West Point reached at last.
Observe the line of poplars in the distance, and the reddish building centrally placed between the trees.
More on this later.
Several journeys have been taken in recent days with the objective of reaching the western point of the winter solstice - the point where the sun disappeared on sunset on that afternoon, seen from my chosen viewpoint. My previous blog post (Solstice Project 21) documents the unsuccess of these journeys. Determined to reach the objective, and soon enough after the previous expedition to think I would remember where I had placed previous markers or noted waypoints, I walked.
This route is very much obscured by trees, prominences, gullies and large boulders, and navigation goes askew after every detour around one of these obstacles. Aware of this, and of my tendency to veer uphill, I continued.
Crossing the walking track fairly close to the top of the ridge:
Branch and quartz stone marking the point where the route crossed the walking track.
... it was from here on that more detailed explorations occurred.
To avoid confution I used a broken line of sticks as markers. The golf ball was placed expermentally to see if it will be noticed by passers-by - it is about 10 metres from the walking track - and also because its visibility makes it a useful tool.
Journeys toward sunrises and sunsets often involve wrong routes, mistakes and unjustified confidence. The next three photos are examples:
The tree that I thought at first was the west solstice sunset point, with suspended sticks installed to mark it.
Not the correct location for my route, but interesting.
First attempt to retrace my route back toward the east. As with the triangular wattle in the previous post, I was enticed by the symmetry of the double-trunked tree with the straight tree beyond it. Beware the siren call of symmetry.
Beaded circlet used as a marker, somewhere between the last creek and the walking track.
The photo is pleasing, even if the marker is wrongly placed.
The last photograph (above) is of a marker I placed yesterday that I had already forgotten. Lost and forgotten markers like this - because I will seek them and enjoy the quest - are an unexpected pleasure of this project. Similarly I have repeatedly lost and found the coloured lego blocks from the summer solstice west journey (now completely lost and a pleasing mystery), lost and found the sphere of surfboard wax twice, and at the time of writing completely lost track of the arrow which was used as a marker in an earlier part of this journey. It was possible from the top point to see back down the ridge, past my starting point to the town and hills beyond. I was able to note that a line of poplars on the far outskirts, and a red-sided building, were in my sights. On returning, I continued from the starting point of the journey, until I could double check the navigation from the top.The photo from this lower point is the one secondly placed in this blog post. I was very excited.
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