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~ my Potato Point life

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On Nerrigundah Ridge

14 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in orchids, photos

≈ 22 Comments

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Nerrigundah Ridge, Thelychiton speciosus

If you want to walk with me this Sunday morning, you’ll need sturdy walking boots and an even sturdier walking stick, preferably an old friend made from spotted gum and smoothed over the years by the grip of your sweaty palms. The terrain is rough and rocky, but the rewards are tremendous. The air is palpable and the silence intense. Mountains loom beyond the trees, and the gullies drop steeply from the dirt road. It’s only fifteen kilometres from yesterday’s sandy walk, and it is a completely different world.

Watching my footing with extreme care, I climb up the rocky ridge, through lichen-covered rocks, over fallen trees and through fountains of grass. Rocks wriggle under my feet, but my walking stick steadies me. At the top of the ridge I begin to look for sprays of rock lilies, a pilgrimage I make nearly every year in spring. They grow mostly on rocky outcrops, cunningly positioned out of the reach of marauding animals and therefore difficult for humans to get at too. I proceed with extreme caution, sitting down and bracing myself against the rough rock-face before I start photographing. The road is far below now.

The drive back home is slow, and I notice signs of spring flowering: white paper flowers and wonga vine; puple hardenbergia, kangaroo apple, and flag lily (still elegantly furled); pinky-purple indigofera; and creamy brush kurrajong.

Today’s gourmet meal, brunch by the time I eat, is kushari and salad, much of it plucked from the new garden thriving beyond the water tank, including year-round tomatoes.

 

Watch out for wriggling rocks

 

My shadow proves that I was there

 

Out to the Great Dividing Range

 

Ridge conglomerate

 

Rock decorations

 

Rock orchid buds

 

Thelychiton speciosus

 

Spotted throats

 

Orchids and grass

 

Thelychiton habit ... and the pesky morning light

 

More Thelychiton

 

On the rocky hillside above the road

 

 

 

 

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Beyond the bombing log

14 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, Tuross River

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

movement, sounds

This morning I walked along the river bank beyond the bombing log. The track wound around under huge casuarinas and between vast mounds of periwinkle vine, and then dropped down to the sandy tracts left behind by many floodings. A chilly morning became a warm midday, and the isolation tempted me to amble topless, delighting in the unaccustomed feel of the breeze along my spine below the shoulder blades. The casuarinas made shadow patterns in the humpy sand. Rocks, casuarina needles and intricate casuarina cones congregated in hollows left by receding water. A little creek meandered into the river between banks shaped like the formations at Lake Mungo. I sat on the sandy bank in the shade to enjoy solitude and peace.

There was no silence: there rarely is. Birds chirped, chirruped and warbled. The prelude to a kookaburra's laughter faded into nothing. A black bird – a bowerbird? – flew overhead, carrying the heavy rhythmic breathing of his wing beat. A cow mooed and the wind played continuo in the top of the casuarinas, a sound like the music of rapids. There was subtle movement everywhere: the sand around the tip of my walking stick; the swoop of a swallow; the steady flight of a dragonfly; the ripples set circling by minute insects hitting the water surface; the wind-shivers on the surface of the water; and the slow ongoing movement of the river, still running after recent rain. I could just hear the occasional swish of a car along the river road and the clatter as a vehicle crossed the wooden bridge on the road over the mountain.

My footprints weren't the only ones marking the sand. There was the herring-bone stitching of bird claws; the grooved track of a shell-fish; the deep three-piece bound of a kangaroo; the continuous slither of a reptile.

As I walked back along the track under those giant casuarinas, I saw the swish of a tail disappearing, a small rodent, or maybe even a snake. I shook the sand out of my shoes and drove back up the hill for a gourmet lunch, a promite and leaf-litter sandwich and a mug of hot tea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The river of my children’s childhood

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in memories, photos

≈ 10 Comments

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Tuross River

The huge tree is bare, but budding. Forty years ago when we first arrived in the Eurobodalla it was a small sapling, enclosed by a wire cage to protect it from dairy cows.

 

 

Just below the tree, about a kilometre from the bush block where my children grew up, the Tuross River makes its way to the sea. At the moment it flows gently, the sound of the mini-rapids just audible from the bridge. Sometimes it roars along, rising over the bridge, covering the riverside reserve, and once dramatically inching its way up the hill where we used to have a market garden. In severe drought it wavers to a bare trickle. Always it winds its way through the autobiography of my family.

 

 

On baking summer afternoons long ago we headed down to the deep pool near the jumping log. Little heads bobbed around in the shade of the casuarinas: arms flapped energetically, supported by yellow floaties.The big girl from the farm across the road appeared and soon the eldest daughter was swimming confidently under her no-nonsense tutelage. As the years passed, the older kids scrambled down the bank through brambles to the log and jumped off with a mighty splash. One afternoon we shared the snorkels and goggles and practised underwater observation on the very long eel, who retreated amongst the tree roots to escape the crowd.

During severe drought, the river all but disappeared. The farmer over the road dug a deep narrow channel and suddenly there was water. The children loved lying back and being carried along. Brown Surprise, on the other hand, thought they were drowning and ran up and down above them barking madly. At the end of the day, we’d take down barrels to collect water: our thousand gallon tank was nearly empty and there were six of us drawing on the limited supply. When a nit infestation invaded the house, we took all the bedding to the river, and washed it there. Our kids delighted in telling their townie classmates that they were drinking our bath water and washing water.

 

Slowly the kids grew up. Soon they were old enough to ride their bikes down to the river to meet their mates, and get up to all sorts of mischief. At night, they camped on the stretch of sand and occasionally went eeling. They discovered that a bread and butter knife was no use for eel-murder and threw the eel back to the roots below the water.

One day they rescued a baby crane from the sandy bank. They christened him Spike, after his hostile headgear rather than his excessive beak. He adopted their father as his, and decided the laundry was his nest. He attacked feet if they were bare when he was hungry, clacking at them sideways. If he squawked and clacked enough, Dad would stuff mince meat down his throat till his neck looked like a blocked vacuum cleaner hose. Then he was bunged outside before he began shaking his head to check that it was properly dead and dispersed it in a rough circle around him. When his neck was empty, he’d run around in circles, wings extended, squawking. His diet was obviously lacking, because he got rickets, staggering around on his knee joints till we dosed him on pentavite and sunshine. One morning he woke everyone up by systematically flinging and pinging drill bits he’d found in an ice cream container against the washing machine and soon after he swallowed a bolt from the tool box. My daughter stuck her fist down his throat and removed it, and then fed him milk to soothe the lacerations. He finally disappeared on New Year’s Eve, although there have been family tales of encounters with a crane who “seemed to know me.”

In the days of the market garden, I spent a lot of time by the river. I pulled up carrots and beetroot from the rich dirt of the river flats and took a load to wash, dragging it in a basket down the grassy track. At the end of a hot busy day picking, planting or weeding, we’d all fling ourselves in for a cooling wallow.

Immersed in post-separation misery, I set out to paint the house. After a morning session with the paint brush, I’d take myself down to the waterhole and plunge in. It was strange being there alone, in the middle of the day. I splashed around, contemplating the sudden change in my life, wondering how to ease my way into accepting its new shape with grace, and pleased by the undemanding physicality of cool water on bare skin.

When I arrived in Broken Hill to take up my teaching career, I went to professional training and suddenly found myself being asked to meditate, using a special place of calm to anchor me. I chose this bit of river, and suddenly found myself tearful and homesick.

The children have all gone away from the river now, except for Christmas visits. When they congregate, we lounge by the river, the grandchildren frolic with the dogs, and sometimes the kayaks are lifted off the roof and fishing lines are unreeled.

Sometimes the ageing parents (us) take chairs, glasses and a bottle of wine and sit in the reserve above the river as the stars come out, and the last light ripples in water darkening above the sand. Occasionally on a very hot night, we sit in the deep pool near the bridge and reminisce.

The river is the measure of the passing years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Early Spring

10 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in Eurobodalla bush, photos

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

flowers

As spring arrives, I take a few short walks near the house in the bush where I spend the weekend. What used to be a pleasant stroll through spotted gums, iron bark and burrawangs has become an edgy traipse through hacked-about bush, inexpertly burned. It is, after all, state forest.

 

On the border of destruction

 

The colours of early spring in this part of the bush are purple (hardenbergia vine), pale blue (dianella), yellow (a couple of species of eggs and bacon, and the unopened flowers of the geebung), white rising out of pink, and the reds and oranges and browny-maroons of fresh-growth tips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no desire to revisit the ruination again on Sunday, so I walk through the reserve near the Tuross River. There, it is green under towering casuarinas, with the fading flowers of wattle, an infestation of blue periwinkle and the alien pink of peach blossom. The brown river moves along at a gurgle at the bottom of steep banks. Woven round the farm fence on the other side of the road are large pods of milk vine, bursting with white thistledown, and on the way back home yarding posts draped with native wisteria.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Yarn-bombing legacy

07 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, street art

≈ 6 Comments

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Narooma library, yarn-bombing

I always seem to miss the River of Art festival in Moruya. However, this year, the year of yarn-bombing, something tangible lived on beyond the festival. A long knitted panel in the colours of the sea is strung up outside Narooma library. Even yarn-bombing sceptics are impressed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a quick look at the scope of the River of Art watch a video and see the adventure of yarn-bombing unveiled in a humorous newspaper report

http://www.batemansbaypost.com.au/story/2287397/moruya-has-been-yarn-bombed/

 

 

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Travel theme: Edge

29 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, travel theme

≈ 2 Comments

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edge, Lake Bled

My image was photographed from the castle walls looking down to Lake Bled in Slovenia. Although I was charmed by the tenacity of this plant growing from the stone wall, I was terrified at the sight of a small child perched on the same edge, with his feet dangling over sheerness.

 

 
 

For wonderful images celebrating this theme see

http://wheresmybackpack.com/2014/08/29/travel-theme-edge/

 

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Thursday’s special: Grounded

29 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, Thursday's special

≈ 9 Comments

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Jemison's Beach, leaves

This week Thursday was indeed special, although it's taken me till Saturday to post. I've been home for two weeks, and Thursday was the first time I've stirred out, camera in hand, ready to delight in my own turf, and eager to begin a monster blogging project: visiting the 83 beaches of the Eurobodalla shire. To mark the occasion, I begin with something small – an assemblage of leaves on the sandy track behind the dunes of Jemison's Beach, in Eurobodalla NP, and virtually on my doorstep.

 

 

 

http://bopaula.wordpress.com/category/thursdays-special/

 

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Farewelling this home

08 Thursday May 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, Potato Point beach

≈ 7 Comments

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big seas, leaving

Finally, after a few dysfunctional walkless days I ventured out for my beach walk this morning. It's a peerless autumn day and great waves curl in, breaking in a chaos of foam, spray blowing back with the force of their tumble. The ocean has been busy uncovering ridges of rock near the boat ramp and unloading sand to cover rocks that were exposed at the north end of the beach last time I walked.

Somehow, walking my home territory released excitement about leaving it for three months in Eastern Europe, excitement that has been sadly lacking in the frenzy of researching, planning and booking. At last I'm beginning to feel that pre-departure tug-of-war between love of here and desire for there. Up till now love of here has triumphed, leaving me in a state of abject fear of there and all its logistical challenges. At last I can think with glee “This time next week …”, even in the face of beach beauty.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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Visiting another blogger’s country

22 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos

≈ 4 Comments

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Mullimburra Point

Yesterday I walked around Mullimburra Point with a fellow blogger. For six months I’ve enjoyed her country, as she reveals it in her wonderful blog,

dadirridreaming.wordpress.com/

Her country is so close to mine, only a few beaches up the coast, but so different in geology, beach shape, beach-wrack, grass, trees (Eucalyptus tereticornis, instead of Corymbia maculata), bird life and hinterland. Even the kangaroos behave differently. One large fellow stood on our track, narrowed to a sliver by low shrubbery and grass, and was very reluctant to make way for two intrusive pedestrians. Gulaga loomed across the sea further down the coast, and banksia roots wove intricate patterns on the path, chipped to a rusty orange where the mower had passed over them.

 

 

Thank you, Christine. I’ve lived in the vicinity for forty years, and never walked these tracks. Thanks too for lunch, waterlilies, lotus, conversation – and a lesson in frugal packing.

 

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Another track, another lot of mushrooms

17 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, Potato Point, Swamp fire trail

≈ 5 Comments

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mushrooms

At last I can get a fix on April. It's mushroom month, at least this year. After this morning's walk I have a neatly packaged question: a different species, or just a different size, shape and colour at different stages?

Here's today's photographic harvest.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

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