Lush

a bird and a rat and a thought (or two) in the bush in deep winter

Do you remember me mentioning the bush was calling? After posting last fortnight, it became louder.

Something about crossing over from June to July this year felt poignant. Because it did, indeed, feel like a crossing over of sorts. Do you think so? Last weekend K and I spent the first weekend of the second half of the year on the peninsula while our children were with their grandparents (the babysitting a late and very much appreciated birthday gift for us).

On the Saturday we hiked 11 kilometres in two parts, one part of which took us through Greens Bush, a slice of remnant bushland brimming with birds and native vegetation. We began near Cape Shanck lighthouse which is a popular route; so many of the paths on the peninsula seem overtrodden, and wider than when they began, bullied by the hard packing of too many feet. The lookout close to the lighthouse was crowded with people posing and rotating with their phones, edging in a curious coreography towards the railing in order to stage the best view of the lighthouse. Something about the desperation of getting the right image could be sensed viscerally, a strange kind of techno-panic. While it was a lovely walk once we’d moved away from the carpark, it was even more of a relief to enter Greens Bush further north, a place that we have continued to return to over the past few years.

Within the gums and undergrowth, ferns and grasstrees, there’s a cushioned quiet. And then: pause… listen. Bird song. Layers and layers of it. Once noted, the melodic air flushed out our systems with each breath, each step. Musical notes entered our ears and our lungs and our skin, consuming all the tubes of us. For a moment this immersive place becomes the whole world, just the green and the song filling the depths of you. I think of the creatures who live here though, and wonder that some of them (might) have no concept of what exists outside the boundaries of this place. The wet mosses, the little rat, the worm, the trailing pink heath, the tussock grass… living in ignorance (bliss? that’s a question) of concrete or the internet or tinned spaghetti or the sea, which spreads itself flat just over the horizon. In that sense, then, it can be and might be the whole world.

There’s only one word to describe this all-enveloping-everything: lush.

Along the trail a number of Eastern yellow robins were tracking us, bouncing and flitting from tree to tree ahead and around us. We also saw three Australian swamp rats (at least, I think they were Australian swamp rats). Drinking from a puddle, bouncing across the path, these dark furred bundles were unexpected (I was hoping to see an echidna) but I loved learning a bit more about them. Until I started to look into what sort of rat it might be that had appeared repeatedly throughout the day, I didn’t even know the Australian swamp rat existed. Did you know that Australia is home to over 60 species of native rodent?

This weekend we were in Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park, but I’ll tell you more about that some other time.

Other things…

• I’ve been reading Human / Nature by Jane Rawson and it has been the perfect accompaniment to some wintry contemplation about our/my place in the world. (I also just registered for this webinar.)

• I really enjoyed listening to this episode on A Life More Wild.

• Highly recommend this generous interview with

  Sally Gillespie by Julie Gabrielli.

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This fortnight I want to enjoy deep winter. Greenhoods should be emerging nearby, I hope to see some. I hope to take notice of the quiet floor of the bush, and see what is revealed. I hope to knit and read and prepare for the next block of uni and school and parenting and work.

And that’s quite enough for now.

Until next time, travel light x