Modern Vespa

Upside down summer - this is what Australia looks like right now.

Well, some of it. My favourite winter some of it. Here's the main range of the snowy mountains (imaginative name, huh)

and a snowgum ...

one more

That's nice. Is that a snow making machine in the bottom center of the top pic? I kept scrolling but it wouldn't come out of the shade?

That second picture of the snowgum is absolutely beautiful.

Snowgums really do look like that - those are web pics, but I have my own much like them still on film / slide / paper.

They go into these amazing strips of red, yellow and olive - and since our tree line is about 1850m (6000 feet) and the "high" peaks are only 2200m (7200m), much of our back country skiing is among them. They aren't merely beautiful, the way the weather shapes them gives them real character .. they have a sort of personality.

Snowgums are almost the only trees above the snow line - we hare native conifers but there are either semi-arid trees (callitirs sp) or sub-tropical (hoop and bunya pines) .. so our snow country has a totally different feel to the northern hemsiphere, or even New Zealand.

Yep, we have snowmaking. Our resorts depend on it - the right combinations for natural snow are a bit iffy for an investment like a resort (that one is Perisher .. after Mt Perisher) - where the runs go as low as 1500 or even 1400m. That webcam is at 2000m, looking south west. Beyond the snow you can just see the Murray river plains, 1800m below the peaks.

I have been up close and personal with these snow gums on many occasions and believe me they are NOT PRETTY

Those snowgums look similiar to dogwoods, which I also love. Again, fantastically beautiful.

Me too, Gary. We call it an "aboreal arrest" ...