Snowgum - Monaro Morning Light
Dead snowgum near Cooma, NSW.
Digital Photography - A dead snowgum on a Monaro grazing property near Cooma, NSW.
Photographed with the rising sun backlighting the scene, this old snowgum might be rather a tangled mess to some, but to me it’s a grand old snowgum, with intriguing form and evidence of it’s tenacity over many a long and hard season.
How old is it? Who knows? Maybe 100 years. Maybe it was a young tree when the white settlers first came to the district.
The snowgum appears to have been spared when the land was cleared to make way for sheep and cattle grazing. A good shade tree, perhaps.
I’m sure that when I first saw this grand old snowgum, about five years ago, it was clinging to life with leaves on the now dead sticks and twigs. A victim of the drought that has had much of Australia in it’s grip for around four to five years, depending on the area, I guess.
Within the tangled mess of dead branches, sticks and twigs, I see grandeur. Over time, as the smaller sticks split and rot and break off in the wind, the form of the main trunk and substantial branches will become more prominent and stark. But for now, I enjoy the form of the snowgum as it stands out among the conflict of lines running in all directions, and feel an empathy with a once living entity that has striven for survival over a prolonged period in harsh conditions.
Snowgum - Monaro Morning Light on Wilderness Travel
