A Final Farewell

This is a true transcript of a walk that I took last Sunday. All the facts are true and actually happened to me. I hope you enjoy it and so sorry I have no pictures on my computer of the events described.

Thump. His bare feet hit the ground right beside my head. I had been awake for a while. I’d heard his alarm go off (as usual) and listened as he scrummaged around preparing to emerge for the day. I pulled my sleeping bag closer in recognition of the deliciously chilly morning air. Yesterday had been a scorcher and getting to sleep last night, bathed in sweat had been a challenge. As I listened to him wander around, presumably getting dressed and having breakfast I contemplated what I would do when he left. I was wide awake now. It was 6am. High time to be up and about the day’s business but I knew my two other housemates wouldn’t be ready to get up for ages and I hate staying in bed till all hours of the morning unless extremely tired, so it remained with me to find some way of entertaining myself. Was that it? Yes, I heard the cabin door screech. Then heavy footsteps. Another door, heavy sounding groaned and slammed and then I heard the deep rumble of a diesel engine starting up. He was gone. I listened to the retreating vehicle and then waited a few moments contemplating my next move. Soon I climbed off my bottom bunk. Thump. My bare feet hit the ground - louder then I expected. Stealthily I snagged a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and changed, then snuck out the front door after whispering to the mother among us that I was “going for a walk.”

Once outside, I sniffed the cool air luxuriously. It hailed of the perfect combination of farm smells, diesel smells, dust smells, hay smells, and bush smells. It was the kind of smell that rouses something inside of you and makes you burn up with adventure and excitement. And I had an adventure planned but not the kind of adventure where everything discovered is new and gloriously exciting. My adventure of that morning was purely sentimental. Resolutely I strode to the end of the short driveway and turned left without hesitation. All that interested me was hidden away up this way - whatever lay to the right I did not care at that moment. Beginning down a gravely hill, the first point of notice was a crude wooden sign nailed to a tree. I had never seen it there before but it is a fact that my sences are hightened substantially in the early hours of the day. But it was not the sign that riveted me the most, or the tree but rather the faint trace of a trail leading into the bush behind the tree. Quickly I diverted my path and tip-toed down the lane reverently, my eyes straining to see what was to be seen. To be truthful, there wasn’t much but I knew I was in the spot where my siblings and the neighbour’s children had played so happily together all those years ago. Reaching the end of the narrow path, I took one last gaze about me and retraced my steps to the gravel road. This time I turned right and continued on the course I had selected at the end of the driveway. 

This essay is destained to be the record of many pleasant and entertaining memories. For one such as I, engulfed in a season of life which brings so much business and diversion to numb the brain and obliterate the memory, writing is essential. How much longer could I remember the every-day childhood stories that are so precious to me? But on paper, how can they ever be destroyed? Unless by some cruel move of fate. Bare with me then as I relate some of these memories and perhaps by chance, you may also be enlivened and your day brightened by their revelation.

Heading down the gravel road, my mind was not content to stay where it belonged - with my body. It would wander whereever it wished and this, being a walk of remembrance, forebare with it’s desires. Into groves and gullies it wandered, remembering this excursion and that photo-shoot, none of which are important enough to relate here. The road dropped into a gully and coming up the other side is the setting for my first story.

It had been a rainy weekend. Ely and I had camped beside a loading ramp in the top paddock with only a tiny car for shelter. We had eaten rice noodles cooked in an already burnt bot with too much salt over a steaming, struggling campfire. We had played Monopoly until we were eternally sick of it. We had sloshed through the rain in an attempt to get some fresh air. And now it was time to go home. In the occasion that neither of us had our license, we were walking home, Dad having dropped us and the car at our camping sight. Thankfully, the rain had eased by this time making it a beautiful morning for a stroll. As we came down the hill I, in my reminiscent ramblings, was now walking up. We caught a glimpse of someone making their way towards us. On a push-bike, slowly and painfully peddling their way up the steep hill. He had long legs and long curls and a head that didn’t dare to look at us. It was the neighbour’s son, just months younger then I and shyer then Ely or I. We walked passed him. Not a word. He rode passed us. Not a word. Now, this chance and brief meeting is a great source or merriment for Ely and I. I wonder if Tim remembers it.

I didn’t make it to the top of the hill where a goat track turns off and runs through the property. Instead I caught sight of a tiny dam perched on the side of the hill. I dived through the fence, my heart actually pounding in excitement. My steps wishing to run ahead of my but also desiring to take in every detail of the encounter about to take place, I advanced across the pasture towards it. Finally I mounted the squat bank. It had changed but it was oh so good to be back. Where once the stumps perched on the edge of the bank had been lonely, now tall shoots were reaching for the sky and shadowing the dam. I sat down on one of the old stumps and relived in my mind the beautiful evening spent here.

It was burning off season and the Boss was burning off his gullies. My cousin Rosemay and I, bored of a sedimentary life indoors were after a little adventure. So, coming upon chance on one of these gullies that had been lit but hadn't taken off, we decided to add some spark to our life. The details of how we did it are gone, probably forever, from my mind. All I remember is all of a sudden there were flames springing up everywhere and the terror that gripped both of us as a wall of flame arose before us. In vain we attached the inferno (or so it seemed to us) with branches in an effort to contain the fire but all or efforts seemed useless. And then, as suddenly as it begun, but after some time, it stopped. Died down and went out. Now what peace and relief flooded our hears. The entire time we had been horrified lest the Boss come down and find what we have done, certain that he would have seen the smoke from his home. Now it was over and we could relax. Twilight rested heavily on the land as we stumbled, fatigued from exertion, up to the little dam I now rested beside. Each of us dropped onto one of the stumps and sat listening to nature’s goodnight chorus. Then, behind us, as if to perfect the evening and the warm, comfy feeling in our hearts, fireflies began to dance. Rosemay and I stood, transformed, transfixed at the gorgeous, delicate sight we were privilege to behold until our hunger called us come for tea.

I shook myself out of my reflection. A finch was swearing at my intrusion from within one of the saplings. Ducking, I made my way from under their shelter and continued on my way. My next point of identification was the actual gully where the terrible fire had taken place. I spotted it reasonably easily. There was the carcass of a fallen tree and young fuzzy-leafed saplings growing up behind it. In consideration also was the site’s location and orientation to the house we once occupied and the Boss’s house on top of the far hill. That was the place alright. Next, I made my way up the hill to the location of the ill-fated camp already mentioned in this text. I didn’t stay long but quickly snooped around to see if I could located remains of a campfire or any other hints of the excursion. There were none and so I moved on.

The next few historical points were by far the most sentimental to me. Not only were they connected to a pleasant memory, but raw emotions and sentiments that still live on deep within me. They were the backdrop for some of the happiest hours of my teen years. 

Dropping down off the bush track, I made my way through the long blady and cutty grass to a big grey gum. It stands just up the gully from another tiny dam and just up the hill from the gully to the North. I approached it with wide open eyes, searching, probing for marks in it’s thick bark. On close examination I discovered multitudes of koala scratches - one of the fluffy little animals was most certainly making it’s home in that tree - and a few illegible marks and: L B + T S. This was the only remainder of a once information-rich sweet-heart tree. 

I was sixteen and she fourteen when the writing bug seized us. Sometimes, I am told, these turns come quickly and go in a short amount of time. A couple of hundred words scribbled on a handful of crudely lined paper, a sick plot about a young girl and her hero, and they lived happily ever after. Our demise began like that. We started off with fairy tales. Aussie-fied, country-fied fairy tales. Wild stories of brumbies, stockmen, bushrangers and black-boys who lived and fought and were wooed or rather tried to woo two vastly different young women - sisters. One was as wild as the black boy she married and the brumbies she wrangled. They other delicate and ladylike, caressed and protected by the handsome man she loved and married. Of course, it wasn’t a smooth life for the two maidens, one was always ill, the other always threatened by some disaster, both of their men were at times almost kill and ultimately, one went off to war without a word to his wife and was never seen again. Stories of crime and gore and heartache. Stories that, to be truthful made hardly an ounce of sense. But these stories came and went. After them came deeper, more realistic plots, characters with inspirations taken from real people and a story-line inspired by real events.

But it was those first wild stories that involved the big grey gum I was standing beside. Because our characters were falling in love, getting torn apart and forbidden, getting married and having children, we decided that we really did need a sweet-heart tree. So one afternoon, Rosemay and I tramped up to this huge tree and, with our pocket knives, inscribed in it’s hall of fame the names of our favorite characters and their children to come. From what I remember, L B and T S were to be the parents of a modest two children (a reflection on my life’s goals at that time) and P B + Will had a clan of twenty-one hanging over their head in doom. All these names were at one stage inscribed on the sweet-heart tree but time has since eroded almost all trace of that day’s efforts. My memory however reminds me that Rosemay had a most difficult time trying to conjure enough names for twenty-one children!

From the sweet-heart tree I dropped down to that tiny, hidden dam. The Secret Dam we called it. It was my favorite place on the property, the location for my most romantic compositions and some of my best poems and some of my best insect photography. I would make my way to this sanctuary and sit or lie for hours under the deep blue sky, beside the murky waters with dragonflies and frogs and bees buzzing around me. One day, early in spring as I lay in the soft, new grass, my beautiful diary and precious pen in my hand, a delicate baby-blowfly plant caught my attention. It was so beautiful and springy that I had to write about it. And so this poem was born:

Standing right there mute,

Amongst the grassy weeds,

Though I squash you ‘neath my boot.

No grudge my erring mistake leaves.

Swaying in each gust of wind

Endurance and audaciousness never dimmed.

Though at one’s first glance,

You seem redundant,

And your place somewhat debatable,

You really are irreplaceable.

Your magic holds unmatched

Through the raging storms of time

And ever time I see you’ve in the summer hatched

I must take you to be mine.

Sitting on a gently sloping knoll,

By a croaking, rippling dam

And an empty wombat hole,

Watching the frisks of a newborn lamb,

I glance between my feet.

There! Beside that dry old cattle bone,

Is who I want to meet.

I smile to match your own 

And I rise to dance like you.

Your joy can fast my own renew.

Another time, once more in burning off season, Rosemay and I decided to burn off the pasture surrounding this little dam. We weren’t game to let it get very big and so put it out with branches and our hats but this time, this poem was written from that experience.

She shielded her face with her battered, worn hat,

And said to the fire “I’ll beat you and that is that!”

As she worked and labored against the flame,

The fire did its best to overcome,

On and on the blazing furnace came,

And  made the burning grasses hum.

Beating, tromping, ever on the go,

She watched it fast consume,

Famous gums were the first to go,

And lovely wattle plumes.

Over grass and weeds it raced,

But when at last escaped a sigh,

Of mighty flames there was no trace,

And she simply said “I got you didn’t I?”

This precious little dam concluded my visitation of important sites. From there I trailed the old track back toward the house we used to inhabit but this time, instead of turning left and returning to the house, I turned right on the other side of the gully and wound my way along those tracks. But wait! No! I have missed something. Two things.

Firstly, that gully. Rosemay and my siblings and I were always a little scared of that gully after dark. One night, returning from some afternoon jaunt, we tip-toed through the gully and ran up the other side. As we emerged into the paddock on the edge of the gully, dog noises rose up to us. We were terrified and ran hope quickly. We never ascertained whether those noises were wild dogs, dingos or one of the neighbour’s many dogs but we were always careful to be back through the gully before nightfall.

The bony horse’s rough gait rose and feel beneath me. She was old and somewhat disobedient but I didn’t mine - I was riding. Sugar was the neighbour’s horse but I was allowed to ride her as much as I wanted. Today I had had a struggle with her accepting the bit but finally I was out and about. Having a distinct horror or trotting, cantering or galloping downhill, and having a decided opinion about not educating horses to run home (which was in every direction uphill), the only fast riding I had was across slopes. This day I urged Sugar into a canter. Being old, she took a bit to get going but being an ex-racehorse, once she got going, she was fast. When she cantered, I felt like I was flying. I was on top of the world. It was beautiful. Suddenly something went wrong. Something felt wrong. Something had gone wrong. All the rain had made the slope slippery and in racing across it, Sugar’s hooves had slipped and we were in danger of coming crashing to the ground. I panicked but there was nothing I could do. I just waited. Yes, she had righted herself and we were safe again. I slowed her to a walk and was careful for the rest of that day. Later I went back and looked at the slip marks. In some places she had slipped more then 30cm. I still shudder when I think of that day.

My morning walk was almost over. The sun was rising; it was going to be another hot day. As I wandered I stayed in the shadows beside the gully. And then, coming out on the other side of the homestead, I turned and made my way up the hill towards the cabin where we were staying. There was the tree where I had whiled away time with Casey, the neighbour’s dog, sitting beside her and listening as she talked to me in her own precious language. The same tree had been a setting for a music video we had recently made.

I reached the driveway, the house-yard again and sadly looked around me. I knew this was the last time. I would never be back here again. I would never have the liberty of wandering the property without restraint. Never. It was a final farewell.