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Location: Blogs Artist Journal |
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| Posted by: Ken Hutchinson |
Monday, 19 March 2007 |
Trip to Cotton Tree
An easy start at 9am after coffee with Helen, moving out of the Lachlan Valley at 95 Klh and into other catchments to the north. Bell river, Cudgeegong and beyond. As I drove toward Cudal only an hour into the trip my vision was obscured by dust. There were red clouds of dust being blown by the southeasterly wind; making the atmosphere and country beyond appear fogged or as viewed through sand blasted glass. I couldn’t get a glimpse of the offending farm machinery, but from behind a bare ridge, toung of red dust rose into the air. For some reason the shapes formed by the dust reminded me of Indonesian shadow puppets. The ridgeline acted as a stage front, and the dust figures rose and danced on the wind, disappearing as fast as they formed, being elusive on the perfect sky blue background. Only one tree stood on the ridge as the other audience member, we didn’t applaud. The elusive dust performers stayed that way as my camera had a flat battery. As I sit here and write the offending camera and battery are charging in the laundry of the Glen Innes caravan park. I wished I could have photographed the show. Dry sowing moves lots of dust into the air, I wondered how many kilos were floating onto the neighbours farm and gently top dressing the drought soil.
Most of the days travelling was fairly straightforward, stopped at Coolah for coffee, and kept rolling over the Liverpool Plains, which seem close to saturation. The spread of moisture is not uniform, some valleys and catchments are still parched and bear, horribly so. Others just over the hill ooze moisture, and the grass is ankle or in some cases knee length.
Often on the edge of towns horse deserts are appearing with distressingly bare paddocks. It seems to be a pattern, buy a small farm and a couple of horses. Let the drought get a grip then buy more feed and another horse. Soon the trees are ring baked and there is not one Iota of organic matter left on the surface of the ground. Except those miserable cathead or three corner jacks depending which part of the country you come from. Nature does not like bare ground and those little blighters are the only thing left that will colonize near concrete soils in the height of summer after short showers of rain.
The native equivalent to those rotten burrs is the succulent pig face, which happens to have a small yellow flower just like the invasive cathead weed, and likewise germinates in the summer on barren ground after short rain events. The only problem is that there is a huge gap in the natural system because the pig face is usually grazed out.
Enough. Up the Moonbie hills and through to Glen Innes. I like this drive up through New England. Usually its green and there is something appealing in this part of the country. The evening light streamed in from the west and through the whole drive there seemed to be some kind of magic in the air. I suppose it’s the first time I’ve driven through green country for many A YEAR.
15 3 07
So when you camp in a caravan park at Glenn Innes high in the New England area and go to the laundry to charge your digital camera, late at night after a hard days driving and find an add on the wall that says. : Crone Tours of the Celtic Monument: Phone the Crone. Well really what should you do? I phoned the crone the next morning nad arranged a tour of the standing stones, that’s what I did. Anyone that can advertise a tour wit hthe words Phone the Crone is worth meeting. After eggs and toast in the local café I met Mary Anne at the standing stones>
I promised to her that due to the high cost of public Liability insurance that I wouldn’t trip over anything and sue her, Insurance premiums were the thing that brought her business ventures of Crone Tours to and end. She agreed to meet me even though her business venture had ended, she had a commitment to public education so we met at 9 30.
A small woman wit h patterned shoes in her late 50s or early sixties met me in the car park and we talked easily about the nature of the project and how it came about. Stories intermingled and also our views of the nature of reality. I reckon that reality was open to negotiation. The story unfolded of how the stones were at least 5 meters long and one third was buried and cemented into the ground. How the at first meeting with the council there was great scepticism about getting the stones sponsored and then an American woman visitor immediately wrote a cheque for $1000 for the first stone. The project is the first stone circle to be raised for three thousand years according to the crone. The solstices are marked out as well as the Christian cross and the stone circle marks out the Celtic cross. She invited me back to her place to see some white stone shards from QLD that looked like they had been incised or carved. The didn’t look like fossils and were of a very foie hard grain stone. She seemed to thing there was some type of extra terrestrial connection with the incising. I thought that maybe Leichhardt had found his calling in the waste lands of far west QLD and spent his day quietly carving stone, even though it was very hard.
Thanking the crone I left for QLD and travelled all day via Stanthorpe and Warwick and Toowoomba to Hampton, and to Kiola and Beerwa. The latter I thought was a made up name from some rugby team lost in transit. Finally To Craig’s place up some steep hills west of Landsborough, up a steep drive where I helped Craig unbogg his forklift by towing it with the land cruiser. I finally met Fiona and Simona was there as well, I expected her to still stuck in Roma airport, we passed a couple of congenial hours over a couple of beers and then went to dinner with several old friends of Craig’s and Fiona’s at the restaurant up the road. The couple were from Amsterdam and visiting for Pauls 50th birthday. The mum and dad picked up the bill, and thank you. The dinner was exquisite and the company enlivening.
The Medson _ McCarron household is on a very steep hill overlooking the Glass House Mtns. Craigs and Fiona’s little masterpieces dot the house and garden as well as Fiona’s. The landscape here is fully watered at present; all storages in the area are at 80%, it’s a relief from the varying conditions of drought that I passed through over the last 1200 kilometres.
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