Nothing is so transient as a Tree I – IV

At the end of each day, I walk 5kms of narrow, winding bush tracks through the Briagolong Forest Red Gum Reserve, a remnant of what was once a vast grassy woodland of Gippsland Red Gum, (E. tereticornis sub. mediana) that stretched from the Strzelecki Ranges in the West to the Snowy River in the East. Here in this rigidly delineated reserve the trees are slowly regenerating from logging and land-clearing in the 19th century. However, alongside the densely growing trees, I also pass ghostly white fallen trunks, reminding me of the continuing, vulnerability of these critically endangered trees, so easily brought down by an unexpected gust of wind.