A path threaded by giants.
Hollowed, bulbous, tall survivors.
Silver skin, speckled.
Peeling.
To another.
To gaze over an ancient meeting place.
Ikara!
Red rock. Millions of years.
Hundreds of millions.
Patterns of ancient sea.
Grass trees,
vertical trunks reach to the skies, atop a blackened spear.
Hundreds of white star shaped flowers,
Flooded by bees.
Yellow blossom, furry balls.
Splaying.
Stacked red stone. Faces everywhere.
To walk here is to wonder,
at this world that surrounds us.
The last light rests on Belougery Split Rock,
illuminating jagged fluted edges.
Eroded, battered.
Mallee Eucalypts cascade from the saddle,
down the eastern slope,
until they reach another sheer rock face.
The Mallees tumble again.
Rosellas flit and flirt about,
cockatoos call,
a joey drinks.
The tail of cloud rolls over to clear skies.
the suns last light painting the edge.
This day……..
will be a good memory.
A tangle of bush.
Tilted slabs,
worn basalt paths.
Closely watching.
Right turn at the fallen tree,
Rattling, crunching, rolling.
Eyes upwards.
An arrival.
Meewah’s grassy table top!
Winding paths though straw coloured and fringe lily.
White eye.
Layered horizons stretch away.
And overhead….
soaring, tail adjusting, eyes downcast.
An eagle!
King of this mountain!
Meewah (Tabletop)
December 2022
30th March 2022
Pacific Gulls gaze out to sea,
some lounging on the silken sand.
A gathering of Terns at the water’s edge.
alternating in arcing over the shallow waves.
Sunset dancing.
Some bath,
flapping and dipping.
The sun says its farewell from across the sea,
sending this day’s last light onto sand and mountain.
A carpet of illumination,
in all the shades of green.
The first star,
a tiny light atop a mast,
to a yacht tethered to the sea floor.
Hovering. A min min
The saucepan and southern cross
Flickering skies.
Again the fog rolled in
Extinguishing all but the moon.
Flame wren greets the morning
Red chest towards the sun.
A long pedal to the highest point
Some walking for me.
Feathertop. Fainter, Falls views
Blue run
Blue swim
Shifting shores
Green carpets
Pretty Valley - December 2021
During Melbourne’s long 2020 COVID winter I began writing about my childhood memories of growing up on a sheep and cattle property. Long phone conversations with Mum and Dad were a nice change from COVID talk. We spoke of the weight of a sheep’s fleece and the luck of being able to grow up observing the animal world, their antics, moods and friendships.
Excitedly one of my stories ”The Woolshed” was reproduced in print in Issue 3 of the wonder filled Galah magazine. This little drawing accompanies the words.
The Woolshed
Clouds of dust rise from thousands of hoofed feet grinding course soil into a fine powder. The sheep merge into the billowing red cloud. They will all have snotty noses when we get to the yards.
Jane and I are bringing up the tail - the injured, fly blown, the disinterested and distracted. I’m riding the lime green Suzuki which always smells like it’s overheating, and Jane is on the red 80cc Honda. We love these bikes and the adventures they take us on, and mustering sheep is one of our favourite after school adventures.
Dad patrols the north edge of the herd, keeping his eye on the lead and making any corrections to the direction we are heading. It’s an art, and takes many years of observing the behaviour of sheep to orchestrate the moving of such a large group of animals. He has two willing helpers in my sister and I. We are escorted by a crew of working dogs - lean and agile with pink tongues draped over the sides of their jaws. Their soles hardened to the burs and torched ground. They wait for Dad’s instructions while hanging around with us at the back, filling their time with noses to the ground chasing the scent of snakes and roos, or anything else that may be alive out here.
The herd creeps east towards the shearing shed yards, unsure whether to chase feed or each other. They talk and eat, and eat and talk. Just like humans. From the back my sister and I watch rounded wooly shapes with heads bobbing and stumpy tails twitching. We inch forward, then rest with one foot on the ground, our bikes idling.
It’s shearing time and the shed is rattling and creaking under the weight of sheep, dogs and people all getting in each other’s way. The engine room has fired up, and inside the shears are buzzing. The smells of lanolin, strong tea and condensed milk hang in the air. Elasticised slings dangle from the ceiling. Bent men in blue singlets smoke rollies and wield electric clippers, skilfully shaving away each animal’s woollen fleece in less than three minutes. Each sheep, transformed from scrappy and soil stained to angelically white, takes a slippery ride down a chute in the floor, landing back on ground, five kilograms lighter. A sheep without its coat is barely recognisable from the fully clothed it was a few minutes ago. They seem to take a while to get to know themselves again, calling to each other as they find their legs at the bottom of the chute.
On the floor above each magnificent fleece is cast out over a slatted table encrusted with the built up oil residue of the thousands of fleeces that have come before it. It is picked over to remove seeds and burrs and then pulled apart according to the colour and strength of fibre. The wool classer works quickly and is sweaty and greasy like everyone else. For two little girls it’s a thrilling pantomime played out to the beat of shears, and the tapping of hoofed feet on timber. It’s a marathon performance starting before dawn and finishing at dusk.
Such is the rush of gathering every fleece before it rains, the days canter past and when the last sheep trots from the constraint of the yards into the open paddocks beyond, it’s all over. The wool shed is swept, propped windows are released to rest on their sills, and stiff doors dragged back over their openings. It’s hunkering down time.
But Jane and I find other reasons to visit the woolshed. Its double story height and pock marked appearance intimidate us, but if we go together with a few dogs we are brave enough to intrude on its emptiness. Inside it’s quiet, except for the ghosts of sheep and shears. We poke around, sliding down the chutes, opening and closing gates, and peering down through the gaps in the floor to the fenced spaces below which only a few days ago held hundreds of sheep. The exploring is as much checking that we are alone.
The sun creeps in through the shed’s defences. It squeezes parts of itself through the gaps and nail holes in the tin walls creating a tapestry of light. The light streams glitter and shimmer as they transform from pinhole to wide beam, illuminating the airborne flecks and specks.
Jane and I slip on our wheeled boots and tie the laces. Double knot.
Palms down, rubber stopper to timber. Deep breaths. A last inhale and we are off!
The wool shed transforms to roller skating rink and our wheels clatter across the uneven timber floor. We giggle at the thrill of rolling out of control. When we pause to take a breath we hear sheep bleating in the distance - eating and talking as they grow their coat for next year’s big shear.
Rain skates across the lake,
Distant trees stretch closer to us in their reflection.
Yesterday the lake in its hardness of salt reflected none of its outside world to us.
Instead showing off its arcs and salt ridges,
Pock marked crust immovable as ice.
Today the wind fans the liquid surface.
A wing. A flutter.
After the rain there is dancing,
and a drawing is made.
>
Murray Sunset National Park - May 2021
Chilly afternoon,
water warmer than air.
How lucky she is to swim in the ocean today.
Crimson Rosella. Flash of red.
A pair of Sooty Oystercatchers picking around.
At night a call - hoo hoo - hoo hoo - hoo woo. A distant reply.
Boots laced in the early light. Pack shouldered.
Up and over, striding along a muddy trail,
meandering through the light catchers and their armoured props.
Forest floor workers tightly anchored to the decaying,
the gargantuan hover above.
Emerge and cast away.
A river crossing. Boots unlaced.
Tortured seas today.
In the seaweed a Pacific Gull thrashes a fish.
Bush land pathways,
Fern stairways,
Insect kingdoms,
Fanned wiry tendrils,
Leaning paper skins.
Water.
Diluted turquoise,
a gentle colour.
A treacherous sea.
Her birthday.
She is the ocean, the ocean is her,
once, twice, three times, a fourth.
Schools of transparent,
soles tread the colour of snow
A tumble of rocks reflect,
home alongside the creek
Climbing to a lookout,
keeping watch for the tail fins.
Colour changes for goodbyes.
A flourish.
Elated.
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Wilsons Prom - February 2021
The inaugural edition of Galah Magazine was released in November - a publication celebrating creative living in country Australia. Inside you will find "Family Farm” - a map of a small plot of my Mum and Dad’s land, and an accompanying story. I’m thrilled to have my drawing sharing space with painters, dreamers, gardeners and storytellers. Having grown up in country Australia myself, it’s a delight to see such a celebration of the country’s creative side. I couldn’t see it so clearly when I was a kid living out on our cattle station in south-west Queensland, but now I can look back and see that I was surrounded by art and ingenuity - and the experience of that life on the land led me to where I am now - making maps.
Look out for the next edition of Galah Magazine - it’s a beautiful publication
The Family Farm.
I created this map of our family farm at the foothills of the Great Dividing Range when it and I had just met. At my first visit I thrilled at this compact undulating land of hill, valley and meandering creek, and set out to get to know it over many days, exploring, recording and drawing.
Abundant texture, line, and shape intersect and overlap as a intricate artwork. I traced the pathways - creek, gully, animal track, road and fence. A discovery of a hidden fern valley and tiny waterfall appears at the the western corner of the page. Caves punctuate a hill - big enough to crouch in. Evidence inside that they are favourite siesta spots for roos and wallabies. As I surveyed the stands of trees I recorded their scatterings, lingering longer at the older sentinels. Methodically I drew the patterns and connections. Laid over the rooted and eroded are the transient parts - paw prints, the homes of the water dragons, goannas and eagles. A sprinkling of significant personal stories make up the final layer - like where Buzz is buried, and the place where Snuffy the possum sleeps in his paint tin full of nails.
The combination of the parts is an interwoven story of the world that lives on our family farm, a tale of a place that photos and words could not tell. The drawing pays respect to all things - the plants and animals that inhabit, and the events which have occurred here that make it a home for my family. Strangely it is not a place that any of us live, but it’s where we all gather to be together. We have always been country people and this place retains that connection to open space - soil, sky and freedom of movement. A place to belong.
Years have passed since the making of this drawing. I have explored much more, and an updated map would be bigger - packed full of many more observations and events. My visits over the years have gifted me the delight found in returning to the same patch of soil many times over. To see a flood and drought, the water dragons disappear and then return, the grasses take hold and seed. Last year the discovery of a patch of wild orange trees at the base of a lantana hill, surrounded in a cloud of white caper butterflies, and the splendid blue wrens visiting often for a butterfly feast. We sampled the rounded fruit - which tasted like passionfruit with a bitter aftertaste. I wondered how I’d not noticed these trees before.
I continue to store in my memory the new discoveries and adventures, and as the farm and I become more familiar with each other I wonder how different its new map will look. One of these days I will seek that answer.
I recently answered a few questions about why I make maps, and how did it all begin. I really appreciated James’ questions - in fact it took me a while to consider the answers. You can find the article here
