Bushtracks Summer 2026
When we get the chance to celebrate real wins for nature, we must savour them. Reflecting on the year past, there is so much to be proud of and so much to launch us into the year ahead.
Before I speak of light and ridgelines and silence, I want to pause and acknowledge that this land is not “wilderness”, it is Country.
My ‘happy place’ is the summit saddle of Mount Speculation, which lies within the Traditional Lands of the Dhudhuroa, Taungurung, Jaithmathang peoples, and among others whose connections continue today. Mount Speculation is located 276 kilometres north-east of Melbourne.
Places here hold meanings, stories, and responsibilities. Its peaks, gullies and winds, are all shaped by ancestral memory, by custodianship, by generations of care. To walk here is to follow in the footsteps of First Peoples. I pay respects to Elders past and present, and to the continuing culture and knowledge that reminds us that land speaks in other languages, ways that are not always visible.
After a steady 20-minute climb from Camp Creek, I reach the saddle, and the hush becomes absolute. The land unfolds in every direction: ridgelines fold away to the horizon, distant peaks are etched against the blue, and the sky curves overhead like a vast, patient dome.
I try to get there at the suspended hour before sunset. The sun leans low, pouring gold and rose across the ridges. Shadows draw long, the wind softens, the high-country exhales.
At that altitude, as I watch Wedge-tailed Eagles (Aquila audax) trace invisible thermals, I feel small in the best possible way. Not diminished but realigned. All the noise of ordinary life seems to drop away. The earth looks vast, old, and entirely unconcerned with your deadlines. And that’s the gift, that sense of scale, of humility.
Even in a place characterised by weather and wind, there’s a hush that feels almost deliberate. A calm tension. You become aware of your own breath, the rhythm of your pulse, the weight of your body grounded in the earth.
Each time I descend, I carry something invisible but lasting. A sense of humility, of renewal. The altitude stays in the spirit, the sky’s wideness lingers, the hush rests quietly within.
When I speak of my ‘happy place’, I mean a place that joyfully whispers: “You are small, but you are alive. You are brief, but you belong.”
Roger is a lifelong Bush Heritage supporter who has generously decided to leave a gift in his Will to the organisation. To learn more about leaving a lasting legacy for our landscapes, and native plant and animals, please visit our Gifts in Wills page.
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