Lake Sanitarium Macedon for Water H2O Thursday

 

A week ago, during our visit to the old Lake Sanatorium in Mount Macedon, the mountain seemed swallowed whole by fog. The air was cold and wet against the skin, carrying that earthy scent of damp bark, fallen leaves, and hidden fungi that always follows the forest after rain. Joel and I wandered quietly through the grounds, foraging for mushrooms among the moss and decaying timber, our footsteps softened by the thick carpet of pine needles beneath us.

The lake itself emerged only in fragments through the mist, as though reluctant to reveal its full shape. Built originally as part of the old tuberculosis sanatorium grounds, the small artificial lake sits tucked within towering conifers and mountain ash, its stillness lending the entire place an unsettling beauty. In fog, it becomes something almost cinematic — a scene from an old horror film where silence feels too complete and every shadow appears to be watching. The outlines of the trees dissolved into pale grey vapour, their reflections stretching across the dark water like ink bleeding into glass.

I could not resist stopping for a photograph. Ironically, I had only the macro lens mounted at the time, hardly the ideal choice for landscapes, yet perhaps it suited the mood better than anything else could have. The narrow field of view compressed the scene into layers of ghostly trunks and mirrored reflections, drawing attention to the delicate textures of mist upon water rather than the lake itself. Through the lens, the reflections appeared almost painterly — skeletal trees suspended upside down in a silver void, broken only by the faintest ripple across the surface.

For a moment the entire mountain felt suspended outside time: no wind, no birdsong, only fog drifting slowly between the trees while the lake held their reflections in perfect silence.

Sony A7RV

Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Lake Sanitarium Fungi at Macedon for Treasure Tuesday

 

It was that familiar time of year again when the damp woods began quietly summoning fungi from the earth. Joel and I wandered beneath the dripping canopy in search of the delicate pixie parasol, though the forest had other offerings in mind. Everywhere along the mossy floor, small kingdoms of fungi emerged from rotting timber and wet leaves — pale umbrellas, twisted shelves, tiny translucent domes — each asking to be photographed from some curious new angle close to the soil.

The deeper we walked, the more the woods seemed alive with quiet hunters of another kind. A few younger women appeared here and there among the trees, pretending coincidence but clearly tracing our path, watching where we paused and where our lenses pointed. In forests during fungi season, secrets travel quickly. Nobody speaks much; they simply follow the instinct that somewhere ahead, someone has found something worth discovering.

Sony A7RV

Sigma 105mm f2.8 macro 

Linking Treasure Tuesday

Forest Glade Garden Macedon continued for Treasure Tuesday

 

In the hush of rain and drifting mist, Forest Glade Gardens seemed less a cultivated landscape and more a living tapestry of green. The moisture did not merely fall; it lingered—beading along fern fronds, deepening the velvet of moss, saturating every leaf until the colour grew almost orchestral in intensity. Each hedge, each sweep of lawn, each layered canopy of maple and beech absorbed the grey light and returned it as something richer, fuller, impossibly verdant.

Fog moved softly between the tree trunks, loosening the boundaries of form so that distance dissolved into pale suggestion. The garden’s terraces and winding paths appeared and vanished in slow revelation, as though the land were breathing. Water clung to stone balustrades and darkened the gravel underfoot; even the air tasted green—cool, mineral, faintly sweet.

And then, at intervals, the sun intruded gently. A thin blade of gold slipped through the vapour, igniting the wet leaves so they flashed momentarily with brilliance. In those fleeting illuminations, the garden shifted key: from muted emerald to luminous jade, from shadowed depth to radiant clarity. Light and mist conspired together, never fully surrendering to one another.

On such a day, colour was not merely seen but felt—layer upon layer of living green, intensified by rain, burnished by fog, and briefly crowned by sun.

Sony A7RV

FE 24mm f1.4 GM

Link to Treasure Tuesday

Trentham Falls, Macedon, Victoria for Water H2O Thursday

 

Busy for the past few days. A lot of driving and dealing with nasty people at various work places.

This waterfall is a beauty. 

Sony A7RV

FE 70-200mm f2.8 GM

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Macedon Ranges stroll

A casual walk in Macedon Ranges. The green is so lush and shining. Quite impressive.