When you finally settle on your piece of rural paradise, build your home with your own hands, landscape your gardens and get to know the wildlife neighbours– you expect to enjoy the peace and quiet for the rest of your lives, right?
Wrong, if there’s coal in the area.
North of Mudgee, NSW, I recently visited such a home. It now has a new open-cut coal mine as a neighbour that can’t be ignored. That huge wall of overburden (the dirt and rock they dig up to get at the coal) is just 400 metres from their house, rising beside the small creek in the treeline. You can just see the top of one of the giant trucks operating there.
The dust is a constant problem, and so is the noise. When I was there it was like standing in Marrickville, Sydney, right under the flight path —only the traffic was non-stop.
A rural dream turned into a nightmare — and they had no say in the matter. Selling to the mine is their only option, which is a Clayton’s option as they didn’t ever want to move. They still don’t — but how long they can stand this is in doubt.
I travel south to see another mine in the region, down a pot-holed dirt road with mine vehicles hurtling along it at speeds that make me pull over to get out of the way.
Here the coal heap happens to be on fire and the giant excavator is biting into it and dumping burning heaps into the dump truck. If you have ever seen one of those mammoth yellow trucks, which looks like a toy here, you can get some idea of the size of that excavator.
Along this road there are no longer any signs of human habitation or usage, no houses or farms, just huge Transgrid towers straddling the landscape on one side and huge machines disembowelling the earth on the other.
Hell on earth.
I leave the mines behind and head down a dirt road in what seems a green and still rural valley to find a spot to have my picnic lunch. It is quiet enough, but then over the green hills I see dust rising; I have not gone far enough to escape the effect of the open-cut, although the mine would probably have classed this valley as beyond its ‘area of affectation’.
The more coal mining areas I visit, the more horrified I am. Rural people do not live in the lucky country any more. Even if mine-free now, over the next hill drilling could be going on for their worst nightmare to come tomorrow.
{ 1 comment }
They seemed to be the only ones on the tree; luckily I refrained from picking one long enough to realise they were not seeds. Like Indian clubs, these smooth creations were hanging from a criss-cross of spider webs. I could just see the spider’s legs protruding from its dry leaf shelter (circled).
Each year the Crimson Glory Vine powers up from its woody trunk and heavily pruned short stems — and goes crazy along my western wall. I am amazed anew at its vigour. 
On the main western wall the greenery brings shade to the unused door and the upper fixed window; there is a leadlight window to the right of the door, but so densely shaded that it is invisible. 
It hasn’t taken long for the wallabies to make themselves at home in the house yard. The roses are the main feeding attraction, with them stripping all the smaller bushes, and making considerable effort to reach up and pull down the stems of higher ones, like the old shrub rose, Autumnalis, and the Banksia Rose.
The other quickly-acquired daily habit is occupying shady spots– one each, probably claimed and kept. The shade may be quite small, from a single shrub, or from man-made objects like the barbeque.
I do like seeing them so relaxed when I am about, and I am learning to unclench my teeth and be more relaxed myself when I see them eating the roses — or the Robinia — or the Buddleia — or the grapevines. A new era, I keep telling myself, and I chose it. So get used to it and enjoy!
Living on a mountain, my eyes are directed as often to the skies as they are to ground level.
Yet I have to keep my eyes on the ground as well. The constant surpises in nature here range from the sublime to the minute.
During the recent wet spell and see-sawing temperatures, my resident skinks must have had trouble finding warm dry spots. I have what I think is a mother and child as the smaller one is getting bigger and less nervous of my approach.
But they were fine, only guarding the entrance, immobile and at attention, like any good sentinel. And no doubt too cool to run fast!
