Tag Archives: environment

Good Things Only #17

Posted on by
Reply

It has been a while since I have embarked on a GTO (or much in the way of creative writing at all for that matter). I have been otherwise occupied. Why? Happily, the reason is the subject of this GTO.

In retirement I developed my habits of walking, cycling and writing into something more like lifestyle choices. Combined with photography, I found myself outside often, roaming in new places, observing with pleasure, feeling fortunate and interested in the many ways and forms of life and ecosystems around me. It costs little, the prep is fun, the exercise is great and every outing opens your eyes that much wider and your mind expands that much further and you just feel good.

I found myself privileged. Here in Victoria there are so many diverse natural places to savour. Even where environmental degradation has occurred there is often evidence life will find a way. (Whether with or without humans takes on less and less significance exploring as an individual. You barely register on the scale of things so you don’t matter one little bit. You are simply lucky to be there and to bear witness).

I started mapping, photographing and describing these places for others to share. It seemed a good retirement project – to spread the feelings of well being experienced in diverse green spaces . To identify low cost beneficial outdoor activities for other people. To put walkers in these spaces as discoverers of beauty and advocates for deterring misuse and champions of habitat improvement.

Since then I have been asked to transform this hobby into project work for local government and a health promotion charity. As grateful for such opportunities as I am, and as good as that has been, I now finally get to the specific subject of this GTO.

Over the past six months I have been working on a new and wonderful project: “Walking and Rolling: accessible walking paths for people with disability”. Our inclusive team has co-designed an audit tool for assessing walking paths for accessibility. I have been co-auditing accessible walks beside people with disability.

We launched the first 24 Victorian accessible walks last week in a joyful celebration on a glorious day. We have made the audit tool publicly available as a free to use resource for people with disability, carers, families and land managers to do their own assessments and publish accessible walks they identify. Accessible walks are for everyone. There are more to come.

This is an incredibly worthy GTO for me to have fallen into. To my colleagues and the people with disability who have helped make this happen, I will be appreciative to the end of my days. In the meantime, let’s keep going!

Greens Hill Walk, Winton Wetlands

Posted on by
Reply

I am currently mapping walks in the extensive Winton Wetlands. Greens Hill is one of my favourites. See the full Victoria Walks walkingmaps version here: Greens Hill Walk

Heron Loop Walk, Winton Wetlands

Posted on by
Reply

The most recent walk from my work for Winton Wetlands. For the full Victoria Walks version use this link: Heron Loop Walk

Woodland Walk, Winton Wetlands

Posted on by
2

The most recent walk I have mapped in Winton Wetlands. View the full version on Victoria Walks walkingmaps here: Woodland Walk

Yorta Yorta Yarning and Gathering Pathway (Sculpture Walk), Winton Wetlands

Posted on by
2

A special walk that adds to the wonderful outdoor public art collection at Winton Wetlands. You can view the full version and artist details here: Lotjpatj Natjan Danak

the natural state

Posted on by
6 
Victoria is a beautiful state
big as the United Kingdom,
but in Australia rates
as quite small.

If you travel in any direction
from capital city Melbourne
there is pleasure and inspiration
in visiting the natural world.

1/2 hour short distances,
8 hour long distances,
extremes of snow or desert,
amazing bushland instances.

Every place I choose to go
provides a kind of joy.
No two places ever show
the same kinds of joy though.

But also losses are mounting.
I see it in most places now.
Degradation is a haunting.
Yet to fix it we know how.

Let’s do something about re-wilding
as Attenborough says we should.
Let’s stop the carping and the chiding
and talk about how we all could.

Written for the W3 on The Skeptic’s Kaddish Britta prompted for a poem that included the name of a city, town or village.

something in the water

Posted on by
7 
immersed in water
luxuriously suspended in space
cut off from the entire breathing human race

reflecting on water
so much to consider
when water as commodity goes to the highest bidder 

tumbling in water 
battered by an abused life giving sea 
will i survive this wave crunching of me?

drinking any water
found on a scorching day
too many of these are making the earth pay

freezing in water 
a break in the ice
i pull myself up, but just fall in twice

drawing down water 
bought for the farm
having to buy water represents harm

a well full of water
a sense of security
an empty well brings fear to my family

river bed water
evaporates into the air
when will i see it again? i can’t up there

everywhere water
after drought comes flooding rain
our homes went under last year, then again and again

methane in the water
turn the tap and it burns
fracking structural layers causes geological churn

water suspension
plastic on every scale
next on the weather agenda - plastic hail

toxic water
neutralises fishing skills
no good fisherman can live on massive fish kills

ocean water
systems anchor for the world
danger warning flags ignored although they’ve been unfurled

wars over water
beginning and the end
is your water consuming neighbour enemy or friend?

drowning in water issues
battling exhaustion 
this marks the end of my allocated portion

My first attempt at responding to David’s W3 where PoW Sylvia Cognac’s prompt is “water”

Brittle

Posted on by
3 
Brittle branch breaks under weight of bird landing
Falls to ground
Alarmed bird flutters to new bough
Insects break down branch
All is right with the world

Butterfly lands on native flower head
Tongue extends for life giving nectar
Butterfly moves on
Flower is pollenated
All may be right with the world

Mountain Water flows over rock
Down toward the sea
Sediment forms floodplain soil
Landscapes bloom with new life 
All was right with the world

Forests, grasslands, wetlands and ocean life
Breathe for and cleanse earth and sky
Working together 
part of a whole
All is not right with the world
 
Broken branch is tidied up by gardener
Native flower is replaced by agricultural product
Mountain water is harvested for commercial gain 
Land and ocean are raided
Diversity is diminished

Brittle the world breaks

5 Good Things Only #01

Posted on by
1
Greenhood Orchids in Strathbogie Forest.

1. A Grey Shrike Thrush sang for us from the verandah as we ate breakfast while a Scrub Wren scoured the brickwork and window frames for its own breakfast.

2. Starting a new book and enjoying it from page 1. Shadow Hawk by Andre Norton.

3. Listening to a Late Night Live podcast while exercising.

4. Deciding not to walk amongst undulating hills of grazing land in the wind and rain.

5. Deciding to walk in the shelter of Strathbogie Forest instead. The rain stopped when we got there. It didn’t resume until we returned to the car. Adding to the pleasure of being in the forest, we observed many Greenhood Orchids.

Falling birds

Posted on by
Reply 
 
 All those birds
 falling from the sky
 Some birds live 
 More birds die
 So consider
 Why oh why?
 We poison
 food chains
 and nature deny
 We pave 
 We divert
 We scrape the sky
 We take 
 too much
 don’t comply
 heat the planet
 watch it dry
 Then only
 crocodile tears
 do we cry
 As our legacy
 becomes
 the worlds biggest
 lie
 That we care
 action says
 we deny

What I said to the other animal on my journey to the end of the world

Posted on by
Reply 
 
 I think you might eat me
 I‘m scared that you will
 If I run you beat me
 No light on the hill 
 In the hope of appeasement
 Still desperate to run
 I appeal for lenience
 For my trashing your home
 So I’ll say I’m sorry
 That we humans are dumb
 I’ll say we forgot
 Where we’ve been and come from
 You don’t need to eat me
 Because we’ll eat ourselves
 Let me go quietly
 From the home where you dwell
 Humans all will be leaving 
 It’s our destiny
 There will be no grieving
 And your world will be free

Mountains old

Posted on by
1
Strathbogie Ranges
 
 Mountains old
 worn down
 by time and weather 
 Peaks 
 smoothed
 Summits 
 rounded
 Rocks  
 broken to
 new
 beginnings

 Stones to gravel
 sand to granules
 dust to mud
 growth to decay
 decay to soil
 
 Inclined to 
 slippage
 Declined to
 fertility

 Treacherous
 nurturing
 home of the 
 tenacious

 Boon to the
 potency 
 of flood plains 

 Mountains old 
 are so much more alive 
 than the hard 
 sharp ridges 
 and strewn 
 craggy defiles 
 of the young

strathbogie poetry #strathbogiepoetry

strathbogie photography #strathbogiephotography

The Trees

Posted on by
Reply
River red gum under rainbow, north of Yarck on the Great Victorian Rail Trail.
 
 The trees, the trees are prophesy
 Their collective memory grand
 equips the trees to well foresee
 beyond the reign of man 
 
 In forests or in parks 
 or standing on their own
 if trees of the world
 could speak as one
 I know what they’d say 
 before they are gone

 For happiness, health and wealth
 For worthwhile survival
 Save the trees to save yourself
 re-wilding equates with revival

strathbogie poetry
strathbogie photography
strathbogie cycling

ABC Breakfast Radio interview

Posted on by
Reply

This morning’s interview with presenter Matt Dowling regarding my work on tracks and trails promotion in the Strathbogie region. Commences at 43.30minutes.

ABC radio tracks and trails interview

The Last Butterfly

Posted on by
Reply
A Common Brown photographed at Jubilee Swamp
 
 When the last butterfly flutters by
 your seat on the grass
 When the sun moves overhead
 in one more timeless pass
 When the creek’s empty water
 flows by and on
 When the creatures of the bush
 all around you have gone
  
 Will you sit and reflect
 on what could have been
 When you knew it was coming
 it had been foreseen
 Will you ask why you didn’t 
 when there was time and you could
 While you sat on the grass
 thinking I must then I should

Being Human

Posted on by
Reply 
 
 This being human is brutal
 Where survival remains primal
 Where savagery can be ruthless
 Where being human is animal
  
 This being human is joyful
 Where sharing is a pleasure
 Where smiles reflect happiness
 Where being human rises above 
  
 This being human is indulgent
 Where affluence is wasted
 Where consumption is recreational
 Where being human is an economic unit
  
 This being human is religious
 Where unknowns engender hope
 Where faith equates with confidence
 Where being human could be spiritual
  
 This being human is political
 Where a few choices matter
 Where many choices don’t
 Where being human is good and evil
  
 This being human is being creative
 Where knowledge grows exponentially
 Where caution is thrown to the wind
 Where being human is a contradiction
  
 This being human is arrogant
 Where entitlement reigns
 Where extinctions surprise no one
 Where being human is collective stupidity
  
 This being human is ridiculous
 Where universes are vast
 Where consciousness is nebulous
 Where being human is being alone
  
 This being human is scary
 Where thoughts beget actions
 Where actions beget unanticipated consequences 
 Where being human is in itself an existential risk

To add another dimension to your experience of poetry, I recommend you also engage with the international community of fellow poets at d’verse virtual pub poetry challenges

The green cane chair

Posted on by
Reply
The green cane chair
 
 I sit 
 on my green cane chair
 The best chair for thinking
 It is outside 
 It has the advantage 
 of being 
 in a good place 
 A verandah from which
 there is much to see
 Even if the weather is cold
 it is in the right position 
 because the wind slides past 
 laterally
 In this chair 
 you can avoid 
 confronting winds of change
  
 You can sit here for 
 a long time 
 confident 
 you won’t have to move 
 or make way 
 for someone or something
 
 You can watch 
 all sorts of things 
 unfold from this chair
 Insects birds animals people 
 the day the night 
 the light 
 Seasons pass you by 
 I unfold from this chair
  
 This is a sitting for thinking chair 
 It gives access 
 to great scope for thought
 A matching cane table 
 stands 
 by this chair
 It is for
 all the paraphernalia 
 I choose to utilise
 for observation and thinking
 for research recording and writing
 Endless cups of tea 
 Vegemite and salad rolls 
 Fruit  nuts
 stacks of books
 Pens paper 
 Camera iPad and phone 
  
 Background noises 
 surrounding this chair 
 are soothing
 Creek water 
 tumbling over rocks
 An irregular breeze
 wafting at leaves
 Morning song birdsong evensong

 Another nice sound
 I often hear from this chair 
 is children playing 
 Always happy to be outside
 In cooler months
 running along the bush track   
 In summer  
 swimming in the waterhole by the bridge
 or excitedly calling to each other
 as they splash 
 about amongst the cascades
  
 You need to wear 
 a brimmed hat 
 sitting in this chair 
 regardless of the season
 This is to shade your eyes 
 from the northerly and westering sun 
 To balance the glare 
 against the shadows 
 on the surface 
 you are working on
  
 This chair has soft cushions 
 for the seat and for the back
 They rest against its structure of
 bent cane
 It is a very good fit 
 You can sit for a long time 
 before needing to move 
 
 However, the arms of this chair are narrow 
 They may confine you 
 to a limited range of positions
 This has the advantage
 of forcing movement
 This state of affairs 
 is  conducive 
 to constructive
 thinking by prompting
 physical activity
 around the house 
 along the verandah 
 in the garden 
 along the creek
 
 Such activity can be necessary 
 to continue to be 
 effective
 A mental activity reset
 New approaches 
 come with a reset
 Quite often they are so
 new
 you get a pleasant surprise 
 This is because 
 you didn’t  know 
 they were there 
 within you
 beforehand
  
 Another way to reset is
 change the scene
 move this chair
 to the edge of the verandah 
 or reorientate
 A different outlook
 New space
 New thinking
  
 You have to remember 
 to take the cushions 
 in 
 every evening 
 to stop them
 getting damp
 They get tired and worn
 They are due for 
 a new skin
 Just like me
  
 This chair is exposed to the elements 
 One day it won’t be there
 I wonder will another chair
 be so generous?