COMMENT | On a 30km hike across Australia’s Great Dividing Range last week, an old John Rowles song kept playing in my mind: “Time like the wind, it goes hurrying by, and the hours just fly …”

Indeed, eight hours just flew by as my wife and I tracked through the misty winds and summer rain on Mount Kosciuszko, its vast stretches of wild flowers and alpine grassland scattered with weathered rocks and craggy outcrops.

The feel of the misty peaks and glacial cirques reminded me of Gandalf’s answer to Frodo’s wish that certain things would not have happened in his time: “... all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us”.

As each Christmas approaches, how I have used up my time? And, what I am thankful for? Wandering in isolation on the high mountains tend to make you...