Finding Resolution

The days can blur together as they slide towards the end of the calendar year.  For many years, my work often kept me busy over the Christmas/New Year period, but nowadays I enjoy a work-free fortnight, or so, and thus there is less need for me to watch the calendar and the diary.  Somewhere between Christmas Eve and New Years Day I am pretty well guaranteed to forget what day it is, and feel like I am inhabiting a perpetual weekend.

Somehow, it feels wrong to be celebrating New Year at the height of summer.  There is growth abundant in gardens and among the wild life, and it has been this way for several months.  The climax of my gardening year is still three or four months away, for that is when the apples will ripen, and the pumpkin vines wither and expose their gifts to me for the winter ahead.  Now is the season to work early and late, when the shadows are long and the air is cooler, and spend the warm day reading or listening to the cricket or dipping in the pool or the lake - it does not feel like the end of a year, or the beginning of another.

But still we will watch the New Year fireworks fly and fall in dazzling cascades of colour above the great arch of The Harbour Bridge, lighting up the graceful curves of The Opera House, and filling The Cumberland Plain with swirling clouds of gunsmoke.

We will kiss loved ones, toast the incoming year, and grope for a response every time someone asks  us "What are your New Year's Resolutions?"  But, my year began months ago, close to the (Southern Hemisphere) Spring Equinox, when waves of pink or white blossoms lit up the bare branches of the fruit trees around my gardens, and the gardens of my neighbours - a sight more beautiful and better scented than those fireworks.

Or did it?  For a gardener, the making of resolutions is more likely to be an Autumn task, in response to recognition of the mistakes made and jobs not done as the seasons of warmth and growth are swept away with the falling leaves by the first gales from the south.  By Mid-Winter, Blue Mountains time, I will be trying to carry out the resolutions made in Autumn, in the hope of a better and more productive growing season to come.

The cold weather and long nights offer plenty of time inside at my desk to reflect, plan, and write.  It is perfect for the making of resolutions and the formulating of plans, blue-prints, and lists intended to carry those resolutions to fruition.

Perhaps we in Australia need to shift our New Year to July so that the official calendar aligns with our instincts and the pattern of our seasons.  After all, Yule-Tide in July has been a regular thing here in the Moutains for many years.

What did the First Peoples do, I wonder?  Did they have or mark in some way a 'beginning' to the year?  If so, when did they do it?  Or did they roll with the cycle of the seasons?  From all that I have read and heard, they seem to have had a complex set of indicators - the flowering of various plants, the arrival or departure of different birds and animals, as well as all sorts of astronomical signs - by which to understand the seasonal changes, and plan their next move.

It would be a more flexible and adaptive way of noting the passage of time than the rigid calendar the modern world is driven by - that calendar which does not quite fit with the actual movement of our world around its star, and needs regular trimming and fine tuning to keep it more or less in synch with natural reality.

The New Year's Resolutions made under that calendar often do not seem to fit, either.  For many, the Ritual of Resolutions seems to lead inevitably to a Day of Disappointment, as the last wishful promise fails or is discarded as too hard.  It's a bit like all those resolutions made as Political Promises every few years by our politicians as they face re-election.  They often sound terribly familiar (usually because they are), and that Day of Disappointment seems to be arriving so much sooner now than it used to.

Indeed, here and in many parts of the world, such disappointment is becoming almost perpetual - not a good omen for civil society.  Yet resolutions can be an expression of hope and intent and, perhaps like my winter-born gardening resolutions, failure might be averted by the application of planning and determination, and regular reminders of those good intentions.

For without hope, what is there?  When the nights are long, and the days are dim, hopeful resolutions offer a path back to blossoming springtimes and bountiful summers and autumns. When ever you make your resolutions, I hope they take you and your world down a good road, to a better future.

Filling the Shoes.....

Another Man's Shoes - only a three word prompt, but it is always interesting to see where such a simple thing can take you, if you let the pen have its way.....  And, no, I have never been ordained, or even studied for such a vocation.

Edward hurried along the uneven paving stones towards the arched wooden door.  Ahead, Mrs Tompkins and Miss Bray were waiting stoically where the morning sum warmed the angle between the stone wall and its flying buttress.

Edward fossicked in his trouser pocket for his key ring, and had to snatch to stop his robes from sliding off his other arm.  He didn't need the ostentatiously neutral looks the two women hurled at him to know that he was late.

"Morning ladies; lovely morning, isn't it?  Too nice to be inside" 

He regretted saying it before the last syllable had passed his lips.  Mrs Tompkins's eyes narrowed.  The corners of Miss Bray's mouth turned downwards.

"Good Morning Father" was all the reply he got as he fumbled at the lock.  The key went home and he turned it.  The old wooden door seemed stiffer on its hinges than ever.

A bump from his shoulder set it moving.  He stood, feeling his ears burn, as two bundles of flowers were carried past him.  Both women had their noses ever so slightly in the air and Miss Bray's eyes had swept across him, lingering briefly on the shirt he knew was not tucked in properly, and the tie that was too loosely knotted.

He slipped into the vestry as the two old ladies began placing the flowers.  They were silent at the altar, but by the time they reached the middle pews, low murmurings were drifting back to him.

Father Jenkins had owned this church for almost four decades, and was now buried in the adjacent graveyard.  Edward felt certain that more than a few of his dour, aging congregation would happily sign up if the Devil offered to swap the old priest for the new.

By rights, he should have had a few years as an assistant curate to an experienced minister at some larger church.  He was finding out the hard way that Honours in Divinities and Theology did little to prepare a young priest for pastoral work.

"Hallooo?"  The round tones of Harald, the organist, echoed through a space meant for hundreds. The greying, stooped old man had come quietly in through the open door, wearing his usual shabby suit, and clutching an armful of sheet music.

Edward wondered if there would even be dozens to hear Harald's heavy handed renditions of the ancient hymns and psalms.

Not so ancient, Edward supposed, to someone as grey and antique as Harald.  He gave himself a mental rap over the knuckles.  How could he entertain such thoughts when he was about to present a sermon on charity?  And Harald at least brought a few extra bums on pews, a couple of them quite shapely – how did that man produce such pretty daughters?  Edward ordered himself to take a longer penance after the service was over, and waited for the organist to shuffle through his papers.

Which raised another question, would Harald have managed to pick the right music for this week's readings and lessons, or would he be a month out, again?  And, would asking to preview the music selection result in Edward having to endure another cloud of last night's whisky fumes?  Edward wondered, as the old man suddenly dropped half his papers on the floor, if there was a way to tell the difference between the whisky fumes of last night, and those of more recent origin.

Christmas Prompt - Sensing Christmas

Rhys woke to full alertness and complete silence.  He lay very still, straining to understand what had jerked him out of his dreams.  The house was still dark and, next to him, Lyssa's soft, steady breathing seemed to say that all was well.

A blissfully cool breeze was drifting in through the open window, carrying a faint whiff of eucalyptus smoke – a reminder of the illegal burn off he'd had to take his brigade to yesterday.  It had taken most of the afternoon of Christmas Eve to extinguish and black out.

He eased himself out of bed without waking his wife, and walked carefully through the darkness to the kitchen window.  He could see only starlight, and that was good – there was no orange glow to warn of a re-ignition of yesterday's fire beyond the west ridge.

He stood, luxuriating in the early morning chill – a chill that would evaporate when the cicadas woke.  The chooks and the livestock were silent, and the dog had not stirred, but something had woken him.

There was an unidentifiable whisper of sound that seemed to be coming from inside the house.  He tip-toed back to the bedroom and found the torch that lived beside his bed.  Without switching it on, he crept back into the living room.  Faint scents of last night's supper - bolognaise sauce, garlic bread, and souring red wine – reminded him that they had not cleaned up before retiring.

There was another smell lurking behind the rich perfume of the ripening mangoes that nested on the dining table.  It took a few seconds to work out what it was.  Chocolate – it was chocolate.  The soft noise came again, from the direction of William's bedroom.  He shuffled slowly across the open space, feeling carefully with his toes, dodging leftover toys, and almost walked into a closed door, only a shade less dark than the walls.

The smell of chocolate was stronger, and he could hear soft rustling from beyond the door.  For a minute he stood still, remembering his childhood Christmases – the intense efforts to quietly unpack the pillowcase full of Santa's gifts that hung from the end of each bed, and the surreptitious chocolate "breakfasts" before the parents arose.  Outside, a Kookaburra laughed, and Rhyss knew that the first hint of light was creeping up from the eastern horizon.  He opened the door and switched on the torch. 

"Merry Christmas" he whispered to the three lamp-lit, chocolate smeared faces.

In a Moment

Living in the Moment - it is advice I have encountered in so many ways and places over the decades.

It sounds simple enough, as so many proverbs and aphorisms do - but how long is a moment?  It depends who you ask, of course - ask someone to do something for you when they are immersed in the television of a video game, and the reply will often be "in a moment"

Ask me while I am writing, or deep in a good book, and a moment could turn out to be quite a while - why do some moments seem so brief, and some, so long?

A quantum physicist would probably take so long to explain to you why the question could not be accurately or definitively answered that you might come to wish that the moment in which you asked the question had been put to better use.

The gardener in me knows that moments are linked and can extend across seasons.  This morning, between other chores, came a moment when I could sow some seeds - beans, corn, squash, and zucchini - in a vacant bed.

 Sowing or planting moments are always moments of optimism

 That moment will come to fruition in late January or early February.

 These plants are the result of a moment almost a month ago

The cherries I picked a couple of days ago were the long-term result of an accumulation of moments - some going back five or ten years - as are the apples that are swelling upon their trees, though I have also to thank the bees for the brief moments they spent at each flower - as does each person who ladles honey into their tea, or onto their toast.

 The final word on moments could go to Kipling, who said in the final stanza of his poem "If"

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run
 The Earth is yours, and everything that's in it........"

Unravelling the Tangle

My writing is mostly in the form of short stories - anecdotes, in other words, that might once have been tossed out to entertain the customers on the other side of the bar, or friends at a family gathering.  They are usually set in a single location, and focused on the words or actions of only a few people - and almost always come to either a humorous or salutory ending.

Novels are a bit harder - at first I tried to work on them as a series of short stories, one chapter at a time, but the reader desires and expects more coherence and logic than that approach provides.

I am getting there though - a novel has been steadily ( well, at times) flowing from pen to paper and then onto the hard drive.  The thing that made the difference for me was the starting point - not the chronological beginning of the story, but the point from which I began working.

In the case of this novel the provocation was a well known internet meme that runs "Never upset a writer, lest he put you in his next story - and kill you"  I'd seen it before, on coffee cups and t-shirts, but this time it struck a chord.  I thought of people who had, over the decades, annoyed me in ways that might make them deserving of a fictional death - and within a few pages and half an hour of scribbling, a story had sprung to life, with that death at its core.

It took a quite a few more pages before I had settled on the place, time, and manner of death, as well as the identity of the perpetrator, but knowing the name and character of the victim, and of the protagonist who might solve the crime, that was enough to set me on course. Of course the names and certain other details have been changed to protect the guilty and the innocent alike, but once I had those two characters pinned down, the other characters, and the ensuing action, flowed more easily onto the page.

Once a good starting point has been found - it need only be a few words or a simple concept - the weaving of words can begin.  If you have been to a creative writing group and worked from prompts offered by the moderator or other members, you will know how apparently simple beginnings can lead to the construction of excellent stories, songs, or poems.

What about travelling in the opposite direction?  Have you ever been struck by a bit of poetry, or song lyrics, and wondered how the writer got the idea, and how they managed to find the words, concepts, rhymes, images, and so on, that, woven together, made such an interesting work?  How do you unravell what they have put together, and work your way back to their starting point?  You might ask 'why bother' but if you have been writing for a while, and intend to keep on doing so, the techniques of other writers becomes intriguing.  How did they do that, you find yourself asking.

It's not easy, and some would compare the process to deciphering a particularly difficult cryptic crossword - in fact, to me, it reminds me of my early years as an angler.  In Australian angling history there was a particularly revered local invention called The Alvey.  It was an odd looking reel that, attached to a long 'beach' rod, allowed very light baits or lures to be cast a long way out into the surf.

That was its good point - the down side of the technology was a tendency to create massive tangles in the fishing line; "birds nests" was what we called them.

When that happened, the impatient people cut the tangle out of the line (if there was enough left on their reel) and got back to fishing - the cheapskates among us would spend up to half an hour picking at the 'birds nest' of nylon line in the hope of saving it.  Success relied on finding the key point in the giant knot - the one that all the others were related to.

Trying to analyse and understand the core of someone else's writing is much like that - you can see the finished product, and get some general sense of the shape and inter-relationship of the various threads, but teasing them out so as to find that core point from which the story began, that's hard.

Why do it?  Once you are making your own stories, or songs, or poems, you see works by other people and can't help wondering - how did they do that?  What got them started on that particular idea or plot?  I know I feel that if I can understand how an excellent piece of work by another author was conceived and constructed, I might be able to improve my own work.

Take Umberto Eco, the author of The Name of The Rose - the central idea, he is supposed to have said, came from a momentary feeling.

"I felt like poisoning a monk" was his description of the inspiration behind the famous novel.  Is that true?  Was that all?  Probably not - Eco had encountered and been awed by the library of a Benedictine Monastery when only 16 years of age, and he may have been aware of the legands around St Benedict of Nursia.  Whatever he knew, or felt, there must have been a germ, a seed, a little core, from which, and around which, the whole great edifice was constructed.

Another place of inspiration for me has been the series of interviews conducted mainly by Richard Fidler, on ABC Sydney.  They are all available on podcast, and are worth a listen if you are interested in the creative process.  Fidler and other presenters have spoken with some great authors, poets, and songwriters, and their explanations as to the seeds that grew particular pieces are well worth listening too.

Blink and you'll miss it.

Is it a lonely grave on a flower strewn hillside?  It was, once, but the hillside has changed shape, as the railway line was pushed through, and the local roads were widened and built up.

The golden coreopsis flowers arrived after the trains, their seeds carried far and wide across NSW as the iron road pushed further out.

On the right hand side of this picture can be seen the abutments of an older bridge that carried Blaxland's Road across the tracks.  It is significantly lower than the new bridge, which would have been built at the new, higher level required to allow the electrification of the Blue Mountains line.

Part of the crowd commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the arrival of the first train at Wentworth Falls (or Weatherboard, as it was known) held in July 2017

 The plaque attached to the NW corner of the bridge that carries Blaxland's Road across the Main Western Line, just west of Wentworth Falls Station.

The lonely headstone is in memory of James Fergusson, who was struck and killed by lightning 158 years ago, while settling cattle and horses into the yards near the Weatherboard Inn.  Each year, close to the 21st of December, a group of people gather on the remains of the old road, opposite the site, to commemorate James and John, whose story is set out below by local historian Jon Low.

The following research by John Low has been published on the 'Simply Australia' website:
In the 19th century when you travelled the Western Road over the Blue Mountains you were in the bush. For over fifty years following its construction in 1814-15, the road was the conduit between the coastal settlement and the pasture lands of the west. It wound a precarious route along the top of a high ridge with deep, unexplored valleys on either side and its condition was subject to the vagaries of weather, heavy use and irregular maintenance. Travel by whatever means was fraught with difficulties, discomfort and sometimes danger as the sad little tale that follows illustrates.

While thousands journeyed across the Mountains in these early years, few chose to live here and minimal settlement took place until the railway arrived in 1867. Inns, military depots & convict stockades, tollhouses, camps and mounted police stations all hugged closely the edges of the road,while settlers, gold seekers, bullock and horse team drivers and all the restless human cargo of a growing colony drifted past.

Twenty-two year old James Fergusson, a carrier with a team of heavy horses, was a part of that incessant 19th century movement. In the early afternoon of 21st December 1859 he and another man, John Black, were among several teamsters setting up camp about 30 or 40 yards in front of the Weatherboard Inn. Christmas was only several days away and it's a safe bet they were looking forward to some merriment in the inn that evening. But, before they could enjoy themselves their horses had to be unharnessed, fed and watered and settled down for the night.

The story of what happened at the Weatherboard on that summer afternoon in 1859 was described in detail in The Empire, a popular Sydney newspaper of the time founded by Henry Parkes. Young Fergusson and his mate Black, it's journalist wrote, "had just unharnessed the horses, and were about to feed them, when a violent thunderstorm came on, and a flash of lightning of a most terrific character struck the two men, and the whole of the thirteen horses, killing both men and animals instantly. The lightning then passed through the inn without doing any further material damage. The bodies of the men and animals presented a most ghastly spectacle, the former turning almost black in a very short period."

Two other men were struck by "the electric fluid" but escaped serious injury, while several further members of the encampment and a number of horses were completely untouched. John Black, aged 28 and married with three young children, was interred in St. John's Burial Ground at Parramatta. James Fergusson, having no known relatives, was buried near the spot where he was killed. Perhaps it was his employer, Mr. R. Martin of Bowenfels, or maybe even his mates who paid for his burial and for his headstone and footstone, both clearly the work of a skilled tradesman. [Extract by John Low at http://simplyaustralia.net/article-jl-weatherboard.html, 17/08/2011]

Blaxland's Road is named after Gregory Blaxland, of the trio Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth, who set out from the Nepean River in 1813 to find a way for settlers to move cattle across the mountains from the Cumberland Plain to the open lands around Bathurst, and Wentworth Falls was named after, well, I'll leave you to guess.



Reference:  https://www.bluemountainshaveyoursay.com.au/22793/documents/62795

The Serendipitous Duckling Shows the Way

No story here, just some photos I took this morning, in the creek down the back.  The other day, a Pacific Black Duck was in our yard with her three ducklings.  This morning, one duckling had wandered up to fossick in the grass by the garden.

It fled back to the garden when I came out with my camera, and went scrambling down the bank and into the long pool above the rapids - not sure where mum and siblings were, and hope this one hasn't been left behind.

It is amazing how fast such a little ball of down and feathers can move.  Also amazing are the colours the camera captures when the ripples rearrange the light filtering down through the trees.

The camera is only a fairly old model Iphone, and none of these pictures have been edited or 'shopped - it is just the serendipity that so often offers amazing beauty, if we are able to look.

The world is full of beauty and grace, if only we go out into it and let it wash over us.

Cherax - Destructor, or Constructor?

Cherax Destructor - the common yabby of farm dams and creeks across a vast swathe of Australia, has made a home for itself in all sorts of odd places.  It is not a native of the upper Blue Mountains, but has been here for quite a while.  The grandkids and I have caught them on many occasions in Jamison Creek, beside the orchard, or in the Wentworth Falls Lake.  Recently I found a number of small specimens inside the stomach of a Redfin Perch caught in the lake, and I am sure they are one of the reasons that the cormorants hang around the lake, as well.

It surprised me though, when I found it lurking in a tiny little rill that runs down the back of our place.  I had seen an adult in there a while back, over 50 metres up from the main creek, and wondered if it was lost - and then the holes appeared in the banks of that miniature creek.

The first hole - angled down into the left hand bank of the stream, beneath the long blades of grass.

The debris from the excavation ended up strewn across the stream, just downstream.  Heavy rain washed leaves into the pool that had formed, and when I cleared the blockage, yabbies only a few centimetres long scurried back into the hole.  Within a day or two, the stream was blocked by another wall of sand and gravel.

Mixed in with the sand and mud was gravel up to 40mm in diameter - not bad work for a little creature that is often only 100 - 200 mm long itself

I cleared it again, and again, and each time it was back within a night or two (cherax are prey to kookaburras, currawongs, foxes, and who knows what else - darkness is their friend) and each rebuild was bigger and better than the last.  It took me a while to understand that this was no random construction - all the material excavated from the tunnel was neatly piled across the stream, forming a small lake around the tunnel entry.  Not only that, but the water in the little pool above the dam was running through the tunnel and re-entering the stream about 750 mm downstream.  Perfect for a female yabby nurturing eggs or babies.

At the beginning and end of the above video I focus on the point at which the water flows out of the downstream end of the tunnel and back into the stream.  I have never seen a yabby do anything like this before, and wonder if anyone else has seen such behaviour.

The Mists of Memory

How's your memory?  Cluttered?  Neatly organised and cross-referenced?  More or less absent?

Do you know how your memory works?  Are you one of those people who digs and searches in vain, only to have the answer appear sometime during the early hours of the next morning?  Or, are you one of those who have constructed an elaborate "palace of memory" that allows you to locate and examine a vast array of carefully stored facts and figures?

How do they do it?  My grandmother seemed able, whenever recounting even the most minor of incidents, and without losing the thread of the story, to digress into the relationships, address, employment status, character flaws, and personal life of each new character as they entered the story - taking twenty minutes to relate an event that my grandfather would have told in two.

My mother in law has a similar skill, and is able to apply it to stories dating back almost eight decades.  My father had a phenomenal memory for names and faces, and the histories, addresses, and vehicles associated therewith - a handy skill in his case, as he spent decades as a police detective.  It was nothing for him to recite from memory - accurately - the contents of a thirty page statement of evidence.
 
I have several friends who have the ability to remember not only the names of everyone in their extended families, but most or all of the people with whom they worked, or went to school, church, and university with.  If that were not bad enough, they also seem able to remember their birthdays and marital status, as well as the names and birthdays of their children and grandchildren, and the birthdays of all the spouses of the people they know.

I have enough trouble remembering the names of all the grandkids in my family, let alone their birthdays, and as for the spouses or partners of children and step-children and siblings, well, for that I would need to do some sort of undergraduate course.  There are other things - facts, figures, events, scientific equations, and all sorts of interesting incidents of both dramatic and humorous nature - that have stuck; don't ask me why, I really don't know.

Moments of great embarrassment dating back to my first decade of life seem to have clung to existence in my memory banks, no matter how much I wish they would just fade away.  And, of course, the moments of crisis - fire, flood, disaster - all lurk to trip me up at unexpected moments.

And yet, on one occasion recently, I decided to draw up a list of people I had known when I lived in The Valley (as its residents call it) during a period between forty and twenty years ago. I had been thinking about doing a small essay on an aspect of the history of the place, but could only recall a few faces, and fewer names.

Once I began typing, each name called up others that would otherwise have escaped memory, and before I knew it, ten pages of two line entries - a name, and the reason I knew them - had been filled.  Many of those names were ones I would not have been able to reach directly, if someone had asked me "Who was that person that........?" but associations helped build a web of relationships and stories.  Memory - truly strange.

Remembering and forgetting are such crucial aspects of not only our daily lives, but of our development from childhood, onwards, and of vital importance to our education system, medical science, and politics, and yet we do not have anywhere near a complete understanding as to how memories are formed, stored, and retrieved.  As a field of science, memory is one of constant conflict and debate, as is the field of consciousness, with which is it is so closely intertwined.

We do know that there are all sorts of triggers that can invoke memory at unexpected moments - scents, sights, sounds, music, emotions - and those invocations can be wonderful, or poignant, or traumatic.

As writers, we rely on our memory to hand us a flow of interesting words, facts, scenarios, and emotions that we can use to create our stories.  It's a wonderful feeling when the pen is gliding across the page, racing to keep up with the flow of interesting words that have bubbled up to the level of consciousness.  One idea leads on to the next, and another, and before you know it, a story has spread from the top of the first page to halfway down the twentieth.  People, places and incidents you might otherwise have struggled to recall have galloped back into view, vying for a place - even if disguised - in your latest literary effort.

And then there are your characters - what sort of memory do they have?  Sharp and detailed? Fading?  Or even that sad patchiness of recall that can come with the onset of dementia?  Is their memory accurate?  Are they telling the reader, or the detective, or their spouse, or their children, the truth?  Do they believe it to be the truth, or do they understand that they are playing someone false? Have they even created false memories for themselves, in denial of painful reality?  How does their memory compare to that of the other characters, or to the facts known to the omniscient narrator?  Such disparities can trip a writer very badly, or be intentionally used to keep the reader guessing right up to a final, satisfying ending.

In short - no matter how good you think your memory is or isn't, and no matter how low an opinion you may have of your writing skills, it is all in there, somewhere, waiting for the opportunity to dance across the stage of memory or the page of creativity.  It will have that opportunity if you only start writing or typing. Go for it - you will surprise yourself.

The Wishing Well

Have you ever driven down the Castlereagh Highway, from Mudgee towards Lithgow and wondered, as you sailed by, at the Wishing Well sign that stands near the top of Cherry Tree Hill?  Next time you are heading south up the steep climb to the top of the hill, pull over (there is safe parking) and put your walking shoes on.

 The final version of the well.

The walk from the side of the modern highway is short - only a couple of minutes - and takes you down the embankment onto the old highway.  Not far down, you will come to the well mentioned in the sign.  Said to have been first built in 1848, on the site of a soak beside the road, and improved at various times over the next century, it was finally bypassed when the Castlereagh was enlarged and upgraded.

 The line of the old highway, down which visitors can walk to the well.

 There are so many little pieces of history like this one - once a part of the daily lives of those who came before us, but now relegated to hidden nooks or corners, as the need for speed re-aligns the highways, and even the byways, that take us from point A to point Z in ever shorter times.

 The railing above the well shows where the new highway climbs Cherry Tree Hill

Those quicker trips mean, though, that we miss out on points B through Y.  Perhaps it might be worthwhile, on your next trip, to check the map, and leave an hour or two earlier.  Having chosen a route with potential, hop onto the internet and search out the local historical societies or museums - most places have these wonderful, volunteer run organisations that are dedicated to preserving the stories of their area and their forebears.

 Despite the re-alignments and associated drainage on the top side of the highway, clear water still seeps from the well.

Take one of the byways that was built for horse or bullock team, and drive slowly.  The old highway from Buladelah to Coolongolook is one such road, as are the old roads that lead north from various parts of the Hawkesbury river to converge on the old villages of Laguna and Wollombi.  In a land that could become as dry as Australia does, any permanent source of water was highly valued.

On other roads I have come across such soaks that have been improved so as to offer a watering point for the bullocks and horses and humans who plodded their way through the wilderness.  Few of them were as ornate as the well on Cherry Tree Hill - one on the steep hill between Fernances Crossing and Bucketty is merely a horizontal gouge chiseled across the face of the sandstone, catching the water seeping from the cliff above.

The Gulf is Wide

Animals form an important part of the life and history of the human race.  Our relationships with them have taken many forms, and one of the most complex and interesting variations has been that of our relationship with pets.

Many people think that the earliest of those pet/helpers/companions were dogs - and yes, I know that some will say that cats were worshiped in certain places, long ago, but offering a feline deity food to appease it is different to sharing the table scraps with your canine friend.  Dogs turn up in human history in many ways, for good or ill, and our influence on dogs has been complex and far-ranging; just look at how many breeds of dogs now exist around the planet - between 200 and 400 'recognized breeds' depending who you ask, plus around 36 different species of wild dog.

Of course, people's attitude to animals - and in this case, let us specifically consider dogs - can vary from complete infatuation, through utalitarian, on to disdain, and, finally, phobic.  It would be fair to say that people from one group do not really understand people from the other groups.

The doting dog lover cannot understand how anyone could not love as they do, while the non dog lover cannot understand how anyone could let one inside their clean house, let alone on their bed, and as for kissing the dog, or letting it lick one's face - the shudder of horror that such a thought brings about would register on a seismograph.

It is one of the great divides that runs through the human race.  On one side are those people who cannot imagine living without the joy and pleasures brought to them by their pet.  On the other, are those who can live quite well without animal companions, and though happy to admire other people's dogs or cats or canarys, and even pat them, cannot imagine sharing their living quarters with any sort of animal - the gulf is wide.

Richard Glover's recent article about his past and present dogs lauded and waxed sentimental about the dogs in his life - past and present - as well as examining such feelings in other dog owners and their dogs, as far afield as Odysseus and Argo in The Odyssey.  There is no doubt that the company of a beloved dog is of great value to the owner, and the dog seems to gain much from the company of its human.  Likewise, companion and therapy dogs - not to mention guide dogs - are of great benefit to the humans in their lives.

There are times when dog and owner are not in the same place.  When the owner has gone to the office, or the shops, or on holidays, and the dog is left home, alone.  Some dogs seem to view this time as an opportunity to catch up on their sleep, to sunbake in peace, or, if they are young, to find all the things left outside that might need a good chewing.  Do they care that their owner is absent?  Are they happy to have some time to themselves?  Do they understand the daily routine of their masters, so that they are able to abide secure in the knowledge of the inevitable return of their human companions?

Many dogs, though, do not seem to understand their human's daily routine, and mark the absence of their master by howling, barking, or yapping constantly, beginning shortly their after departure, and ceasing just prior to their return - calling for their missing owner to come home and deal with all the threats the dog feels beset by during that absence.

Domestic bliss and neighbourhood peace returns with those absent owners, and the evenings pass routinely into the quiet of night, as the last blue flickers vanish from windows across the town, and sleep descends on the populace - two legs and four legs alike.

As the hours of darkness flow across the roof tops and swirl round the houses, nature is taking its course.  Sooner or later, bladders fill, dreams become restless, and people awake.  The four legged one may wake first and come snuffling and whimpering to their owner's bedside at 3am.  The beneficiary of all that canine affection will stumble from bed to door, let the dog out, and close the door behind it, before shuffling back to the bedroom.

The dog, having done its business, is now at leisure to notice all the little sounds and scents that inhabit the wee small hours of the night, as the possums, foxes, cats, bats, insects, frogs, and night birds go about their nocturnal duties.  Having noticed all those things happening out there in the darkness, in territory that, by daylight, belongs to them, the dog has no choice but to sound the alarm - loudly, urgently, even hysterically.

The owners seem oblivious to the cacophony, or are trying to ignore it by diving deeper into the depths of their doona, or clamping pillows to their ears.  It won't work, and they must know it, but they keep trying, until the dog begins scratching at the door that it knows must eventually open and admit it to the warm security of its owner's presence.

As the flakes of paint fall to the veranda boards, the gouges in the timber work grow deeper, and the dog's complaints grow ever more urgent, the owner finally admits that sleep will only be possible if the dog is allowed back inside. That chore done, he or she returns to the warm depths of slumber, secure in the knowledge that their dog is snoring at the foot of, side of, or even on top of, the bed - or the owner.

But the dogless people living nearby cannot be certain that is the case, and, while trying desperately to snatch another couple of hours sleep before the alarm calls them to breakfast and the morning commute, wait in a state of alert tension for the next explosion of canine angst - if not from that dog, then from the one across the road that, woken by the first dog, is even now prevailing upon its owner to let it out for walkies, and its own encounter with the terrors of the night.

The dogless person knows that there is no malice in the heart of the dog, and feels that it is most likely that the same can be said of the dog owner, and so will most likely operate on the principle of  "least said, soonest mended" while fervently hoping that one day the owner will break down only a few blocks from home and have to walk back to the house, thus learning first hand what their dog really thinks of their absence. 

The gulf truly is wide, and unlikely ever to be bridged.

An Unintended Consequence of Steam Power.

In a country that is so often as dry as large swathes of Australia can be, a swimmable, fishable lake is a wonderful thing.  I am fortunate to live only five minutes walk from such a place - the only one of its kind that is open to the public across the width of the Blue Mountains.

 The wall of the dam is visible at the end of the leafy tunnel.

If you Google-Map-cruise along the Great Western Highway as it traverses the Blue Mountains - 60 kms from Lapstone to Mount Victoria - you will see a number of lakes wedged into the upper reaches of the valleys that cut across the great plateau.  Only one - the Glenbrook Lagoon - is natural, the rest were constructed at various times during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for water supply purposes.  Several, including Woodford Lake, Wentworth Falls Lake, and another at Lawson that was later replaced by the public swimming pool, were built for the railway as it traversed the Mountains. The line reached the hamlet of Weatherboard (now Wentworth Falls) in 1867.

The dam across the upper reaches of Jamison Creek, Wentworth Falls, was brought into service in 1908 as a replacement for a smaller, unreliable reservoir on the north side of Lawson.  Wentworth Falls Lake was intended as a reliable source of water for the steam locomotives on the Blue Mountains line, that were, at the time, the fastest and most reliable mode of transport from Sydney to the agricultural lands beyond the ranges.  In the late eighties or early nineties, substantial work was done to the wall and spillway to improve the safety of the dam, and, in recent years, the local council has carried out improvements and additions to the picnic areas.

 The 150th anniversary of the arrival of the railway at Wentworth Falls

The steam locomotives are almost gone from the Mountains line now, though occasional historical operations, mainly using the locomotives from the Valley Heights Rail Museum, still puff past the lake on their way to Katoomba or Mount Victoria, to the delight of the many locals and visitors who throng to the 10.5 hectare lake for picnics, kayaking, sailing, swimming, and fishing. A couple of times each year, the navies of the world also come to visit the lake. Do the visitors ever wonder at the way the level of the lake varies so little?

The lake sits in a basin that is fed by several small streams and some of those particular marvels of the Blue Mountains, the hanging swamp.  Sometimes, in long dry spells, Jamison Creek downstream from the lake slows to a silent trickle, and the lake level drops by several centimetres, but those wonderful natural sponges that are formed by the hanging swamps continue their measured release of water into the streams, keeping the lake alive. In the same way, they provided the Darug people with water, food, and other resources, across the millenia, and made easier the westward journey of Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth, when they searched for a road to the western plains.

While the tourists frolic, and the locals seek relief from the heat, a great variety of life also thrives in the cool depths of the lake, or among the reeds and forest around its margins.  Its surface is constantly disturbed by the ducks, water hens, fish, long necked turtles, and insects, that live there.  Around its shores can be seen possums, wallabies, and a fascinating variety of reptiles and frogs - and there is almost always blossom to be seen, if you look carefully.  If you can't see it, watch the honey-eaters and crimson rosellas - they know.


Further reading:  

[PDF]Jamison Creek Catchment Floodplain Risk Management Study and Plan

www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/download.cfm?f=13B3A74E-423B-CE58...