The miraculous flaring gold of the wattles have lit the hills with a golden light as Spring approaches. Snow on the mountains gleams in the sunlight with Spring's glorious promise.

Days of dense grey mist, impenetrable and soaking fade away as the sun rides higher in the sky. The clouds clear and one can see the wide arc of the snow covered mountains.

In the early mornings, mist lies thick in the valley below and it becomes a mysterious inland sea lapping at one's feet. The snow mountains sail above it: the dark world of fog is below.

The first invisible haze of green over the willows appears. The red-brown buds begin to burst open to show a faint fold of green leaf. There is a sudden lightening of the spirts. The days of sun and light, of colours in flowers and in birds, and days of a vast choir of bird song at dawn are returning. - the green haze is the rebirth of the land.

Now as long bright days appear and the sun begins to ride higher, in the far distance a banner of white snow flares across the horizon and on moonlight nights the snow-covered mountains become silvered ghosts.

The first touch of Spring is like a gift of strength, a well of hope as the wattles burst into golden bloom, and the memory, of the imprisoned scent of wattles becomes a reality. The fragrence is in the air, drifting down to the house at night and winter begins to turn the corner into Spring ...

A tense, waiting silence enfolds the land. Then one white flake swirled and twisted down ... two ... three ... More and more were drifting, like upturned rose petals floating down. Our Tolmie garden was surrounded by flake-filled air. I looked up at the moving white snow in the grey sky, felt the benediction of the feather-light cold touch on cheeks and eyelids. Snow flakes had laid their touch in blessing upon my upturned face whilst I stood alone in the silence of the garden.

Steadily the snow began to coat the leaves of the gum trees. Yellow petals of early flowering daffodils showed above cups of snow. Out of the timeless, paceless silence and the snow-thick air, came the mournful cry of the currawong. My footsteps cut tracks along the driveway between the woodshed and the house.

The snow stopped falling by mid-day and the temperature rose. Then a bitter, cold wind sprang up from the South. The sky became clearer, brittle, cold blue. By evening, though clouds still lay over the ranges, the wind had blown the sky clear above us. A band of cloud lay down over the far range, stained deep, cold red by the sunset. Darkness closed down on the white hills and valley and by morning the snow was a barely imaginable dream.