The Melting Billy
Stand on a mountain
Breathe in as the wild winds blow
Dissolve your shadow.
Curled pandanni leaves
That withstood a thousand storms
Rustle in the wind.
Relinquish the Earth,
Free her from your desire
She will nourish you.
The great mystery
Time, an elastic string
What to do with it?
Old man to the wind
If forest is a city
Mountain is a shrine.
Which way will you go?
Right is wrong and wrong is right
Just follow your heart.
Become lost, then found
It’s coldest just before dawn,
Then the sun rises.
Wind sways through the trees
Dances past the trunks with ease
Rustles fallen leaves.
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
-Bilbo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkiens.
Not exactly a plantation.
There are certain places where we will only ever be visitors.
Deep in the temperate rainforests of Tasmania, it is moist, gloomy and generally cool. The soil smells of decomposing organic matter, and the ground is coated in moss and lichen. This is the prehistoric world of plants; and animal life is rare. Occasionally, a bird will call, but mostly there is silence, except for the whispering leaves in the wind. Warm blooded creatures tend to hang out somewhere else.
Handsome fungi.
This is the world of plants and fungi. When the plants die, when the trees fall down, the intricate network of fungi within the soil go to work, break down the timber, and make these nutrients available for other trees and plants to take up again. And when these fungi are ready to reproduce, we see the mushrooms pop up. But these are only a small part of a much larger organism hidden beneath the ground. The fine filaments of the fungi, or mycelium networks are so numerous that there can be kilometres of these filaments beneath a single footstep.
Two frozen ents, captured in time.
The ents in Tolkiens’ world were the tree protectors, the guardians. They were quite like trees themselves, except they could move. They would talk in really long sentences, because they have seen a lot and they had plenty of time.
I feel that we need more ents in our current time. We need beings who move slow and talk slow, and look out for the trees’ well being. We need elves too, the companions to the human race, except fairer, wiser and with eternal lives. Creatures whose wisdom exceeds ours, and creatures that we could look to, in order to help our own disheveled lives.
Where else would the elves live, but here, among the oldest trees? I haven’t found them yet, but this doesn’t mean that I will stop looking.
A.S. 10/3/22, Lenah Valley.
Fractals in the rainforest.
“If we can build a dam, we can also pull it down.” -Andy Szollosi
This image consists of two photographs. One was taken by Lindsay Hope in 1972, as Lake Pedder was about to be flooded, and the other one in 2021 by Andy Szollosi. The two images have the same composition, and are superimposed to create a single image, showing the shoreline of the original Lake Pedder, with its quartzite beach, but also the shoreline of the current impoundment. This edit was created by Andy Szollosi, with some valuable help from Matt Jones.
Media Release
Andy Szollosi and Pat Kirkby are set to ride their bikes from Hobart to Canberra in March-April 2022, to take a message from the home of the Restore Pedder movement to Parliment House. They are going to call on all politicians and political parties to commit to the restoration of Lake Pedder in the lead up to this year's Federal Election.
"The UN has called for this decade to be one of ecological restoration. What better way for Tasmanians to partake in this than to restore the beating heart of the Southwest?” –Andy Szollosi said.
"I’m pedaling for Pedder because I believe the restoration of this iconic wilderness area could show the world that we can go beyond just trying to slow the rate of ecosystem degradation. The restoration of Lake Pedder could be a globally iconic project that would provide hope for humanity, in this age of global environmental collapse." -Pat Kirkby said.
Pat and Andy will ride their pushbikes self sufficiently, without support, across Australia's tallest mountains, The Great Dividing Range. Along the way they hope to raise awareness and funds for the Restore Pedder movement. It's a journey that they expect will take them four weeks to complete.
People who wish to donate to their cause can do so through Pat and Andy’s Gofundme page.
Adventure begins when things don’t go to plan.
Correct creek crossing technique, as demonstrated by the inimitable Stu Bowling.
The first principle of the ‘leave no trace’ code is to ‘plan ahead and prepare’. There are multitudes of good reasons for this. Planning minimizes the likelihood of us coming undone in the bush. Having a plan means we will have enough food to eat, enough water to drink, and ideally end up where we intend to go. If we can boil our billy and have a cup of tea, as per the plan, that is great. However, none of my most memorable trips ended up going exactly to plan. Sometimes, the billy breaks, and hot water goes everywhere.
Now I don’t particularly enjoy hot water spilling unexpectedly from a heated vessel. Especially if I’m in its close proximity. But those times when the metaphorical billy did break and I was left with a troublesome situation, those times resulted in the greatest personal growth, or the building of the ever so elusive ‘character’.
‘Are you sure this is the way Andy?’ -Daniel Panek.
Building character is about surprising ourselves, and undertaking actions we didn’t think we were capable of doing. A lot of the time, we don’t know whether we can do something, and we simply tell ourselves that we can’t. ‘You’ll get hurt’. This voice is worth hearing out, but if we give in to it we won’t grow at all. We need to make mistakes in order to truly learn something. When we really screw up, this gives us the greatest opportunity to learn.
During a difficult trip, we tend to arrive to crux points, or natural bottlenecks, through which we must funnel through, in order to get out of the bottle and reach our destination. It can be dictated by the landscape, by the weather, by our own skill, preparation or equipment list. When we arrive to a bottleneck, the available options to us narrow down. Life becomes very simple, but rather difficult.
Arriving to a natural bottleneck, or a ‘crux’ of our trip could mean we have run out of food many days from the end of our trip, or that the sole of our boots have fallen off, or that we are unable to arrive to a decision with our adventure buddy about something important. It might mean we have become lost, we don’t have enough water, or that we are injured, and unable to move without pain. Having to funnel through a bottleneck might mean having to cross a river, or going across a high pass in a mountain range, or it might mean wriggling our way through a particularly dense thicket of vegetation.
The west coast rocks are not kind to rubber and leather.
There does not exist a definitive guide on how to deal with a crux situation. If someone claims to have written one I wouldn’t trust it. Every situation is different, and hides a subtly different solution.
In trying to find a solution, what will help us is if we are able to focus our awareness on the problem. But there is more to solving a problem than simply paying attention. We must listen with our entire being and react to the challenges presented to us with calculated precision and determination. And sometimes, a bit of brute force and stamina might help as well.
Generally, we are given an opportunity to extract ourselves out of a pickle before we turn to vinegar in our metaphorical bottle. If we continue making bad decisions that are based on our lack of paying attention to our environment, and the dynamic nature of its change, then we will continue to remain in the pickling jar. To find our way out of a tricky situation, concentration is required. What we need is an application of our attention to come up with a creative solution.
A crux sequence will present us with a problem which we don’t really know how to solve. But we have to solve it anyway. We may not be ready, we may not even be willing, but a true adventure will force us to solve a problem we didn’t know we were capable of solving.
The realisation that we are capable of much more than what we thought was possible is the sign that not everything went to plan. When the billy breaks, we have an opportunity to become much more than we were.
My personal rule is that if I can make a cup of tea out in the bush, then everything is fine. Making a cup of tea implies access to water, shelter, and some way of keeping warm. So if I can boil a billy, everything will be just fine.
But I would be truly disappointed if every trip I took included a hot cup of tea at the end of each day. Sometimes the billy needs to break, and hot water must go everywhere.
Pretty sure the wicked witch of the west lives out here somewhere.
PS: I renamed my blog this week to ‘The Boiling Billy’. There was a facebook page called ‘Mountains of Tasmania’ so I wanted to avoid confusion in the long term. If you haven’t signed up to these weekly posts to be sent direct to your inbox, here is your chance!
Between the lines
The night sleeps like she’s always had
On my pillow I lay my weary head,
Open eyes to galaxies and dreams
A world fueled by love, a world in which I’m at ease.
Basic goodness is our right
Children of the universe
We skip pebbles on the ocean’s shore,
Living lost memories
Our name is riding on the wind, it calls.
How far down life’s highway
Are you willing to place the bet?
The traffic crawls to a stop,
Two lanes on the bridge become a jam.
Loving lost memories
We turn the book,
Gaze upon the page;
Recall a memory vague.
We promise and we collect
Give, take, give, take, take, take.
A scale tipped out of balance,
There’s only one way to dance.
Close your eyes,
But keep watch on the page,
Every secret ever told
is staring you in the face.
Your skin tingles,
Your dream delights,
One hope, one dream,
Within you is the light.
A.S. 14/1/2015
Henry’s Prophecy
I put my head under
Only for a second
and now, everywhere
I turn my head
All I see is blue, dark, red;
Three principal colours,
One right, one left.
The fish are swimming
Around and around my head
My hands are cold
My feet are wet.
Perhaps it’s time
To listen to Henry the octopus,
He can tell the future, you know.
I asked him once
What would happen to me
He just shook his head
He told me this story instead.
“Once there was a world
So blue it was red,
The sun rose so bright,
That night was black.”
A.S. Oct 2015.
How not to sink
Keep things simple. Elegance lies in economy.
Waste not the precious gifts of youth
Use not the endless chains,
Unforgiving loops of thought
That always bring you back
To the same milestone
You have left behind.
Be not too greedy,
Take satisfaction in matters
As they stand,
Yet hold your vision steady.
Get ready to launch your raft
When the boat begins to sail,
A life jacket has never saved a single life
Except of those who have worn it.
The Titanic sunk for a simple reason,
It was never built to sail,
Instead she was to leap between the continents
Carrying the world’s wealth with ease;
Some ideas are set to fail.
In her confidence
It all came crashing down,
Iceberg, momentum
Scrape, leak, icy water.
May they rest beneath the waves.
A.S. 2/11/15
“Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
Overcome arguments by arguments, not authority, for a victory dependent on authority is unreal and illusory.
Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do, the opinions will suppress you.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool would think that it is happiness. “
Tha classic Tasmanian bushwalker’s ‘look’. Canvas pack and gaiters, broad rimmed hat, sturdy pants for the scrub and a long sleeved collared shirt to protect from the harsh rays of the sun. The only thing that’s missing in this picture are the scrub gloves (gardening gloves) to protect against all the prickles. These days, I no longer wear a watch and have replaced my waxed cotton hat with a daggy legionaries hat that has been described as ‘wearing old man’s undies on my head’. ‘Look’ is irrelevant in the bush, what matters is functionality.
Bushwalkers’ attitude is changing rapidly, and with it, the gear that is being manufactured globally. Outdoor clothing and equipment these days isn’t simply expected to perform, it’s also expected to sell. And if gear is to sell, it needs to appeal to the user. Some outdoor clothing brands sell well because the user feels empowered while wearing their products. One brand in particular makes gear and clothing that is functional but also looks neat. And despite the fact that this brand isn’t known for their product’s durability, and despite the fact that their products are overpriced, people still buy it. (In certain parts of the world, wearing certain brands can be seen as a statement of social status). A fancy raincoat might only keep you half dry, but at least you will look your best while you gradually get soaked.
I’m sad to say that it seems to me that disappearing are the days of the ‘daggy’ bushwalker trudging through the mud just for the fun of it, replaced by the trendy and instagram savvy hiker with their fresh clean look and brand new beautifully beading jacket, wearing waterproof boots while walking on a pounded dry track without a single puddle on it. Gone are the days of sitting by a fire, waiting patiently for one’s billy to boil. People want hot water and they want it now! So they blast out their gas canisters, and sip their tea while it’s still too hot and often burn themselves by using lightweight titanium cups that transmit the heat really efficiently to one’s sensitive lips.
My favourite cup is a red and white enamel cup I bought in Hungary about six years ago. It’s not exactly lightweight, and has a handle that sticks out. But it reminds me of home and I tend to take it with me. Not every time, but whenever I can.
The tradition of bushwalking as a modern recreational activity is seeped in the appreciation of Nature. It is about having a slow cup of tea and taking in your surroundings. It’s about learning bird calls, recognising certain creatures and features of the land and getting to know them. It’s about noticing a three hundred million year fossil, embedded in rock as one steps over it. It’s about returning to a place over and over again, in order to perceive how it changes over long periods of time. It annoys me when people describe a visit to a place as having ‘done it’. Have you learnt everything you can about a place from a single visit? Has the landscape given you everything it may provide for you?
Bushwalking is also driven by challenge and exploration as manifested in one of my least favourite terms of the English language. ‘Bush-bashing’. People use this phrase so casually, and frequently. It portrays the attitude of the bushwalker being an adversary of the environment they visit. I prefer to say ‘scrub wriggling’, to imply one must find a playful path through the vegetation, rather than create a passage of destruction through the use of brute force. Language is a powerful tool, and it shapes us as much as we shape it. Just because a term rolls of the tongue easily doesn’t mean we should use it mindlessly.
Appreciating a west coast sunset.
There is a curiosity that draws people out to the Tasmanian bush. And it’s probably not curiosity about the scrub, the mud or the snakes for most people. But the scrub and the mud and the snakes are all part of it. The walker must give some kind of effort, in order to reach a place that is worth visiting. The greater the effort the walker is willing to put in, the greater the reward that may be gained from visiting the place.
The place that the walker visits alters the walker’s nature. This is why experienced Tasmanian walkers tend to be wiry, stubborn, and overly optimistic. These are the traits that are required to reach certain parts of Tasmania on foot. Each trip that a buhwalker undertakes alters their nature; increases their stamina, resilience and knowledge of the landscape.
We enter the bush, the wild, because we are curious, because we wish to see what is out there. And when we enter nature, we interact with it, we leave a mark, leave some kind of effect. For old time bushwalkers it was fine to strip pandani leaves to kindle a fire. It was fine to cut new tracks, to create new campsites. It was fine to air drop food to remote places, and to leave the buckets out there and simply bury any rubbish one had. The bush seemed infinite, and endless. That is no longer the case.
These days bushwalkers follow Leave No Trace principles. Plan ahead and prepare. Travel and camp on hard and durable surfaces. Dispose of waste properly. Leave what you find. Minimise campfire impacts. Respect wildlife. Be considerate of others.
As the number of people increases on this globe, and the size of our wild areas decreases, the demand placed on these remaining areas continues to grow. The more native habitat we wipe out, the more valuable the remainder becomes. And the more people will wish to spend time in it.
In the last hundred years, bushwalkers’ attitudes have shifted from those of conquerors, to visitors.
And now, we must evolve from visitors to custodians.
It is no longer enough to preserve. We must also begin to restore.
-A.S. Lenah Valley. 11/02/22
There is an unlikely creature that lives in the buttongrass moorlands of sub alpine Tasmania. The highland yabby, or burrowing crayfish, digs holes in the soil which fill up with water, and they live within these holes most of their lives. I’m not sure how far down their holes may reach into the ground, but I imagine there to be more of a horizontal maze rather than a vertical one, as their habitat is often underlaid by extensive rock shelves. Nevertheless, some of these yabby hole systems, often high up on ridgelines, can be extensive. Yabbies tend to come out of their holes upon heavy rains and scavange around for rotting plants among other things…
You’d think that living life as a yabby in a wet hole somewhere high up in the mountains on some gnarly old ridgeline would be somewhat peaceful and serene. Surely those yabbies wouldn’t have much to worry about?
Well, someone told me once that the big yabbies eat the smaller yabbies and so that sometimes, you can get these giant yabby queens and kings, living in their underwater warrens, who reign supreme for a while, until some bigger yabbies comes along.
I don’t know if I want to believe that story completely. It can’t be all about survival. Surely the yabbies have some catch ups that don’t involve eating each other? It really can’t be such a bad life.
Unless of course, the wet hole turns into a dry hole. If it doesn’t rain, the ridgelines are the first to dry out. They are exposed to the wind and the water runs off, to lower places. Without water, the yabbies dry up as well. They need water in their little holes to survive. So if their holes dry up they would only have one option. They would have to undertake a journey down the hill, towards more plentiful ground water, but this is bound to be hazardous and fraught with many dangers.
In the eight years that I have lived in Tasmania, I have only seen these bluish creatures once or twice. I have walked past thousands of their homes, those little holes in the ground about one inch in diameter. And in the eight days that I spent on the range depicted in these photos, I drank only the water that I managed to siphon out of the ground using my yabby tube. I remember the water tasting a bit shrimpy on some of the days, and it gave me some strange hand tremors a couple of times, but I never got sick from it. Luckily for the yabbies, the surrounding groundwater means that their holes fill up with water very shortly after they are drained by cheeky bushwalkers.
Long live the highland yabbies!
-A.S. 5/2/22, Lenah Valley.
If we wish to live in harmony with the people who have been on this continent for much longer than us western settlers, we must recognise that this land was never ceded by its original inhabitants. This land was taken by force, and we still celebrate the day the First Fleet arrived from England as ‘Australia Day’. If we wish to have a national holiday that all Australians can celebrate, perhaps we should pick a date that doesn’t signify the day which began the demise of the culture of the original inhabitants of this land.
I liked Bob Brown’s suggestion recently to keep the 26th January as a public holiday but to call it Recognition Day instead. This goes to the heart of what First Nations people have been asking for generations. Acknowledgement of what happened, although this will not be enough. It’s not enough to listen. We must also alter our attitude toward the land which now gives home to all of us.
If we wish to have a national day that we can all celebrate, let’s make it a neutral day, one that doesn’t evoke pain for the people who have lived here the longest. And let’s actually listen to what First Nations people have to say, to what they have to teach us. If they say that land is sacred and that we must not cut another coal mine out of the Earth, let’s heed that advice. There are more important things in this world than the economy. There is at least 40 000 years of lessons that remain in the culture of our Indigenous people. We can ignore their requests and their advice only at our own peril.
To commemorate Recognition Day this year, I will share with you some of my notes I jotted down in my journal last year upon reading an essay by Wendell Berry titled ‘A native hill’, written in 1968. His view of the land brings to mind the attitude of native people around the world. In particular, I like his comparison of a path to that of a road.
A.S. -26.1.2022, Lenah Valley
From 'A Native Hill (1968)' by Wendell Berry
“I am forced, against all my hopes and inclinations, to regard the history of my people here as the progress of doom of what I value most in the world: the life and health of the Earth, the peacefulness of human communities and households.”
“The idea was that when faced with abundance, one should consume abundantly, an idea that has survived to become the basis of our present economy.”
“A path is little more than habit that comes with knowledge of a place… It is not destructive. It is the perfect adaptation, through experience and familiarity…
A road on the other hand, embodies a resistance against the landscape… Its wish is to avoid contact with the landscape… its tendency is to translate place into space in order to traverse it with the least effort.”
“The thought of what was here once and is gone forever will not leave me as long as I live. It is as though I walk knee-deep in its absence”.
“I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it. “
“Until we understand what the land is, we are at odds with everything we touch.”
“I have thrown away my lantern and I can see the dark.”
“It is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are.”
