This is what happens when you camp alone.

Just after Easter I went up to Barrington Tops for a few days of exploring. The first day’s hike was all uphill, ascending a sharp escarpment. I went hard, sweating out the accumulated frustrations of a busy day to day life. By nightfall I was exhausted and slept dreamlessly.

The second day was mellower. The sky was clear, the air crisp and the trail meandered along the plateau, passing plains, circling swamps and crossing creeks. There was nobody around and I didn't mind that.

That chilly night after eating I sat by the campfire. The creek was bubbling quietly nearby and I gazed into the dancing flames. My thoughts wandered, following threads of memories, ponderings and whirling dreams. Like the flickering of the fire, my mind leapt from here to there following a course of no discernible meaning. I turned around to get the fire’s warmth on my back and looked up into the night sky, aglow with shimmering stars. Looking into the universe, looking through time.

I kept up this slow rotation, to stay warm front and back. Alternately looking down into the fire and up into the stars it occurred to me that whether you’re looking at the small scale world of the senses –  the here and now of this body walking the earth  – or you’re pondering the big picture of the universe, God and love, this life truly is a wondrous thing. 

Oh, the night sky. (Not my photo. From http://www.ozsky.org/Gallery.asp )

Freo Days, Part II

When I found the motivation to drag myself away from the couch on the verandah, it was usually to go to a gig. Ahhh, Freo gigs - how I miss you. 

I'd hop on the pushy and roll in the last light over the old traffic bridge. The golden sun sank into the ocean, leaving the black outline of the stacks of containers and mechanical dinosaurs at the port, and the train rattling by with a handful of straggling commuters on board, and the swirling Swan River below me all continuing their business in the darkening evening. 

Mojo's was the venue most nights. Bright on the outside, gloomy and dark on the inside, I leaned against a wall to watch the band. Barefooted Charlie Parr with his big grey beard and tangled grey hair played his frantic hillbilly tunes to a baying crowd. I saw local reggae dub maestros The Sunshine Brothers quite a few times, including one of the last nights before I left town. They joked with each other in between songs as though nobody was listening. 

Down opposite the abandoned Woolstores, with all the graffiti and where the kids skate all weekend, is Clancy's Fish Pub. Full of friendly vagrants and colourful eccentrics, you can't feel out of place there. Free gigs on Friday nights and a variety of tasty beers to drink and seafood to soak it up with. The T Shirts they sell say We put the beer of God  in you, and it could be true. 

Summer Sunday afternoons found me on the shady lawns of the Freo Art Centre. Free gig from two til four. People lay on picnic rugs sharing bowls of nuts and cold beer from the esky, gurgling toddlers escaped the half hearted grasp of dad to run around and dance up the front, the acoustic tunes floated up and around and into the trees and people smiled at each other. In my memory it was pretty much paradise. 

There were so many more venues - world music upstairs at Kulcha, where you can step outside to lurk on the balcony and watch the drunks stumble round on the main street below, indie tunes in the cramped Norfolk Basement, Gomez rocking at the Fly By Night Club, comfy retro lounges to sprawl in at the Little Creatures Loft (continuing the local knack for a catchy phrase with their slogan Open Up A Little), the Blues and Roots Festival in the park - oh the music flows richly in Freo. 

Freo Days, Part I

For three years I had a house in Fremantle. When I say ‘had’, I mean I rented it of course.

It was smallish and oldish and each of the rooms was painted a different bright colour – yellow, red, blue, purple, green. The wooden floorboards creaked in places and the ceiling fans ticked a little as they spun.

I first came to 49 Forrest Street on a summer afternoon in response to a housemate wanted advertisement. I propped my pushbike against the tree out the front and knocked on the door to meet Alena, whose friend had left at short notice. After a few days she let me know I could move in, I was the least strange of her applicants. Must have been some real weirdos turn up.  

My favourite thing about the house was the verandah. It was wide and shady and had a decrepit lounge on it.  The fabric of this lounge was torn and faded and the frame wobbled and groaned when anybody sat down.You got to know the comfortable spots to sit, away from the poky bits or saggy spots.That lounge and I spent some time together over the years. In the hot dusty afternoons, in the late evening light, in windy squalls, in winter rains I sat on the verandah and read and watched and thought.

I liked the feeling of being outside, yet sort of inside. I had shelter from the biting West Australian sun, but felt the cool benefits of the daily Freo Doctor (the sea breeze that calls every summer afternoon to make people feel better).  As a storm arrived from the coast I would get splashed by the rebound of fat raindrops from the railings. The trees alongside the footy field bent sideways in the howling southwesterlies. 

I could hear the music from my stereo inside, yet I was part of the world outside. I could smile or say hello to people walking past; the lady with purple hair walking her sausage dog, the families with young kids on scooters, the teenagers delivering advertising brochures who had to pass by our stickered mailbox. Or I could choose not to engage with anyone at all and just read.  

I don’t know how many books I must have read sitting out there. Stories from around the world, stories from across the centuries, characters come to life in my mind in colour and adventure and anguish and happiness and confusion, living their lives as best they knew how, bringing a zest and new perspective into my little old Freo life.

When Alena moved out for a new beginning in Albany she took all her furniture but left the lounge on the verandah. It was decaying further, exposed as it was sometimes to rain and sun, and it wasn't a specifically outdoor lounge. I didn’t mind though, I still ate dinner there often enough, had some serious kinds of conversation there, I liked to sit there and await guests for a warm greeting, and I was there early that Thursday morning when I got the phone call about Foz’s passing.  

When I decided to leave Freo earlier this year, I gradually emptied the house of its contents. Most of the things I’d scavenged from kerbside pickups, so was happy to return to the kerb and let the circle of life continue. Some I sold for cheap on gumtree. Off went the barbecue, the stereo, the bed and mattress. But nobody came for the lounge. Nobody knew its value like I did so it sat there until the day before moving when there was nothing else for it - we wrangled into the back of a ute and tied it down as though it might have known the hole in the ground where it was headed and tried to escape. 

The "Laser" and I

I gave away the wreck of the “Laser” today.

It’s been with me through a tumultuous period of my life, moving all around the country in search of something, I'm not sure what. I first joined forces with the “Laser” when, in a dazed state, I returned from Africa and renegotiated life in the western world. I was a car owner again.

It took me from Copa to Tumbi to work in the bush with Foz for a few lantana-filled months. Then it was loaded up with all my gear and we drove south, to the sound of The Panics, with the windows down and the spring sunshine streaming through the windscreen, as I headed for new beginnings in Tasmania. The green south coast opened up for me, and I wound along the bends with excitement and anticipation. I drove into Melbourne with From St Kilda to Kings Cross by Paul Kelly playing on the ever-unreliable CD player. The “Laser” and I boarded the Spirit of Tasmania and crossed Bass Strait through the night, then drove from Devonport down to Hobart over the next couple of days. We explored Tassie together – looking for waves at Clifton with Tim and Brooke, cruising down the Tasman Peninsula with Dad, up Mt Wellington with Mum, Cradle Mountain with Crumbs and Rowson, and trips up to Triabunna to get the ferry over to Maria Island for work. I spent the week on the island, and when I came back, there was the “Laser” waiting for me, quiet and reliable.  

In Winter, with a rare snow falling on the streets of Hobart, I once again loaded the “Laser” up with everything I had and said goodbye to old places and one or two friends I had made. With uncertainty and sadness we drove north and again crossed Bass Strait in the night. Through Melbourne, and along the Great Ocean Road, this time the “Laser” was taking on the mighty road west. The mechanic in Hobart said it wouldn’t make it; the road was too long, too hot, too much. Not worth it, mate. But the “Laser” was in and out of Adelaide in a flash, then it conquered the Nullarbor, swallowing up the kilometres. As I lost the plot, the “Laser” held us together, and guided us safely to the coast and into Perth. We were once again together in a new city, not really sure if it was the right thing, the right place, but it was a place and that was enough. The “Laser” helped move all my stuff into Sam’s house, then in with the Shazza’s, then again in with Alena on Forrest St.

It’s taken me on trips through the beautiful WA south west. Camping in calm, quiet Karri forests, and past white sandy beaches. Around Christmas I let it overheat, and the mechanic asked if I was sure it was worth fixing. Heck yeah fix it up, I said, it’ll go forever.

It drove me and Foz on a marathon trip to Exmouth and Karijini, without missing a beat. Michael Franti was blasting whenever the smug CD player deigned to allow music, and the wind blew through the open windows as we raced through the WA outback. We stared at the expanse of flat red earth, we relished being alive in this wild country, two good mates living the dream. The roads got rough and sandy, but the “Laser” just kept on going.  It was loaded with gear and covered in red dust, and it loved every moment.

The “Laser” was with me on those trips away with Suzie – we explored the WA mid-west, singing along to Gomez, Pearl Jam and even Johnny Farnham for a laugh. Her foot tucked up beneath her on the seat, the wind ruffling her blonde hair. She looks over at me, pokes me in the arm and says I just wanna wish you well in synch with Bernard on the stereo. The “Laser” was alongside on that moonlit night as we played guitar and drank red wine, talking about the strangeness of life.

It’s been with me through all of that.

Then in a careless moment I smashed it face-first into the back of a truck.

“We’ll take it off your hands mate, but that’s all we can do for you”.

The wreckers made it sound as if they were doing me a favour. I signed a piece of paper, gave them the keys, and walked out into the sunshine. With a phillips head screw driver, I slowly removed the number plates, put them in my bag, then turned and left.

2009

Tall trees - Mt Field, Tassie

Camping somewhere in South Aus

The road to Red Bluff, WA 

The bluff

Karijini WA



Injidup WA

Foz stylin in red trackies

Demise

I love a sunburnt country

‘I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of drought and flooding rains.’

Dorothea Mackellar

Those lines, written in 1904, are so famous they border on cliché. But after completing this trip, I reckon they have a clear ring of truth to them. Simple words that do so much to describe our massive, wild country.  

I started off in the dry west, where the sun shone day in day out, the sky was always blue. In Margaret River there was a heatwave, with three or four days close to forty degrees. The forests of the whole south west are suffering for lack of rain, and it’s not forecast to get any wetter.

In three solid days I inched over the plains of the Nullarbor, so flat so empty so wide.

I saw the mountains of the Stirling Ranges in WA, the Flinders Ranges in South Aus and the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales. I’ve climbed their peaks, admired their curves, slept under their stars.

The day I drove into Victoria it rained steadily. Through Murray farming country I took back roads to avoid the road trains and caravans. The following day I arrived in Griffith NSW and it was still raining. Bitterly cold, hard little rain drops. I was hoping to find some fruit picking work, but I was disappointed. One reason, I was told, was that only eight weeks before, Griffith – as well as a big slab of the state – had been underwater. Biggest flood on record, pretty much. Sandbags in the main street, people evacuated. Towns up and down the rivers were the same. The Murrumbidgee had risen and risen and nobody knew when it would stop.

No work for me, so I drove through Wagga Wagga and into the Snowy Mountains. It was grey and misty, light rain dripped now and then. I hiked through wet forests with bird calls echoing around the empty valleys. Bell birds, crows, a lone black cockatoo.

At Yarrangobilly there’s a thermal pool. On a cold grey afternoon, with the sound of a stream riffling away behind and a misty rain falling, I floated around in twenty seven degree water that was rising from somewhere deep below the earth’s surface.

And I camped in the snow, it was hard to believe. It felt so recently that I was in that Margaret River heatwave, though that was many weeks and many kilometres earlier. There I found myself pitching the trusty stingray tent in a field patched with snow and ice.

I hit the east coast at Tathra and headed up to Bateman’s Bay. The next day there was a severe weather warning and we were battered by one hundred kilometre an hour winds, flash floods and fallen trees. The ocean became a roiling mess of flying froth and thundering waves.

Up the green south coast I went, where friendly locals told me the best spot to paddle out, a night in the lush Jamberoo valley, a hike in the cold Blue mountains, then on busy highways back to the old stamping ground, where towns and people and cars hustle busily together. I made it home.

On the trip I’d not heard the news of the world. I wasn’t much interested. My world was simple, uncomplicated, involving what I would eat that day, what I might like to do and where to go. The snippets that came my way, I felt I’d rather not know. The looming industrial development of our wild places  – The Kimberley and our very own Great  Barrier Reef under threat, and the ground beneath our feet in the eyes of the coal seam gas corporations. Who comes up with these ideas?

Australia, you’re my country and I love you.

You are an amazing land, there’s no doubt. You are powerful, colourful, and diverse and I hope to heaven we don’t ruin you.

Sunrise, Bibbulmun Track WA

Banksia Man Party, WA

Lucky Bay, WA

Shark Bait Surfing, Eyre Peninsula SA 

Flinders Ranges, SA

Snowy Mountains, NSW

South Coast NSW

.....

That’s the last of my entries describing my trip across the country. I guess I’ll now move on to writing about random things.

Thanks for reading, hope you’ll stick with it!

Steve



The music

One of my life’s great pleasures is listening to music on a roadtrip. Loud music on a long drive. I’ve spent enough time in a car without a working stereo to know what it’s like to drive in silence, and I believe that experience has made me appreciate the travelling tunes even more.

There’s something incredibly satisfying in putting on the right music for the right moment. Sometimes the song does more than suit the moment, it is a part of the moment, it creates it. There have been times when I’ve been driving and I’ve come upon a scene of startling impact – maybe the still coastline at dawn, or a dripping wet forest in the mist, or a long familiar street I haven’t driven down for years – and the music is there with me. I know that from that moment on whenever I hear that song I’ll be taken right back to this time and place, I’ll feel it, smell it and live it once more...

...in the sun cruising the dusty roads of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula with wet salty hair after some long smooth waves at Granites, listening to that unmistakeable guitar sound of The Cruel Sea, Tex Perkins growling ‘my heart is a muscle and it pumps blood like a big old black steam train’, and I’m thinking about travelling the country and surfing unknown waves and camping under the stars by a crackling campfire, I was free, alive, on the loose in the world...

...long straight highways in the rain, as roadtrains howled past with a rumbling gust from their fiery depths, spitting spray onto the windscreen, listening to Bruce Springsteen’s dark smoky sounds on Nebraska as he sings about death row inmates and troubled Highway Patrolmen...

...driving down into Prevelly from Margaret River on a warm Autumn evening and the sun had just set and there was a band of apricot-orange on the horizon, lines of swell stretched away, there was a purple tinge in the air, and I’d just quit my job and left Freo and was moving across the country with all my worldly goods in the car with me and LCD Soundsystem were saying ‘look around you, you’re surrounded, it won’t get any better’ and I believed it.

On this journey I was moving towards a new chapter of life, and on the way I had been weaving between optimistic excitement at this new beginning, and pessimistic apprehension about my chances of finding happiness on the east coast, or anywhere. Some days it took just a simple song lyric to tip the balance one way or the other. A word or two could leave me hollow and shaking, or on the other hand the right song could have me smiling and tapping the steering wheel, singing along loudly and feeling that living this life is a damn fine thing to be doing today.

I’m reminded of a great book I read a while back, Vernon God Little, where the main character is similarly affected. Talking about listening to pop songs and the psychological impact it had on him, he says ‘...you get all boosted up, convinced you’re going to win in life, then the song’s over and you discover you fucken lost.’

 My music is precious to me, it helps shape my days, so when I misplaced a case full of twenty four of my favourite cds in Denmark in the south of WA, I didn’t hesitate in reporting it to the local police. The officer took my details and said she’d ring me if it showed up. She hasn’t called so far but the way I see it, the song hasn’t ended just yet so maybe I can still win.

Have you got a musical moment to share?

The Voice

‘Thank you very much. I’ll be back later.’

I recognised the voice. I knew it well, though it had been a while. Perfectly enunciated, clear and deep. Loud, but not booming - just a notch above any other voice in the room. That voice had come to our house every weekday evening at seven pm while I was growing up.

When the owner of the voice had left the reception area I walked over to Terry at the counter and said ‘that was Richard Morecroft wasn’t it?’ I was a bit excited because I had a lot of respect for Morecroft, I reckon he’s cool. I feel like he taught me so much about the way the world is, and the ABC news has never been the same without him. And that story about him reading the news with a baby bat stuffed up his shirt was great.

Who would have thought I’d bump into someone like that at Arkaroola, out here in the middle of nowhere?

‘What?’ said Terry. ‘No, it can’t have been.’ She was talking in a husky whisper, having all but lost her voice.

‘Yeah it was’ said Paul the helicopter pilot who was leaning against the counter.

‘The bloke off TV?’ said Brendan who was also lurking around, ‘nah it wasn’t him.’

Morecroft had been unshaven and less groomed than on TV, but I was pretty sure it was him. That voice. Terry looked into the booking system on the computer, and up came the name ‘R. Morecroft’.

‘Oh my God it’s him’ she croaked, ‘I need to go and talk to him. I’m going after him. I love that man.’

And I thought I was excited.

‘Hold on’ Paul said, ‘he’s staying another night. Talk to him later.’

‘Alright. But I’m going to get my Letters and Numbers book, so when he comes back he can sign it for me. I’ll give him a discount on his room for it.’

I’d forgotten that he had a new show, and it turns out Terry and Brendan are big fans. Big big fans. They watch every night, one specialising in word quizzes, the other in numbers. Terry has several books.

I happened to be loitering in the bar when Morecroft came back in later, and Terry was ready. He was happy to sign her book. With her sore throat she apparently couldn’t say all she needed to, so she handed him a note she’d written earlier, which he thanked her for and said he’d read later.

He came in yet once more a little later and thanked her for the kind words, which I gathered were gushing praise of the show and how she and Brendan don’t miss an episode.

Morecroft walked up to Brendan, the stocky no-nonsense worker in his scuffed boots, work shirt and truckers cap. Brendan smiled shyly and said ‘Richard Morecroft.’ They shook hands then Brendan stepped back, not knowing where to look.

‘Terry told me you like the show?’ Morecroft said.

‘Yep.’ Brendan’s words had dried up. He shuffled his feet. ‘Watch it every night, all the time.’

‘I’m so pleased. I think the show is not so much a competition as a celebration of people’s intelligence.’

‘Yep.’

‘Alright, I’ve got to go. But it’s nice to meet you Brendan.’

The voice left the room.  

Acacia Sunrise

I got up at five o’clock. It was dark and cold, but it was May in the Flinders Ranges, so I expected that. I put on a couple of jumpers and a big jacket, grabbed my back pack and head torch and strode up the track along Acacia Ridge. My breath came in clouds in the beam of torchlight before me, and as the narrow rocky path rose steeply the clouds grew thicker. I stopped to take off my jacket, and then a jumper. I paused and switched off the torch to look at the sky above me. The silent blanket of bright stars shining up there made me shake my head in wonder. This place, this world...

It took around half an hour to reach the summit. It was still dark but there was the beginning of a faint orange glow on the eastern horizon. Closer by was a small cluster of pulsing lights at the Beverley uranium mine. The uranium that geologists had been hoping to find in the hills of Arkaroola has mostly been washed down to the plains, and now there are two mines there digging it out. Their lights were the only sign of humanity I could see in the hazy grey before me. I pulled my Trangia out of my backpack and boiled up a cup of tea, then sat back to watch the show.

I was determined to take in all that Arkaroola could offer, seeing as I’d made the long trek out for a second visit. I’d earlier spent a few days at Arkaroola, then decided to go and hike at Wilpena Pound but I’d been lured back to the more remote, the wild and free feeling of Arkaroola. There were things still to be done there. Including watching the sun rise from the top of Acacia Ridge.

Gradually the thin line of orange on the horizon grew brighter, and grew thicker. The blackness around me turned grey–green and ever so slowly the hills began to reveal themselves. The rumples of the landscape, the curves and the creases, the steep slopes and the smooth valleys slowly appeared.

The stars were dimmed one by one and when the bright point of the sun broke over the horizon, the rocks around me began glowing with a deep red. The Spinifex was yellow and the sky was blue, the precise shades changing with every moment. The rays of sun immediately warmed me, the gentle heat on my face brought out a smile.

Below me I heard a tumble of rocks, and looking down I saw two yellow footed rock wallabies hopping down the slope. These are pretty animals with a thick tail that’s clearly striped dark brown and orange. They have white stripes on their sides up to the shoulders, separating the lighter fur on the chest from the darker back, and their four legs are all the same orange as the stripes on the tail. They’re rare after years of being hunted for their skins.

 As the sun rose the colours of my surroundings became brighter. I felt like I had been one of the privileged to have seen this day born, I had seen it go from icy black invisibility to this bright sunny day that promised to be warm. I had nothing that needed doing, except maybe another hike so I was reluctant to leave my vantage point at the summit. But I knew before much longer I’d be joined by others making a daytrip up, and I didn’t feel like being there for that. So I shouldered my pack and wandered on down to see what else the day would bring.

Oh, Brian

Brian had it all organised. He’d done some thinking and he’d done some talking and he’d nutted out a plan. I could tell he was the organising type when earlier in the afternoon he’d wandered over to my campsite and formally invited me to his fireplace that evening.

‘I’ve got wood, plenty of it. Bring a drink, cook your food on the fire, whatever you like.’

I was measuring powdered milk and sugar into ziplock bags and he asked if I was preparing for a hike. I told him my plans of walking three days through the National Park from Parachilna to Wilpena, which would involve a complicated bit of manoeuvring – dropping my car at Wilpena and then trying to hitch a ride up to the start of the hike. He nodded, then walked off to continue his invitations.

It was a little roadside campsite in Flinders Ranges National Park, South Australia. I brought my folding chair and a beer over to the roaring fire where I met Brian’s wife Kerry and the couple from the caravan on the far side, Rob and Christine. Colin, my garrulous neighbour, came over with a bowl of something to eat and he slumped in his chair to slurp it down.

Around sixty and a bit overweight, Brian had good manners and was very sure of himself. Not only that, he was also sure of his wife.

‘Dinner ready yet?’ he asked her as he eyed me getting into my couscous and noting that Colin, the other single male, had also already eaten. Kerry got to it and served it up, and after demolishing his long awaited chicken and vegetables, Brian said ‘you can leave the dishes til morning, it’s getting late.’

‘Like hell’ she said, handing him her plate for him to wash. 

Brian made a show of putting on the last piece of Tasmanian timber he’d been carting round the country for several months, then stood with his back to the fire, wine glass in hand.

‘Steve, the crazy bugger, is going walkabout tomorrow’ he announced, ‘and we’re going to help him. Kerry and I will take him to Parachilna, and Rob here will drop his car at Wilpena.’

I wasn’t sure if it was a look of surprise that crossed Rob’s face at this news. I didn’t get to find out because Colin interrupted with a story about how he had hiked fifty kilometres along a beach in Victoria last year. ‘And I’m sixty nine! Sixty nine eh...’ he faded off into a reverie.

So Rob was part of the plan, whether he liked it or not. I was so pleased with my little gang of grey nomads I could have hugged them all. Even when discussion turned to politics and they began abusing Bob Brown for stopping the progress in Tasmania, I looked fondly upon my little flock of red necked grey nomads chirping away in the night.

 In the morning I sat in the back seat of the Nissan ute while Brian and Kerry took turns pointing out things to see.

‘Kangaroos on the hill there.’

‘Look at that rockslide.’

‘Emus.’

At Blinman we stopped and Kerry, who had been delegated the camera duties, wandered off to take the official record of the abandoned copper mining town. In supervisory role, Brian directed her not to miss the old red phone booth or the filled-in swimming pool.

The Parachilna road was closed so we had to take a thirty kilometre detour on corrugated gravel. Brian drove cautiously but once he hit some bumps at speed and sent us jolting around the cab.

‘Shit, Brian’ Kerry said.

‘ Hehe’ he chuckled,  ‘I didn’t see it did I?’

‘Car’s gonna need another service now isn’t it?’ she muttered.

A little later he stopped the car and directed her to take a picture of the mountain range. She opened the door and a cloud of dust blew in.

‘Oh Brian’ she said.

‘What, I didn’t make the dust did I?’

‘No but it was your driving.’

We got to the trailhead and I heaved my pack out of the tray. They said goodbye as though I was walking to my doom, then drove off with a beep of the horn.

The shale clinked underfoot as I plodded along dry riverbeds, admiring the big old River Red Gums which were bright and vibrant despite the dry conditions. Their bark is white, not red, and they glowed in the warm sun. I tried to imagine how it would look here after rain, to have the creeks gushing with water. The health of the trees, the piles of detritus wedged up against their roots and the scarred erosion on the river bends were all evidence that the water surely comes.

Red-walled gorges rose around me and when the trail climbed to the ridge tops I had views of the ranges rolling away to the south and wedge tailed eagles circling above. I strolled through hillsides covered in native cypress pines.

On the afternoon of the second day the trail crossed a dirt road. A city four wheel drive was parked with four retirees sauntering around.

‘Hiking all that way on your own! You must like yourself.’

The first human being I’d seen in a day and a half and this is what he says to me.  I walked on, into the trees and the hills and the wide open spaces.

Cactus

On the edge of the desert at the eastern end of the Nullarbor plain, where the cracked and dusty land meets the wild shark-filled sea, there’s a wooden chair overlooking the ocean. Sitting on this seat you can watch waves break off a jagged headland, along a shallow reef platform.  The lefthanders peel a distance and surfers take turns to ride their walls, the offshore wind sending spray off the back of the wave with each turn they make. This is Cactus.

The wooden chair was built in memory of a young man who was taken by a shark some years back, and its construction – with a little platform at the bottom, and a solid backrest – makes it like a mini grandstand with room for eight or nine people.

Early in the morning surfers crawl from their tents and vans in the sprawling campsite, rubbing their eyes and running hands through their hair, they stumble up the sandy path to the chair. They stop to piss into the bushes on the way, the sharp smell of all this accumulated urine lingers until the next time it rains and washes it away. Then they sit on the chair and watch the waves. Breath comes thick and steamy in the early morning chill, and the still air makes the ocean clean and glassy. Some have come prepared with a cup of hot tea that they wrap their hands around, blow into and look through the rising steam at the lefthanders breaking off the headland.

 Another surfer comes along and he says a muted good morning, then watches too.

‘Looks alright eh?’

‘Yeah. Sets are closing out a bit but the inside ones look like fun.’

‘You going out then?’

‘Reckon I might wait til the tide comes in a bit more.’

‘Time for a bit of brekky then eh.’

But before he leaves others arrive.

‘You guys been out yet?’

‘What? Nah not yet. Waiting for a bit more tide’

‘I’m gonna get out there before all the crew paddle out.’

The waves were pretty good. The bay at Cactus has three main breaks, and a few others that work in certain conditions. The one in front of the campsite is the lefthander that made the bay famous.  It's a long wave with a takeoff that wasn’t too tough and a nice wide channel to paddle into. Surprisingly friendly, for all I’d heard about the place.

The land is owned by an old surfer called Ron who runs the campsite. Every evening, in his brown overalls and wide brimmed hat covering his wiry white hair, he comes around in his rattling yellow ute to drop off the bundles of firewood and to collect the ten dollar fee from everyone staying the night. Unless it’s your seventh night, which is free.   

A lot of the surfers staying there were part way through a crossing of the country, but such was the allure of the place, the consistency of the waves and the easy way that time slipped by, that they might find themselves staying weeks longer than they had planned.

There’s a bore water supply for washing and for a quick outdoor shower, but its not fit for drinking so you need to come supplied. The little town, Penong, at the turn off from the highway will sell you what you need, at the kind of prices you might expect from a small isolated town.

Throughout the day, the wooden chair is the spot to come for some company.  As the afternoon wears on, people arrive with beers in hand and the stories and chatter fire up. With the chair full to capacity, others sit on the sand or lean against the old fence posts to join in.

Snowy demonstrated his black labrador’s party trick. When Snowy called out ‘it’s offshore!’ the dog yelped and ran frantically up and down in major distraction, then when he called out ‘it’s onshore!’ the dog immediately stopped and walked back to sit at his feet.

Jur and Ties, the easy going Dutch brothers told how they’d been in Adelaide and checked the surf forecast. It was going to be flat for a week, so they decided to drive to Uluru. At the maximum eighty kph their old landcruiser allowed, this took them three days. They got to the rock and weren’t that impressed so they took a few photos then turned around to drive straight back.

Matty seemed to lose track of who he’d already told his stories to, so we all heard his collection of tales many times over.    

It was a little off putting when you were out in the water, because you knew the mob on the seat would be watching and having a good laugh at any flailing wipeouts. Coming in from the surf, you walked up the track and past the chair where they asked you what it had been like and if it hurt when you got pitched out of the lip on that last wave.  

I stayed for a week, surfing a couple of times a day and hanging out with people living the same kind of dream as me.

Hiking The Stirling Ranges

I stayed a few days in the Stirling Ranges, just to the north of Albany. The creased and folded mountains were easy on the eye after the continuous flat flat West Australian landscape.

One evening in the campsite I got chatting with a guy called Kurt. He asked what I was doing the next day and I told him I was going to climb up Toolbrunup, the second tallest but most difficult of the peaks. He asked if he could tag along and I said sure, some company would be good. He asked what time I normally got going and I said about eight would be good. Great he said.

When I wandered over to his site around eight in the morning his table was littered with cooking gear and food containers and bags of flour and jugs of water. He was busy chopping up an orange peel.

Hey Kurt how’re you going? I said.

Good he said and you?

Good. What are you up to?

Just making a cake. And some bread.

Right, cool. Um, you still want to come hiking this morning?

Yeah man yeah. This won’t take long. I make all my own stuff you know. I’m a vegan and you know the supermarkets don’t have much. You know. Plus it’s cheaper. One whole bag of flour only costs a dollar and you can make lots of cake with that you know. And bread. This won’t take long, you know. Forty five minutes.

Two and a half hours later he called over to me at my site – Hey Tim, you ready to go?

Me? I said. Yeah I’m ready.

We started walking, and after a couple of minutes he stopped dead in the middle of the track and started waving his arms round in slow whooshing movements. I stood watching. After about thirty seconds he said oh sorry I’m into tai chi you know, it helps you know keep the energy flowing.

Righto. Can I walk in front?

He stopped like that every few minutes, so I left him to it but waited at intervals for him to catch up. Approaching the top I nearly trod on an echidna sitting right in the path. I stayed still while it unfolded itself and waddled right past me, brushing against my foot before crashing off into the scrub.

When Kurt finally made it to the top I said great view hey. Did you see the echidna?

The what? Nah mate nah.  He admired the view and took a few photos. I offered to take one of him on his camera and he said yeah just wait a sec. He got down in the yoga guru position with legs crossed and hands upturned on knees and sat on a rock ledge. I took a few photos from different angles then put the camera down.

He sat with eyes closed for ages so I walked around the summit and noticed we were being circled by one two three wedge tailed eagles. Round and round they went, riding the air currents, flying so fast and with such ease. Like they’d been doing it all their lives. They came close – within thirty metres of where I stood – the sun glistening off their dark feathers, their strong legs hanging down and their big claws so prominent. Then they’d drift high up, before swopping down to my height again.

So close they came that I worried for Kurt’s safety – he was only a little guy so I reckon if one eagle had’ve grabbed him by each ear they could have carted him off.

Two of the eagles started putting on an aerobatic display, with some sort of mid-air clashing. One rolled onto its back midflight and the other would hurtle down and collide before making off again. They did this a few times when, following some unseen cue, one of them flew off. Just made a beeline for another peak to circle.

Kurt finally surfaced and I told him all about it, but my words didn’t even register. He just grabbed his camera and looked through the photos I’d taken of him, saying I thought you might have zoomed in on me a bit more to capture the serenity you know.

An Offering

An hour east of Albany , with hardly a signpost to point the way, is Waychinicup National Park. Its main feature is a wide, flat estuary surrounded by grey and orange granite boulders. A quiet river bending into the Southern Ocean. Seagrass meadows below the water, blue sky and a grey mountain above.

My first visit there was a couple of years ago with my sister Anna. We stumbled across it after a long drive, and were struck down. There was nobody around. We scrambled through the spiky undergrowth to swim in the cool water, lured in by the untainted purity of the scene, then warmed up like scaled beings on the sunny rocks. There was an ancient feel there, and I half expected to sight a sea creature emerging, something from another epoch rising to greet us. We felt on that still, clear afternoon that this could have been amongst the most beautiful places we’d ever seen. A goanna ambled up the path before us.

This time I stayed a few days. There are only a handful of campsites, and they’re nestled into the bushes so you can’t tell that anyone else is around. Like an exclusive resort for campers. Some days there were kids splashing around in the water having raucous fun, sometimes it was perfectly quiet and still.

I snorkelled, watching the fish flit in and out of rocky crevices. And I walked around the shore, listening to the water gently lap around my feet. There were birds circling around, cormorants and some bird of prey I couldn’t identify. Mostly I just sat and watched the scene around me. Simply sitting in a place like that seems to be a worthwhile way to pass time.

I drove out one morning to look for some waves at a beach round the corner and when I came back I was told of the spectacle I’d missed. A large school of herring had been chased into the inlet by a school of salmon. The salmon had herded the herring up into the shallows by the rocks right near the campsites. Once they had the herring trapped the salmon began a feeding frenzy, turning the water into a seething pool of froth. Fish were leaping out of the water onto the rocks, and flapping round on the shore. You could see them all right there at your feet. One man reached down and picked up a salmon in his hands and hugged it to his chest before throwing it back in the water.  An offering.

In the forest, by the beach

I spent a week at Boranup after leaving my Freo home. Half an hour south of Margaret River on the WA south coast, it’s got forest and it’s got waves. A good combination.

I had left my job and filled my car with everything I wanted to take with me. A no-deadline drive to the other side of the country.

No longer any need to worry about what time the shops close, what time the bus goes, how long until work finishes. Now my cares were for the direction of the wind, the size of the swell, how many pages I could read before dozing off in the afternoon warmth. I focussed on the simple things like identifying which bird call comes from which bird, and studying the trail a snake leaves in the dirt as it glides across the road.

I spent time observing the moods of the Karri forest... The crisp mornings when the bright sunbeams first broke through the trees, all expectant and ready for what the day would bring. I gulped down some weetbix and gathered my things for a morning at the beach...The lazy afternoons when the birds called languidly, the soft breeze swaying the treetops and the shade called me invitingly to sleep...the frantic afternoons of wild wind when the trees shook violently with a creaking and a crashing. Leaves fell and danced on the forest floor, full of action and motion...the evenings when the moon rose glistening off the silver treetops...the morning I woke to the sound of fat raindrops slowly dripping onto the tent. A mist hovered in the trees and crows called to one another from within like sad fog signals of steaming ships. I lay in my sleeping bag and wriggled my toes in contentment.

There’s a four wheel drive track to the beach, but the massive ruts at the start would have devoured my car, so with board under arm I got used to the forty minute walk up over the hill and out of the karris, through coastal heath where wagtails, honey eaters and tiny wrens flitted around in the trees beside me, down the rocky slope towards the sea and then finally I tumbled down the dune with sand cascading around me.  

Some days the beach was deserted. The sand was rippled by wind and untrodden by human foot, the surface marked only by the three-toed imprints of oyster catchers and seagulls. The shifting dunes continued for miles in either direction. Wind whipped up ribbons of sand that whirled and twisted around my ankles before continuing down the beach like the ghosts of swift flowing streams long dead.

On weekends when the waves were good and the sun shone, the beach was transformed. Two dozen four wheel drives parked on the sand facing the waves, and maybe a hundred surfers were dotted along the several peaks, there was someone filming from the shore, a line of five multicoloured surfboards were stuck nose-first in the sand beside him and a shaggy brown dog was pacing the water’s edge gazing into the surf waiting for its owner to come in and scratch behind his ears with a wet hand.

On days like this I’d usually get a lift back to the campsite in the back of someone’s four wheel drive. I made salad wraps for lunch then I’d drag the tarp into the shade, put my sleeping mat on top and doze the afternoon away as cars sped by on the way to the beach, dust kicking up behind them.

This dreamy hobo life was working out well.

Late in the afternoon I walked back to the beach, the best time to be in the water. The sun dropped towards the horizon over the ocean. Moments before it set the world became suffused in pinkish violet light, the wind died off, the waves broke in a hushed whisper, there was a salty mist in the air and everything moved in slow motion.

I started the walk back up the track with a warm orange glow on the horizon and the last four wheel drive bouncing along the beach, its headlights like a beacon before it. The sound of the surf faded and I listened instead to grasshoppers’ syncopated chirrups from the bushes beside me, my heavy breathing as I made it up the hill, and my legrope jangling against the board under my arm.

But the simple life wasn’t without its problems.  I became locked in battle with a bandit local. I was frying up some sausages one night, when there was a whooshing sound and a great bundle of feathers swooped down, grabbed half a sausage and flew over to sit on a log and beat the sausage senseless. The kookaburra looked at me then flew up to a branch above to eat the now dead sausage.

Well I’ll be, I thought. I kept one eye on my food and the other over my shoulder watching the bandit while I finished cooking. As I sat down to eat, the burra flew down right towards my plate. I stood up and waved my arms menacingly and yelled AAAARBEGRANAMANA and that was enough to divert him off course. But a few minutes later he swooped again and the same actions from me had no effect. I could see by the glint in his eyes he wasn’t scared of me or my gibberish. His beak was sharp, his claws were pointy, so I stepped out of the way and watched him take another half sausage.

That was the end of him for that night. But the next day I was making lunch, putting some salad on a sandwich and was just scooping some tuna on top when a familiar whooshing sound heralded the arrival of my nemesis. He sat himself on the other side of the table, my plate of food between us. This time I would not be so easily bullied, so with the fork I was holding I gave him a small jab to the chest and said ‘be gone, scoundrel.’ He didn’t budge, but just leaned in to steal some tuna, so with my fork I deflected his beak, but undeterred he went in again and I parried again. It became a duel, a battle for honour and canned fish. He thrust, I blocked. He feinted left, I jabbed swiftly. The campground rang to the sound of metal against whatever it is beaks are made of. Around we went, jumping logs, standing on the table, advancing, retreating. Neither would relent, but would fight to the bitter end.

In the end my foe was the greater warrior and he made off with a gobful of tuna to eat in the tree above.

 I could hardly begrudge him that, my life in the forest was a pretty good one.