Clare's Spot: rocks

This is not a good craft idea for the weak of heart or anyone lacking patience. This will at the least take three days...... I spent over a week making this tree. But you do end up with something really lovely and useless!

As I stole out of the house and down the silent streets a poem by Banjo Paterson echoed through my head. I memorized it years ago and it came flooding back as it played out in real life before me.

Sunrise on the Coast A.B. "Banjo" Paterson

Grey dawn on the sand-hills -- the night wind has drifted

All night from the rollers a scent of the sea;

With the dawn the grey fog his battalions has lifted,

At the call of the morning they scatter and flee.

Like mariners calling the roll of their number

The sea-fowl put out to the infinite deep.

And far over-head -- sinking softly to slumber --

Worn out by their watching, the stars fall asleep.

To eastward, where resteth the dome of the skies on

The sea-line, stirs softly the curtain of night;

And far from behind the enshrouded horizon

Comes the voice of God saying "Let there be light."

And lo, there is light! Evanescent and tender,

It glows ruby-red where 'twas now ashen-grey;

And purple and scarlet and gold in its splendour --

Behold, 'tis that marvel, the birth of a day!

Green and gold light speckling the grass. Vibrantly green buffalo grass, a lawn. Birds call, ever so softly from every side. The grass is soft against your back, for a while. Your checked, long sleeve shirt and jeans stop the grass from itching its way to your skin. Trees block out the suns glare. The leaves above rattle and click in the slight wind. Secrets are whispered from air to tree that travel down into the earth.

Past the branches and leaves fluffy, white clouds float in the blue sky. The leaves shake with gladness. Soft music plays. All is beautiful.

Eventually you realize your head is lower than your feet because of the slight incline of the lawn. The grass has found a way through your shirt to itch your back. So you shift over and lean against a rock, it is rough and cool, but comfortable. Where you lie is actually a tamed ridge line. Rocks, like the one you lean against poke up like breaching wales from the green lawn. Rocks of a volcanic sort. The one you lean against sucks warmth from your back. The breeze is almost cold.

Insects are on the move around you. Ants trail up a tree, bees fly around and around a mosquito hums. Which in the end destroys it all because in this life nothing is quite perfect, not for long. But we have assurance, that one day, we will be brought home. To a perfect home, the perfect home, the perfect place, perfect for eternity.

I woke up, but decided it was still night, then a few minutes later daddy walked in and I remembered. We are going on a walk again today. So I got up. I decided that Jumping off fences is a very bad idea. Actually yesterday I was not trying to jump off but I kept falling, being blown or bumped off a fence kinda thing that I was trying to stand on. Now my back and legs were sore. (Foreboding of the pain I am in now). We left for Mt Royal at 5:20.

Lake St Clair

Can you see the moon? It is just going down.

Up the road we went. Nasty road dirt it was and lots of holes, eroded bits and drops on the sides. Cold air surrounded us as we climbed higher up into the mountains. Soon we were climbing (after we got out of the car). Daddy started to tell stories of leaches..... I tried not to listen. I hate leaches. We walked along a track that leads around the bottom and along next to the mountain. Then we headed up along another track. Some trees had fallen over it and there had been a landslide in one place. I used my hair (in a ponytail) as a scarf. We saw a few flashes of red and blue birds (Crimson Rosellas) occasionally, and heard many others.

The morning sun filtered through the trees. We found lots of raspberry bushes, sadly none of the raspberries were ripe. Fern covered the ground and there were lots of black-boy plants. We reached the bottom of the ridge line and started to climb up it. Lichen grew all over many of the trees. There were also tiny, white orchids.

I lead the climb some of the time. As the sun got higher we discarded our jumpers. At one stage it looked as if we were nearly at the top. When I arrived there, yet another slope came into view, a steeper one. We had lots of short stops to revive (stiffen up) and to eat some vegemite sandwiches and Milk Arrowroot Biscuits and of course the maltesers. Sometimes the ground about another normal step away came up to over my head. So our climbing could be called scrambling or pulling ourselves up occasionally. The view took our breath away (at least the climbing to see it did).

My legs and back hurt a bit but the mountain view that stretched before us made up for it. We were on the highest, clear point, as in without trees so you can see. We could see such a long way, mountain range upon mountain range. The going could be dangerous, we walked along the very top of the ridge and you couldn’t very well walk anywhere else because the ground went straight down either side. We were walking on rocks mostly, large ones. Grassy plant sorta things grew all over them and in between them. The grass hid holes between rocks and also made the rocks slippery.

I climbed around, then up onto some rocks that stuck way up, and had nothing (except for air) on either side. I really hoped they wouldn’t pick just then to go crashing down. Alice thought I had gone crazy when she saw me standing up there. She could have been right. Many of the rocks had mossy sorts of plants growing on them.

The rock I climbed up onto.

Next we left the spectacular view behind and entered a forest of twisted trees, giant fungi and masses of lichen that draped all over the tree trunks and branches. The lichen swayed in the breeze and reminded me of seaweed, except it grew on trees in the mountains not on the bed of the sea.

Notice how steep it is?

We walked and walked. The ground here had rocks in it most of the time and sometimes only rocks, they were as treacherous as elsewhere. I’m not sure if these were worse or if my ankles were already sore. I tripped and hurt my left ankle twice then as we started to slowly descend I found myself falling. Luckily in this place there were only a few rocks so my knees hit the dirt, and I also managed to not let go of the camera (twas around my neck, but my neck had got rather close to the ground).

The lichen plant thing.. beautiful, one of my favourite things we saw today.

Orchids

I survived, but went a lot slower after that. We kept climbing down the ridge line. Now the ground was rocks, large rocks that were rather strange shapes. The stringy green lichen still hung like ropes or fairy swings from the trees overhead (or should I say below us). Daddy and I had a debate sorta thing on the way down. We arrived back at the car which we had left six hours ago. Every bit of my legs, feet and back had a complaint. But there were no leaches... No leaches but later we found one tick. Not on me though, I hope there is none on me.

That is Lake St Clair in the distance

Then I drove back home along the narrow, eroded road (if it can be called such). I also found hats and sunglasses are very good for keeping things out of your face. Only one problem, they can sometimes impede vision. One time I walked right into a tree branch, which got me smack on the forehead. Then Alice tried to duck under it and missed. At other times I might have been amused but I knew exactly how she felt but to a greater extent.

We had fun, I had fun. The beauty, and the mountain air, the photo opportunities. Only problem is I, well my muscles seem to be rebelling, but other than that, what a glorious day, praise God!

Though speaking of day, it seems to have finished, a while ago. I think I might just finish this..... Ok that took a bit longer than expected.

Outside the sky looked black, it was black, not that I had been looking. I had been asleep, and then someone walked into the room. I woke and remembered ‘we are going walking today’. I said “hello” or something like that probably in a slightly asleep voice. Then I got up, dressed, had breakfast, grabbed stuff, and emerged outside into the darkness. Daddy, Alice and I got into the car; I switched on the ignition and lights. As I said before it was dark.......it normally is at five.

I drove us to Lake St Clair all the while the sky grew lighter and mist could be seen lying in all the valleys around the lake. We got out of the car and started walking up a spur. The sky got lighter, soon the clouds became pink and gold. We continued to climb, over our shoulders mist rose up from the lake.

We reached the top of the first hill but as often happens there were many more ‘tops’ to go before we really got the very top. Poem I know came to mind as we climbed, like The Australian Sunrise ~James Cuthbertson, The road not taken ~Robert Frost, A-Roving ~Victor Daley, The Last Journey ~Vance Palmer, and bits of others, later I was reminded of Old Man Platypus and The Man From Snowy river ~Banjo Patterson. We came upon a place where the air was heavy with a beautiful scent similar to jasmine, we were not sure what plant it came from but it smelled so amazing! A copse of tall old spotted gums stood one of the ‘tops’, they stood so straight and tall.

It had been cool but it didn’t take us long to take off our jumpers. We climbed higher and higher, over a few more fences, the sun came up properly over some of the cloud. In one place the hill had cow pats all over the top of it. We stopped quite a few times to catch our breath.

Eventually I arrived at the very top and looked down to the hills and valleys on the other side. Still, ribbon of mist hung above the lake.

Can you see the car way down there near the road? I can only see it because I know where it is.

Next we were off along the ridge. God’s creation is so amazing and beautiful. We brought water obviously and quite a bit of food..... Like chocolate, and sandwiches, and chips. There were a few wallabies (very small wallabies) which went bounding away at our approach. There were also things like sticky beaks, spikey plants and (possibly) raspberry viney things that were really good at being trip hazards. We walked, climbed, walked along. In one place lots of the gums had been struck by lightning. There were also lots of lichen covered rocks.

Eventually we decided to head back down. Down is my favourite but up is the way Daddy likes best. So I lead the way, actually I had been leading some of the time up too, especially the last bit before the top. We came across a echidna which got us quite excited, we patted it (terrorised it) at least it will have a good story to tell its family of its narrow escape, maybe it could even do a blog post, wait echidnas don’t have blogs do they! We ate some sandwiches made of chocolate between two milk arrowroot biscuits.

The place we went down had grass all over it, I ran straight down for a bit but the vines nearly tripped me multiple times, so instead I zigzagged, well Daddy doesn’t call it zig zaging (I only go about two meters or less before turning) and he would probably say I was still running but anyway. I also tried ‘crabing’ which involved going sideways....fast. The other two got left behind.

We crossed a creek then walked along a cattle track, some cows came to inspect us then turned and ran. We rested on some logs and ate the packet of chips. Then we walked on along a car track now the rest of the way had no slopes excepting one short one.

We made it back to the car! The sun had not yet climbed fully overhead.On the way home I saw another echidna which walked across the road in front of us. I stopped the car and we all jumped out and took photos of us. This echidna was smaller than the one we had seen earlier and not so hidden, I would unroll and peep out but as soon as I clicked the cameras shutter it hid again.

The walk was a lot of fun, the view amazing and the weather just about perfect.

On Saturday we went for a drive in the hills around Lake St Clair. I wasn't driving thought because we had a trailer on the car, and annoyingly it is illegal for learner drivers to drive with trailers, but that meant I could take photos out the windows.

Psalm 111:2,3

Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them.
Full of splendour and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures for ever.

Psalm 23: 2,3

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.