouds and slushy dirt road and the chill, surreal silence of standing in mist. The only thing to spoil that ascent was the knowledge that what goes up must come down; that when the metaphorical clouds lift, the mountain remains.

I suspect I’ll be seeing more of Warburton and its mountains and streams and highway townships in the not too distant future. Here are some pictures of why.