LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY > SOUTHWEST NATIONAL PARK – MT. ANNE AND LAKE PEDDER REGION – TASMANIA > Mt. Anne Track Panorama of Lot’s Wife and Lightning Ridge (Mt. Anne Track, Southwest National Park)
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The track to Mt. Anne is one of the most beautiful areas in Tasmania. The ascent up Mt. Eliza at the beginning of the Mt. Anne track offers continual, unobscured, panoramic views of Lake Pedder while the alpine traverse across the Mt. Anne plateau offers spectacular 360° views of the multiple mountain ranges in Tasmania’s rugged Southwest National Park World Heritage Area.
Climbing to the summit of Mt. Anne (1423m (4669’)), the highest mountain in Tasmania’s Southwest, however, is not for the faint-hearted. Situated to the south of Mt. Anne is Lightning Ridge and Lot’s Wife, two striking, artistic rocky escarpments on the 4 day Mt. Anne circuit.
Photographer’s Reflection:
“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalm 42:1-2)
Without water there is no life.
My plan was to camp overnight at the base of Mt. Anne in order to capture the early and late light near the summit.
I had filled up my 3L (100 oz.) hydration pack that morning at High Camp on Mt. Eliza, and from past experience, I knew this should last me a day of strenuous walking as well as overnight.
As I walked past the tarns on the Mt. Anne plateau, baking in the 30° C (86° F) heat, little did I know that I had already drained most of my 3L after only a couple hours of relatively easy walking. My plan was to refill from a ravine near Shelf Camp. I had been reassured by an experienced Mt. Anne bushwalker that there was a dependable source of water there, even in dry times.
There was none (except for a small, festering mud puddle which I chose to pass up).
As I lay sweltering in my tent, still oblivious to how dangerously low I was on water, a very nice young German man came up and asked if he could camp next to me since we were both some distance from Shelf Camp. I gladly welcomed him, and he headed up Mt. Anne while I headed out to photograph.
I returned later that evening parched with thirst. It was then that I made the alarming discovery that I only had about two handfuls of water left!
The nearest water source was the tarns about 45 minutes away across a lengthy boulder scramble I wouldn’t particularly like to do in the dark (twice).
Despite feeling horrible about it, I asked my German neighbour if he might possibly be able to spare me a little water. Unfortunately, like me, he had also just made the awful discovery that he only had two cups of water left. Nevertheless, his generosity overflowed, and he gave me nearly half of it.
God bless him for his generous gift of life-sustaining water!
The next morning I woke up with symptoms of dehydration and was feeling unwell.
I was terribly torn, for I had come all this way and had invested such great effort to shoot Mt. Anne, but I was overcome by my fundamental need for water.
Everything around me was engulfed in cloud, so I made the painful decision not to wait it out but to abandon my photography that morning and go find water, which was on my way back to the trailhead.
Just as I started walking out, a strong wind came and tore the cloud apart to reveal this stunning view of Lightning Ridge and Lot’s Wife. The swirling clouds quickly concealing and revealing the ridge line immediately captivated me. Despite feeling unwell, the artist in me could not pass by this scene. My body, however, told me that I could not linger for very long…
How I wanted to stay and keep shooting the rapidly moving mountain mist, but after capturing some shots I knew I had to continue on.
How precious was the water from the tarns when I finally made it! As I sat there recovering, I reflected on just how dependent my life was upon water. My thoughts on this whole experience quickly turned to the spiritual dimension.
I was strongly reminded of the psalmist’s words:
“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalm 42:1-2)
Our fundamental thirst, as humans, is for a loving relationship with God. But we often confuse this need for something else. As a result, many of us go looking to human relationships to fulfil ourselves instead. However, even when we finally have what we think will satisfy us, we discover that it does not, and that inner emptiness returns.
Jesus once pointed out this fundamental need to a Samaritan woman:
“…Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’…
The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’
‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?’
Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’
The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.’
He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’
‘I have no husband,’ she replied.
Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.’
‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.’
Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father [God] neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.’
The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ [the anointed one who will save us from our sins and reconcile us to God]) ‘is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’
Then Jesus declared, ‘I who speak to you am he.’”
(John 4:6-26)
The Samaritan woman was trying to fill her inner emptiness for God with the love of a husband, but just like the water she repeatedly drew from the well, so the ‘love’ of her many ‘lovers’ could never satisfy her for very long. Jesus uncovered her fundamental need for a personal, loving relationship with God, which fully satisfies and lasts throughout eternity.
Jesus then pointed out to her the difference between a Religion about God vs. a personal Relationship with God. She knew the former, but she had not yet experienced the latter. The former is dead orthodoxy, but the latter is true, spiritual sustenance.
The inner emptiness we feel (or are trying to satisfy with other things) is a “God–shaped” void. The reason it exists is because of our sin.
God dearly loves us and created us to be in a personal relationship with him, but because we are sinners by nature and by choice, we are estranged from his perfect, holy presence (Romans 3:23). Because God is perfect in justice, he also must punish us for our sins, which is death and hell (Romans 6:23).
However, despite the fact that we are sinners, God still dearly loves us and desires us to be reconciled to him.
For that reason, he sent his Son, Jesus, to save us from our sins. Jesus lived the perfect, sinless life none of us could live. He then took upon himself all of our sins and paid the punishment for them through his death on the cross. He rose from the dead three days later, making reconciliation with God possible for us.
In order for your sins to be taken away and to be reconciled to God, you must first repent (confess and turn away) from your sins.
Secondly, you must trust in Jesus, receiving the gift of forgiveness through believing that he has paid the punishment for your sins. When you do this from your heart, God will forgive all of your sins, and you will enter into a personal relationship with him that will last forever.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
For more information on how to enter into a personal relationship with God, please see: Message.
For answers to frequently asked questions about God, please see: Is God Real?
To read about how I met God and entered into a personal relationship with him, please see: About The Artist and Photographer.
To read about how many other people around the world entered into a personal relationship with God, please see: Salvation Testimonies.