Moody mountain

One of the reasons I just have to live near mountains is that they never look the same.

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Sunlit or moonglowed, gaily golden, broodingly black or morning misted, their interaction with the sky and the light makes for a perpetually changing visual feast.

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As at my old Mountain home, I can never decide which I prefer. But then, I don’t have to choose, because I can have them all!

Rainbow or cloud?

Stormy subtropical weather does not suit me. I am pining for drier, higher climes…

However, this climate does have its special effects that only happen here.

Like this week.  A brief storm and shower, then the mountain lowered its clouds into the valley.

But the day wasn’t over and the sun exerted its supremacy.

As the cloud rose back up, its indefinite lower edge was tinged with rainbow colours, like an oil slick. But no rainbow ‘bow’.

Was I seeing correctly?

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But as the sun won, the cloud was clearly cloud and the rainbow was a rainbow.

Just for a few moments they had merged identities. For me.

October storms

September was wet enough, but appropriately gentle.

October is delivering its rain in tropical tantrums, with sunshowers and rainbows and start-stop deluges.

This double rainbow appeared on the very first day of the month, to announce how things were going to be.

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A week later and we were treated to another fulsome beauty. Sadly, no pot of gold has ever been found by me, however hard I’ve looked.

The plants love the frequent drinks — not that they need extra encouragement to grow here. Weeds like dock are over my head already.

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This wallaby approves of the state of my ‘lawn’ at least.

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The swallow family don’t seem to mind being alternatively drenched and baked. Like me, they have to make the best of what the gods deliver…

River love

Young mum Nicky Coombes is passionate about her beautiful Bundook area, her Gloucester River, and her family’s right to clean air and water.

As AGL’s coal seam gas project at Gloucester threatens all of these, she instigated a Gasfield-free Community survey in her Bundook locality. The first in the Gloucester region, the results showed that the great majority of residents do NOT want to live in a gasfield.

Nicky has come a long way from the first tentative public talks that I heard her give, and I think she has become a most eloquent spokesperson on the issue.

When I heard her speak recently, I complimented her:  ‘It was very poetic’.

‘Well, I have actually written a poem about it’, Nicky replied.

And she read it to me.

So now I share Nicky’s river poem and her beautiful river photos with you.

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Ode to the River

If you sit quietly & listen
You can hear her call your name
She wants to know your whereabouts
Your part in the game

We all claim common ownership
Her responsibility is ours
She wants to remind you
It’s your land that she empowers

It’s with your silence that she suffers
The cause of so much angst and pain
She questions your priorities
As without her you’d complain

Within you is the courage
And the strength to be brave
She’s asking you to speak up
Without you she can’t be saved

When we all speak together
Like her waters we can roar
She needs us to be united
A voice that cannot be ignored 

If you sit quietly and listen
You can hear her call your name
Please take responsibility 
For your part in the game

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Here’s Nicky at the recent Gloucester town walk. AGL better believe that she means what her sign says; the reverse message is ‘We will prevail’!

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Photo of Nicky and me by Linda Gill, who also made the steering wheel cover sunflower for The Ground Beneath Our Hearts event in Gloucester.

Sunflowers rule in Gloucester

On six continents groups large and small gathered to creatively celebrate and soothe the earth that we have so grievously wounded by our gung-ho extractive industries.

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In Gloucester, the Knitting Nannas Against Gas had been making sunflowers of every hue and size for months. On the day, sunflowers sprouted all over town, even on the garbage bins.

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Mannequins were found in the most unusual places and positions.

People were extra colourfully dressed for the monthly Walk through town and the mood was more positive than ever.

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Children in golden wings danced about like butterflies but couldn’t bring a smille to Nora the Knitting Nanna’s face; she knows CSG is deadly serious.

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At midday we met again at the AGL frack site gates where so many anxious and sad early morning vigils had been held as the fracking went on behind that high green wall in the distance. 

Now the Halliburton crew and their rigs are gone, AGL still have to vent the gas into the local air and take out the CSG water — then truck all the way to Queensland as no facility in NSW will have it, due to the BTEX it contains.

Today those gates bloomed with sunflowers and people parked and picnicked on the verge where once we were forbidden to stop.

Sunflowers are so much prettier than security guards…

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The security camera watched it all but no burly, poker-faced guards appeared. Clearly sunflowers and Nannas are not considered threatening enough.

AGL should not be fooled.

The Gloucester KNAGS certainly aren’t planning on giving an inch – or a stitch – until AGL are gone from their beautiful valley.

Gypsy farewell

Last week I loaded my much-loved Gypsy camper on to my ute for the last time. 

I have had to sell her due to financial problems.

The first to see bought her, and I had several callers wanting me to gazump them and buy her sight unseen.

I delivered her to her new home base near Inverell, where she is going to be used on a tray back ute and have major additions done to take advantage of the extra external side spaces.

I am now looking for a small 4WD campervan instead.

Here’s a few reflective pics of our time together.

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When she first arrived at my old Mountain home in 2012, she was immediately utilised by the locals for shade. I slept in her for the first night, just to celebrate what seemed my unbelievable good fortune in owning her.

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She was usually parked at the side of the cabin, very soon under a special sail for weather protection.

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Even while stationary there she had quite a few adventures with the local wildlife.

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I used to joke that I should rename her an ‘Activist Camper’, rather than an Active Camper, as she accompanied me to several protectors’ camps. At the original Leard Forest camp, a local frog immediately took up residence.

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We had only one actual ‘holiday’ — for two days — but she was wonderful for getting around to distant book talks, as in Victoria.

We did make it to a few national parks in between commitments in a given area — like Mount Kaputar when I was in the Pilliga, or the amazing Bunya Mountains here, from Toowoomba.

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Towing the final trailer load, she came with me as I passed through my gate for the very last time at the Mountain… a tough day.

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We made it here to our new home on 14th September, almost a year ago.

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Once here, at the Gloucester Protectors’ camp she was a frequent visitor, making the early morning action starts very easy for me.

She also coped with what seemed to be the frequent wild weather we copped there.

I felt guilty as tents ballooned and blew apart.

So my Gypsy has earned her new life and transformation. 

I loved having her, although I always felt she was too good to be true…

Morning glories

Spring is here, with welcome rain freshening the creek, which had slowed and dropped alarmingly.

Having only one tank here, when I used to have four, is nerve-wracking.

Nights are still cool enough for a fire, and mornings are bright and crisp.

Not so crisp as to make me want to stay in bed, however. I am happy that the light is waking me up earlier, so sunrises are back on my radar.

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Dews are heavy of a morning, bringing endless varieties of bejewelled webbing designs.

The grand she-oaks are especially favoured, with one branch bearing an unusual flag-shaped web.

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The small Acacia Baileyana wattle that I planted only months ago had not been forgotten. 

It hasn’t flowered yet, but who needs flowers when you have strings of pearls?

Co-existence with coal?

Hadyn Wilson is a friend of mine from the Hunter Valley — south of the coal wasteland, but he’s deeply aware of it. He is also a fabulous painter, a deep thinker and a sincere environmentalist. 

Recently I saw an exhibition of his work at the Frances Keevil Gallery in Double Bay, Sydney. Hadyn describes this exhibition, entitled ‘Incidental Landscapes’, as representing “a particular approach to ‘landscape’ which looks at the way this genre has changed and the cultural shifts that have occurred, particularly in relation to concepts of nature and land use within Australia.

 “The paintings therefore sometimes borrow imagery from that tradition and comment playfully on the way these references have perhaps changed in their reception over a century or more and particularly in relation to environmental considerations today.”

The painting above is called ‘Hunter Valley Landscape’. At 200 x 150 cm, it’s a big work, but then this is a big topic.

Knowing how the once-rural landscape between Singleton and Muswellbrook has been drastically changed for the worse by runaway coal mining, I find this work tragically moving, because so true and yet also highly symbolic.

I reckon this painting ought to be owned and publicly and permanently exhibited by a Hunter regional gallery, like the Newcastle or the Muswellbrook galleries.

 Perhaps the state authorities who have allowed this destruction should buy it as a token of their abject apologies to us and future generations – who may actually need farmland more than coal – for the harm they have done. 

And not only in the Hunter. Look at what is being proposed on the Liverpool Plains.
Even if the mines don’t wreck the precious water sources, the coal and overburden dust will contaminate the crops nearby. Would our customers like their wheat leaded or unleaded?

There’s a great video of Hadyn on the exhibition’s website, a precursor for a film. (link)

I sometimes call myself a literary activist, modelling on the amazing Arundhati Roy. I write books to spread the word.

At Bimblebox Nature Refuge (link) they hold artists’ camps with participants from multiple disciplines, with ensuing illuminating exhibitions. 

Here’s an extract from Hadyn’s essay on the role of artists in activism:

“Artists have throughout history stood with others against those who would destroy the natural and aesthetic realms to appease the gods of progress.”…

“At a time when this country is making decisions which will effect generations long after we have gone, what role can the artist play and how can that role effect any sort of broader cultural shift towards considering more seriously, our environment, our landscape and our future?.

“Charles Dickens, a man who lived through the industrial revolution and witnessed the excesses of that period, famously said “self preservation is the first law of Nature”. The measure of what we do next will be determined to a large extent by our ability to creatively respond to the incontestable reality that our environment, our landscape is what we are. If we look after that, then Dickens first law of nature will be taken care of.” 

See more here.

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No painting, but tragic realism nevertheless. This my photo of cattle co-existing with coal, somewhere near Clermont in Queensland. Apart from the cattle grazing on coal-contaminated grass, look at the trees dying in the background. That’s from the longwall mine strip underneath.

Dead trees, poisoned grass — happy cows — and happy consumers?

Transplants of the heart

Back in my old Mountain home, the verandah grew a living green blind each summer, blazed red and pink in autumn, and leaflessly let in the sunshine all winter.

Naturally, I took cuttings of this Ornamental Grape to bring with me.

They survived the trip and the transplant and here they are flagging their first autumn on their new verandah home.

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The other decoration on this verandah are the intricate spiderwebs between the uprights, only visible when delineated by a fine morning mist.

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The spiders do other useful work, such as binding the leaves of the little Nagami Cumquat into a neat parcel.

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With great difficulty I also brought with me my Dad’s Place. It was built by me and my sisters to house his ashes.

Not having been designed to be mobile, it weighed a ton.

But here it is, resettled, its lavender and wormwood plant settings fast making it look less newly transplanted. My grandkids have decorated the steps and verandah for him.

Fittingly, behind it is a terracotta chimneypot from my childhood farm, Dad’s orchard venture. I never saw it on a chimney, but I always loved it and I have carted it about for over 50 years. It lived in the rockery at the Mountain for the last 35.

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Here the southern face of its ferro-cement roof has grown a velvety green moss. I consider this makes up for the ridgeline crack it suffered in the move.

Penthouse wildlife

I have become so accustomed to the flock of White-headed Pigeons landing in the tallest branches of the tallest Camphor Laurel by the creek that I don’t rush for the camera.

Just the usual penthouse residents again.

Luckily, this time I paid more attention. These birds looked different.

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Without the camera zoom I couldn’t see the brown punk tufts on their heads, like bald men with thick toupées, hoping it makes them still look young…

These were Topknot Pigeons.

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My first sighting here and only my second ever anywhere. That was in 1997 at my Mountain and I was unsure about the I.D. then. No zoom!

Autumn mornings

It’s mid-Autumn; at last the nights and mornings have turned cold.

The slow combustion fire warms me at night; the sight of Autumn mists rising from the valley warms my spirit of a morning.

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The dew and the sunshine cause even the electric fence and the wretched Setaria grass to take on beauty.

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I am rarely quick enough to catch the occasional grazing wallaby who is still out in these misty mornings. The rabbits are even more occasional and usually even quicker to leap away, but I managed to snap this one, looking for all the world as if he’d hopped out of the pages of a Beatrix Potter story.

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I am very happy for this handsome fellow to eat the grass; so far I have only found evidence of unwanted nibbling on the lettuces, sorrel and parsley.

Beatrix observed that lettuces have a soporific effect on rabbits like the Flopsy Bunnies, but I am yet to find a snoozing rabbit in the garden.

Nature rewards

Last year the Nature Conservation Council awarded me their Dunphy Award (link to ‘Nature wins’). With it came a prize donated by Crystal Creek Meadows of a two-night stay in their beautiful Kangaroo Valley eco-resort. 

It has many laudable and genuine eco aspects and projects, and from the guest books, many appreciative and loyal fans. 

I am now another, and I thank them for their generous prize.

It’s a great base for appreciating nature.

Not far back up the steep and stunning road to Bowral is Fitzroy Falls.

You are lucky to see even one shot of them; I took it with a zoom, standing well back from the railing and the view, and involuntarily leaning back anyway. Yes, I can’t cope with heights, especially from cantilevered platforms…

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My friend Christa had no such concerns.

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Instead I preferred to focus on the bush on the side of the track away from the ’view’; like the trunks of the Scribbly Gum (Eucalyptus sclerophylla), inscribed by Scribbly Gum Moth caterpillars when safely under the old bark.

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Or these intrepid tiny orange fungi, somehow broaching the tough hide of this old tree, like explorers in a vast wasteland.

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Of course I also enjoyed the more manicured fields and gardens and the autumnal colours of Kangaroo Valley and the resort.

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And the comforts of our cute cottage, with cosy fire and a high-backed bath…

But the highlight was of wilder nature: hearing two virtuoso lyrebird mimic performances, one at Fitzroy Falls and one at Cambewarra Lookout. What good fortune! Twice!

We could see him through the dense bush at Cambewarra, displaying and shimmying that amazing tail as he offered his vocal repertoire, but we couldn’t get a photo.

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At the Bendeela picnic and camping area, alongside the reservoir that feeds the hydro power station, wombats were the gift of nature to us sightseers. It was actually Wombat City, from the number of burrow entrances evident. Although I’ve seen many wombats in the wild, Christa had not. This is her photo of one mother and child.