The mountain.

Mount Wellington dominates the Hobart skyline, from pretty much any vantage point you choose. Its magnificent blue humped back cuts a crisp edge to the sky, and from a profile view, either from my place in the northern suburbs or directly over the other side down Kingston way it resembles the proud, shaggy shoulder of a bison or mammoth. It's a focal point for all Hobartians. The weather rolls in over its back or blows in from the river and shrouds it in mist, hazy wet clouds and sheets of rain.

I didn't realise until I was once again living at its foot, how much I had missed having a mountain nearby and always within sight. It's an ever-present reminder of the grandeur and agelessness of nature. It's made of ancient stuff, and you can still die up there without trying too hard. It's rock, tree, earth, water, ice, snow (sometimes even on Christmas Day!), fire, fur, blood, life and death. It's a late-sleeping woman who has pulled the sheets up around herself, and we nestle our stilted and stepped homes in the low tangle and rumples below.