The real...

All forests are one... They are all echoes of the first forest that gave birth to Mystery when the world began. 

~ Charles de Lint

I have this thing that I do. When the world gets too busy, chaotic and full of drama, I just sit and stare at the wall and remember how small I am, how completely insignificant and unimportant. This brings me great comfort and a sense of freedom. The other thing that I do is head for the mountains and the forest. The sub tropical rain forests of the hinterland are a great reminder of how each of us plays a teeny tiny part in a larger system, and that we are not the centre of the system ourselves. The rainforest is my leveller, a place of grounding - a space in which I can shuffle the cards in my mind and find that everything makes perfect sense. If you walk through the forest the right way, curious and quiet with eyes wide open, it will reveal its magic to you. My grandfather taught me how to do this. It's the greatest gift I've ever been given.

I spent yesterday in the mountains. Here is some of the magic I found...

Portrait of a Place: a weekend at Grandma's...

One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.

~ Agatha Christie

I was blessed with a happy childhood. Well, mostly. Let's not pretend that there weren't moments of turmoil and upheaval, but on the whole my childhood was pretty damn sweet. I was a shy child who liked nothing better than to escape into worlds of my own making. Very few people were allowed into these worlds and even fewer cared that I dwelled within them at all. My grandfather was one of the few who would follow me into places I'd imagined, and sometimes he'd take me to places he'd imagined too! 

The family farm, outside of Yarraman in the southernmost region of the South Burnett, was a fertile place for the growth of a vivid imagination in the mind of a child. Growing up I visited my grandparents here many times a year and even when I visit now I am transported to another, more innocent, time. My grandfather died several years ago. The orchard has disappeared save for a lemon, mandarin and an avocado tree. The flower beds have been filled in with lawn and the vegetable garden is grown over with grass. The chook pen has been removed to make room for another paddock for my uncle's cattle. The great wall of pines that towered over the backyard have been cut down. The milking shed is in a state of disrepair and the old home that I know so well is worn from the ravages of time. I look upon the place with much nostalgia for a time that has passed. The decay and deterioration remind me that all I have now will one day be transformed.

This weekend we decided to visit the old family farm and drive up to what was once our favourite picnic spot in the Bunya Mountains. It was a lovely weekend, filled with long chats with Grandma, picking avocados, photographing the country sunset, watching the baby steer frolicking in the paddock, bushwalking and tripping down memory lane. I took my camera with me and found myself feverishly documenting the place. It was like I wanted to capture the last bits of magic that remained here for me before they were transformed beyond recognition.

These photos are a portrait of a place. A place that I once called 'home'.

The western view from the Bunya Mountains...

The forest inside the park was so lush and dense after many months of rainfall. I hadn't seen the Bunya's with this much water since I was a teenager. The forest was so alive and we spent a long time walking through trees and over streams...

The image below is of a place called Coomba Falls. This is where my grandparents met all those years ago. It was a popular swimming spot and gathering place in the summer months. It's such a beautiful gem of a spot and I'm glad that it is little known by those other than locals.

Grandma Beryl...

The end of the road...

Well, we're home now! Safe and sound and relaxing into our ordinary, everyday world again. We travelled quite a way - about 7000 kilometres - on our journey down South, and I must say that I enjoyed almost every part of it! I say almost because after 6 weeks of being on the road I was really very glad to get home. :)

So our final destination on our road trip was the Blue Mountains. Situated about 100 clicks west of Sydney the Blue Mountains are certainly one of Australia's most iconic regions. We had never been there before and though we weren't overly excited about visiting the place, we thought that since we had time we'd go and see what all the hoopla was about. Well, I'm certainly glad we made the effort because it really is such a spectacular place. Standing at the main tourist site in Katoomba, looking out at the Three Sisters and the great cavernous valley between the mountains, I said to Ben that it reminded me very much of the Grand Canyon! It may seem quite a strange thing to say, but it's true. Instead of dusty reds and oranges the Blue Mountains are filled with slightly faded blues and greens, lavender and indigo hues. The scenery is all rather painterly and it's not such a leap to imagine why this place has long been the muse of artists, writers and other creatives.

We stayed in Leura, a small village in the Blue Mountains, at a delightful little studio apartment near the Everglade Gardens. The Everglades are magnificent. Once a private garden it is now open to the public to explore freely. We spent quite a few hours there taking in the beautiful surrounds. It was all rather romantic, wandering through rambling forest and over mossy stones....

The house on the property is a magnificent example of modernist architecture and I greatly enjoyed being able to mosey about inside. Large glass windows had been built to frame the scenery - it was all really rather clever. And outside in the 'everglade' part of the garden the deciduous trees were heralding in autumn, their leaves taking on yellow and orangey tones. 

We then spent much of the afternoon wandering through local antique stores searching for a bargain to bring home as a souvenir of our stay. Alas, we didn't find anything that spoke to us with any sense of conviction so we turned back to nature instead, soaked up a bit more of the Blue Mountain majesty and resolved to come back again one day for a longer stay. A day really wasn't anywhere near long enough!

The next day we jumped in our red beast and drove for 13 and a half hours straight all the way back to Queensland. It was an epic journey (If we were on a plane we could have arrived in LA!). 

And so ends our Southern road trip and our first adventure for 2013.