As you see, I have moved from what was my mountain and its range to a new set of mountains. This is what I woke up to the very first morning. So I (and you) can look forward to many good sunrises.
I am tucked into the side of the hill in this mountain-ringed narrow valley, with the little creek forming the border of my rural five acres.
It was a wet and soggy mountain I left and an even soggier hill I reached; four-wheel drive needed as I sank into the ‘lawn’.
As I get time to explore I will share my nature discoveries here… I am just waiting for the first snake. But already I know there are kooks, carolling magpies, crazy wattle birds and many small birds — and a pair of Welcome Swallows are nesting on the verandah just outside where I sit.
I can’t tell you for sure what the little birds are yet as I haven’t found my bird books; they’re in one of the dozens of boxes that tower teeteringly everywhere in here amidst the stranded furniture that I can’t think how to fit in.
How did I ever fit it all in before, in my little cabin? It looked so sadly sweet as I said goodbye after 36 years.
But good people have bought it and will love it and make it their own.
Of course a rural rather than a bush block brings a different set of challenges. Instead of conserving natural values, here I must replace them and rescue them from the onslaught of weeds, from fireweed, dock, wild ageratum and lantana to the ubiquitous Camphor Laurel trees.
If I thought I was moving to an easier life, I was temporarily deranged. When I am sorted out more here, and in between spending time at Gloucester to help them fight AGL’s CSG project in that beautiful valley — please visit the Gloucester Groundswell site.
I think I feel another book coming on.