Rubicon riding and recoveries

(and a rejection that I won't mention).

It was up over the Black Spur early this morning, after a sleepover at my sister’s, for a ride in the ever so beautiful Rubicon Valley.
For a long time, this was a pretty depressing drive because of the devastation wreaked by the fires that went through the Marysville/Kinglake / Healesville area, and many, many other places, back in February 2009. Everything was dead, there were blackened ruins where there had once been houses and melted cars along the roadside. Even now, even though the bush is regenerating at an amazing rate and towns and homes have risen from the ashes, once over the Black Spur, you only have to look up to see, along the ridges and hill crests, kilometer after kilometer of tree corpses that still stand stark and black against the blitzed soil and skyline to once more recall the terrible firestorms that exploded across the area. As with all disasters, the people there are still rebuilding years after the world’s attention has turned elsewhere.

Rubicon Valley itself mostly escaped the fire, which stopped just short of the place where we ride. The national forest that adjoins the valley was not so lucky, and has only recently been reopened to the public, but we headed in the opposite direction today. We did what we call the ‘paddock ride’, which is far more beautiful than it sounds – lots of wide open spaces and cantering up grassy hills with the reward of a spectacular view at every summit, trotting along ridges surrounded by eucalyptuses and air so eucalyptusy it clears any congestion you might have within minutes, and ultimately reaching a peak with a 360 degrees view of curving ranges and undulating valleys folding and rising and stretching from horizon to horizon, a truly stunning, magical kingdom kind of sight.

Things were quite different when my sister and I first rode there four years ago. Before the fires, the longest drought in I'm not sure how many years was drying up Victoria, which was, of course, why the area was so volatile. Back then, the valley was brown and dusty, the earth hard and cracked, the trees close to giving up, and the creeks and rivers were just trickles, and we rode on a day with a high, hot wind blowing dirt in our faces. Do not ask me why. If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.

Anyway, it was quite different from this vision of greeness:



It's been a real pleasure watching the valley recover and flourish.



As for today’s Foalwatch, it is brought to you courtesy of my sister Cindy, because it was she who spotted this young resident of Rubicon Valley in a field (click to enlarge for a better look).