Wombats and Windgrove

On my brief 2010 foray into southern Tasmania I was looking for wild edges, and I found a place called Roaring Beach that tugged hard at my mountain heart.

It was much later that I discovered a wonderful website, perfectly named ‘Windgrove: Life on the Edge’ emanating from that same beautiful wild place — home of Peter Adams, sculptor, thinker, writer, nature lover — great photographer! All the photos in this post are by Peter.

I only did so via my webmaster/mates, Fred Baker and Allan Moult; Allan does Peter’s Windgrove site. There’s a permanent link to it on my ‘Supporters’ list.

Many of you have loved the photographs of the pouch-peeping wallaby and kangaroo joeys I’ve been lucky enough to get close to. 

As an introduction to the many delights you’ll find at Windgrove as Peter shares his sea-swept 100 acres, there can be little more special than this sighting of a wombat joey nestled in its mother’s pouch.

The pouch is cleverly backwards-opening so her joey isn’t half-smothered in dirt when she digs. Maybe that’s where Volvo got the idea for their baby seats?

I especially relate to Peter’s understanding of how to get to know a natural place and its treasures; I too have learnt to shut my mouth and open my eyes, be slow or still — and carry a camera.  There is so much to allow yourself to be shown.

As I said in the first chapter of my first book, The Woman on the Mountain, explaining why I live ‘way out there’:

‘My world is unfashionable, timeless and teeming and intensely fascinating. It commands my interest, my passion, and my pen.’

It seems that Peter’s art is similarly engaged with and inspired by his world. Similarly too, while he has planted thousands of trees on once-barren Windgrove, ‘in the process he, himself, has been transformed by the land.’

‘Still-a-life’ — Sculpture by Peter Adams