The Melting Billy
“We are part and parcel of the big plan of things. We are simply instruments recording in different measure our particular notion of the infinite. And what we absorb of it makes for character and what we give forth, for [our art].”
-Rockwell Kent
Crooked stump, Mt Snowy North. Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, July 2025.
Lichen detail. Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, July 2025.
Twisted limbs. Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, July 2025.
““I am your teacher and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behaviour, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing and happy, looking to God in things great and small - your aim is to learn and diligently practice all these things. Why then don’t you complete the work, if you have the right aim and I have both the right aim and right preparation? What is missing?… The work is quite feasible and is the only thing in our power… Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me and you will see.”
-Epictetus, Discourses
Rainbow Beach, Pentax MX, Kodak Pro Image 100, July 2025.
“We must give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish, which should continually test itself. Greatness of soul will be lost, which can’t stand out unless it disdains as petty what the mob regards as most desirable.”
-Seneca, Moral Letters
The big wide ocean. Pentax MX, Kodak Pro Image 100, July 2025.
“Keep this thought at the ready at daybreak, and through the day and night- there is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all outside of your sphere of choice, regarding nothing else as your possession, surrendering all else to God and Fortune.”
-Epictetus, Discourses
Sunrise toward Rainbow Beach. Pentax MX, Cinstill 50D. July 2025.
All you need are these: certainty of judgement in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.”
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Sunrise over ocean. Pentax MX, Cinstill 50D, July 2025.
Every time I drive out to lutruwita’s/Tasmania’s South-West, I am reminded of the great folly that was the result of the compulsive industrialization driven by Tasmania’s Hydro-Electric Commission in the 1960s and 70s. The drowning of Lake Pedder and the Gordon River were tragedies that were seen as a reasonable sacrifice for the benefit they would bring: electricity. And to this day, the people of Tasmania, including myself, use this electricity, to boil the kettle, to have a hot shower, and to live the life of safety, security and comfort that civilization allows us.
Mist toward the South-West, Pentax MX, Cinstill 50D, June 2025.
The road that was bull dozed to build four dams in the South-West; The Scots Peak Dam, the Edgar Dam, the Serpentine Dam and the Gordon Dam; this is a road that I wish had never been built. The Gordon River Road. And yet I drive this road every time I go for a bush walk into the South-West. And so do the trucks that are currently hard at work reinforcing the Edgar Dam at the head of the Huon River. This is the dam that was built on a geological fault line; one of three dams that drowned Lake Pedder. It is currently getting major upgrades. There are also plans to reinforce the Scotts Peak Dam.
Lone Road, Pentax MX, Cinstill 50D, June 2025.
The federal inquiry into the flooding of Lake Pedder in 1995 concluded that it “is unlikely that such a project as the flooding Lake Pedder would now be approved.” As far as I know, this is as close as the government has ever come to making an apology about flooding Lake Pedder; the quiet admittance that the value of a wild lake of extraordinary beauty existing forever may outweigh the benefit of electricity generation. In the same paragraph, the enquiry also stated: “This does not mean that the Australian community would now support draining the new lake”. And so the tragedy of Lake Pedder continues, year after year.
The Thumbs, Pentax MX, Cinstill 50D, June 2025.
I often think of the meandering Serpentine River, trying to flow, but currently trapped by the Serpentine Dam, held back. Lake Pedder’s outlet, like Lake Pedder’s beach, drowned in fifteen meters of dark, buttongrass water. I wonder whether our society will ever be mature enough to value the health of a wild river above the convenience of electricity.
Will there ever come a time when we allow the Serpentine River to run free?
The road into the South-West, Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, June 2025.
-A.S. Brushy Creek, 6/9/2025
”The true test of our character is the moment when someone commits an act toward us which we consider deplorable. It is this moment when we must choose between retaliation and forgiveness; between the mentality of ‘an eye for an eye’ or the transcendental where we break the cycle of wrongdoing through rising up to our higher self and choosing to respond to the atrocities directed to us with patience, kindness and ultimately, forgiveness. In other words, kindness is really about not being nasty to someone just because they have done us wrong.”
-A.S. Brushy Crek, 12th of August 2025
Peaking Peak, Pentax MX, Kodak
Derwent Valley, Pentax MX, Cinstill 50D, June 2025.
Rainbow over Mountain River, Pentax MX, Cinstill 50D, June 2025.
A blind spot is most dangerous when we are not aware of its presence.
Quartzite Outcrop, Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, June 2025.
One of the greatest virtues one can attain is humility. This is the ability to admit that we were mistaken about something; and to wear our mistake with grace rather than denial. And one of the great blessings of maintaining a healthy and honest relationship with our fellow humans is that they will let us know when they believe we are mistaken; especially around matters of great importance. And it’s not just other people that can tell us when we are mistaken. The Earth can do this too.
Slopey Quartzite, Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, June 2025.
A blind spot is most dangerous when we deny its existence. If we do not consider the possibility of being wrong about something, that is exactly when we are at greatest risk of making a mistake that could have dire consequences resulting in the metaphorical ‘fall’.
The devastating fall of the protagonist, the hero, is the subject of many great literary tragedies. The hero, absorbed in their ego fails to listen to the advice given by the oracles, and as a result, sets themselves on the path for self-destruction.
Rising Mist, Banksia, Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, June 2025.
Our proud, hubris driven protagonist may say:
‘That other people should make mistakes is natural; that I should make a mistake, that is highly unlikely!’
And so the hero plods toward their destiny, towards the dragon’s den.
‘Others may be prone to make those mistakes, but I am dragon-proof; my judgement is without fault, and despite others believing otherwise, I am actually infallible.’
And so the hero will either defeat the dragon, or burn in the flames.
Burnt Banksias and Snowgums, Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, June 2025.
-A.S. Brushy Creek, 23rd of August, 2025.
“I’ve come to realize that the only true walk is the re-walk. You cannot know a place without returning. And even then, once isn’t enough… It’s only through time and distance and effort-concerted, present effort, controlled attention, a gentle and steady gaze upon it all- that you begin to understand old connections, old wounds. That the shape of once dark paths becomes clear.”
-Craig Mod, Things Become Other Things’
Old Signpost. Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, June 2025.
Crocodile Rock? Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, June 2025.
View towards Lost World, Pentax MX, Cinestill 50D, June 2025.
“No one can open the door for you in this life, only you can do that.”
-Paddy Pallin, in my dream, 2nd of May, 2025, on the way to the mountain that shall not be named.
The mountain that shall not be named, panorama. Hasselblad 500CM, Kodak Gold 200, May 2025.
“To the skeptic who may ask: ‘What was the point in that?’ the philosopher may respond with ‘Looking for the point is missing the point.’ The cynic may add ‘Nothing, like all worthwhile pursuits in life, it was totally pointless’. Given I’m not really a philosopher or a cynic, my personal response is somewhat different.
Whenever I have an encounter, I ask myself, ‘why did this meeting take place?’ And when I reflect on an experience, I ask ‘What will I take with me from this? What have I learnt?’
Going on a quest where our life may be at stake, we are bound to return somewhat changed, which hopefully means we are better equipped and prepared to deal with the kind of challenges and difficulties that we experienced.
So what in specific did I learn on this journey?
I was reminded again, not to give up in the face of difficulty, which for me often manifests as apathy, as lack of caring. At the point where we feel like giving up, that’s the real tipping point in the process of our personal growth. If we surrender to comfort and safety, we will fail to attain the reward that we seek: greater abilities to cope with difficulties blocking our way towards our goals. Perseverance and determination is the adventurer’s greatest asset. Refusing to give up is how we inch toward our destination.”
-From my travel journal, Fagaras Traverse, June 2023.
The mountain that shall not be named, Hasselblad 500CM, Kodak Gold 200, May 2025.
I wish I had kept a detailed journal from my trip to the mountain that shall not be named earlier this year in May. Instead, all I got are three miniature pages of brief notes, which begin with : ‘bring next time: book, large notebook, proper walking boots, overpants, rope’. The bare essentials.
It is interesting comparing my recent trip to one I undertook over two years ago to traverse the Fagaras range in Romania. On that trip, I nearly threw the towel in on day seven, but managed to hang in there and complete the full traverse. On my recent trip, I threw everything I had at the mountain and failed to climb it. Have I let myself down by turning around at that difficult obstacle in the gully? Did I let fear get the better of me? Was the risk I perceived real or imagined? Was the move that made me turn around well within my ability? Or would that move have cost my life if I had attempted it?
Like with all hypotheticals, there are no clear answers. We are bound to the choices we make in life. In this case I am bound to the fact I failed to climb this mountain via its south ridge. And I am okay with that. Because I upheld the first and most important rule of adventure: to return home safely.
Close up. South ridge on far right. Hasselblad 500CM, Kodak Gold 200, May 2025.
Some places are perhaps best left unvisited and unnamed. Sometimes, a place tells us in no uncertain terms that we are not welcome. The south ridge of this mountain was one such place. I feel no need to go back there. I am content to have failed. My curiosity has been satisfied. One day I would like to go back and claim the summit. I don’t feel a need to do that with all mountains. There are some mountains I know I will choose not to climb. But this mountain has called me to it and I will have to go again.
But I feel no need to attempt the south ridge again. I am quite happy to class that way to approach this particular mountain as a dead end. There must be a better way. And I don’t necessarily mean the obvious way, the way I know this mountain has been climbed. Surely there is another way that is somewhat devious, but less horrendous? Surely?
And so I will wonder and ponder and plot and scheme until the time comes to go back. Perhaps next time I will go with someone else silly enough and we will take a rope and some gear? The future holds many possibilities. There are also a lot of other mountains out there, some of them somewhat more appealing. So I am not in a hurry. The time will come.
-A.S. 9/8/25, Brushy Creek
The big dead lake, pink clouds. Hasselblad 500CM, Kodak Gold 200, May 2025.
“You see, when I first came to this country, I was trying to, best I could, to acquaint myself with it, with the landscape, with the land.”
-Olegas Truchanas
Ice Detail, Olympus Em-1, August 2017.
“For us, as for animals, an ability to find our way in the wilderness is not so much development of intellect, as it is a sharpening of the senses, and the awakening of reactions to the terrain.”
-Olegas Truchanas
Iced Lettuce, Olympus Em-1, August 2017.
“Bushwacking is not thrashing about in a lot of thick country hoping for the best, nor is it taking a blind stab at an entirely unknown stretch of wilderness and expecting somehow to come out before dark. The master touch is to go places with as little interference as possible, without becoming tangled up in impossible going.”
-Olegas Truchanas
Frozen Lake, Native Pine, Olympus Em-1, August 2017.
“Tasmania is not the only place in the world where long-term, careful argument has been defeated by short-term economic advantage. When we look round, the time is rapidly approaching when natural environment, natural unspoiled vistas are sadly beginning to look like left-overs from a vanishing world. This vanishing world is beautiful beyond our dreams and contains in itself rewards and gratifications never found in artificial landscape, or man-made objects, so often regarded as exciting evidence of a new world in the making.
The natural world contains an unbelievable diversity, and offers a variety of choices, provided of course that we retain some of this world and that we live in the manner that permits us to go out, seek it, find it, and make these choices. We must try to retain as much as possible of what still remains of the unique, rare and beautiful. It is terribly important that we take interest in the future of our remaining wilderness, and in the future of our National parks. Is there any reason why, given this interest, and given enlightened leadership, the ideal beauty could not become an accepted goal of national policy?”
-Olegas Truchanas
Frozen Fagus Leaves, Olympus Em-1, August 2017.
“Resist much, obey little.”
-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Up the valley. Pentax MX, Kodak Image Pro 100, May 2025.
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”
-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
The mountain that shall not be named. Pentax MX, Kodak Image Pro 100, May 2025.
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.”
-Walt Whitman
Subtle Rainbow. Pentax MX, Kodak Image Pro 100, May 2025.
To go up, or turn around?
The gully was loose and it was steep, the rock walls of quartzite rose up on both sides of me. The only way onward led up onto a boulder, then to a steep ramp and a face of rock, with a large and solid tree near the top of it, growing out of the rock. Beyond the tree, I could see some kind of natural rock platform, which could have been the way to the summit, or the top of yet another cliff.
It was at that point I wished I had brought a rope.
The mountain called me to it. Pentax MX, Kodak Image Pro 100, May 2025.
I had left my camp by the river at first light to climb the mountain that shall not be named. For years, this mountain has called me to it, and finally I was here, ready to meet it. I took my pack with me that morning, with my day-kit and left my brown tent set up on the brown buttongrass plain among the brown tea trees with all my sleeping gear in it. I figured it would be best to be back at camp by dark.
I took my torch, map, compass, first aid kit, warm layer, raincoat, camera, lunch, and water for the day in my canvas pack. I had my scrub gloves, packrafting boots and canvas gaiters on. The way to the top would lead through the forest. Then to the base of the cliffs.
Forest Detail, Pentax MX, Kodak Image Pro 100, May 2025.
I arrived at the base of the southern ridge about two hours after I left camp. I had made good time. There was a large rock buttress about the size of a three storey building here. It was an obvious landmark, one I had spotted from camp. I finally knew exactly where I was. I was at the place where I could launch an attempt at the summit.
I figured one of the gullies would lead me to the top. There were cliffs in every direction looking up, with some obvious gullies. Except that the central gully I tried ended in cliffs. I retreated and then tried the gully to the left of centre. Which brought me to my dilemma of the rock face in front of me. The smooth slab with the tree above it. And the scary rock hollow to the left below it.
I was without a rope. To continue, or to turn around and look for another way?
One of the gullies. Pentax MX, Kodak Image Pro 100, May 2025.
I chose to turn around, when I remembered it was my mum’s birthday in three days time. When I remembered that, I knew I had to descend.
I descended the steep and loose gully, managing to dislodge one rock only, but it was the size of a rock melon, and it kept tumbling. Eventually, it stopped.
I arrived back at the base of the southern ridge. Back at the big rock. I had to have another crack. Another attempt, even further out left. Which also ended in cliffs. Retreat and descend. Some loose climbing down a tree. Eventually back at the base of the big rock for the third time.
On my fourth attempt, I followed the gully to the right of the south ridge. Which had a stupendously dense tea tree thicket in it. I was worried for my eye balls, imagining it skewered on the end of a sharp tea tree branch. I battled my way up, as gracefully as I could. I was sweating and panting hard. I was rising above the forest, until eventually I arrived to a bit of a notch that had to be scrambled. I did, only to arrive to the base of a giant overhang and a chimney. For the third time, I knew I had to go back down.
I had one serious attempt left in me. So I tried the gully even further to the right. Which had a good feeling about it. For the fifth attempt, I figured I was onto something. This time, the gully would go. Surely!
At one point, I had to crawl through a hole beneath the cliff to keep going up. I did this, having to take my pack off and pull it through. I could smell the summit breeze. And as I kept going up, I eventually arrived to the same place I was at about 45 minutes before. The same bloody chimney and overhang I got to at the end of my last attempt!
There was simply no way up.
I retreated back to the base of the southern spur to the big rock. I had spent four hours trying five different gullies; and all of them ended in cliffs.
I had run out of time. The mountain was not going to let me pass.
The way not traveled. Pentax MX, Kodak Image Pro 100, May 2025.
It was mostly with relief that I set my compass bearing and started down the slope, counting my paces. Those gullies were some of the least friendly places I have ever been. I was happy with my decision to turn around, but the possibility of the central left gully connecting to the top played on my mind.
Alas, there was no going back. Not on this trip. It was back into the forest and back down to the river. It was on my way down that I remembered I took no photos of the cliffs. It’s not that it was not pretty enough or anything. The view from those gullies was incredible, out above the forest and the mountains, all the way to the big dead lake and beyond into the great southwest. But I was so focused on finding a way to the top, I only took one photo during those four hours attempting to find the way to the summit, and that was in the thicket, inside one of the gullies.
Foam eddy in river. Pentax MX, Kodak Image Pro 100, May 2025.
Finding the way back meant hitting a saddle that wasn’t immediately obvious in the forest. With some luck, but mostly because of the compass and the map, I eventually arrived to this saddle. From here I had to attain a high point, then descend to the river, and aim to find my tent before dark.
I eventually arrived to the bottom of the mountain, to the tea tree and buttongrass plain by the river. The tea trees surrounded patches of open buttongrass in a great mosaic that stretched over half a kilometre. And among one of those little patches was my brown little tent.
It took some time. But I did find the brown tent in the brown buttongrass and brown tea tree plain. The river led me back to it. I walked into camp with two and a half hours of daylight left. I was back at the river, back where I had started.
That day I met the mountain and I managed to return safely.
-A.S. 20/7/2025, Brushy Creek.
