On the how, and the where

I talked a bit about “why walking”. But now, what about How? And Where? They go together, and are, of course, intimately connected with Why?

Regarding how: a fundamental consideration is that I don’t want to turn my recreational walking into bushwalking. I don’t want to carry all the camping paraphernalia — tent, sleeping bag, cooking gear, several days worth of food. I’m lazy. I want someone else to look after those things, so I can focus on the walking bit, rather than spend time putting up tents.

Now, all this doesn’t happen without some effort and preparation. The decision to free myself of carrying kit means walking from place to place where I can find accommodation. It doesn’t have to be particularly high standard. I’m not a 5-star princess, but it does mean making landfall by night somewhere where I can find a roof, a wash, and a meal.

Walking the Camino — the mediaeval pilgrimage route from Paris to Santiago de Compostella in northwestern Spain, has become a popular pastime. I’ve not done it, but I know a few people who have done bits. The model seems to be one of moving on each day, walking for some hours, and gaining relatively simple and cheap lodging in a village each night. Somewhat like in mediaeval times, when the pilgrimage was the thing to do, establishments have again appeared along the route, providing modern-day pilgrims with accommodation.

Now, one day I might do some of the Camino. But that takes some funds, and I’m skint right now. Certainly, a few weeks walking in France and Spain, appealing as that sounds, is not in my budget. I started to cast my eye around local possibilities. The requirements seem simple on paper: a region where pubs or other cheap accommodation are available in settlements a day’s walk apart. Preferably somewhere scenic and appealing, with a good road network, so I’m not stuck on highways all day.

So — the thing about Australia is that its big. BIG! About as big as Europe, or the contiguous United States. But much less densely settled, so towns are a greater distance apart. It doesn’t take much map-gazing to realise that the southeastern crescent, roughly from a bit north of Brisbane to a bit west of Melbourne, is the area of operations. Anywhere else is too sparsely settled, with towns more than a reasonable day’s walk apart. As a rule of thumb, I am using 20 km as a distance for scoping walks. An option is to stay in one place that I like and make daily loop walks. I mean, it’s not like a I have some actual religious imperative to get to a particular spot.

Another problem is access. In the UK and Europe, there appears to be a long-standing, if not always legally codified, right to walk along public footpaths that traverse private property, as long as the walker obeys certain provisions such as not bothering stock, not lighting fires, and sticking to paths. Such a network of paths across private properly is lacking in Australia. I suspect this comes from the development, early in the European settlement, of the practices of free selection, where certain individuals were given total rights to hold property. And they often wanted to set up a “Bunyip aristocracy”, negating the concepts of public access to their land. Whatever the cause, it is difficult to just walk along a fence line or creek, without incurring the wrath of a landowner. The end result for a walker is that minor public roads become the most-accessible way to move around.

As well, changes in the patterns of settlement have an effect. The bush has had the economic shit kicked out of it over the last 50 years, with steady depopulation of rural towns, and a loss of services. Small towns that once had a pub have disappeared, or lost services. The options for somewhere to stay have reduced. Along with this has been the gentrification of the “bed and breakfast” market. Once, bed and breakfast accommodation establishments were just that — a place for cheap and simple accommodation in someone’s spare room. Now, they mainly seem to cater to the “dirty weekend” demographic. This has been accompanied by substantially increased prices, minimum stay periods, and death by twee. I don’t really need a crocheted dolly toilet roll cover, thanks very much.

Anyway, all this reflection – largely achieved over a few longer walks, has led to a fantasy conception of the ideal accommodation. It was envisaged by Almost John Buchan:

“Two hours before sunset I crested the ridge, and looked down into the long glen before me. The dusty road behind had been a long and lonely walk from breakfast at Muirtown markets. When I had alighted from the train in the dawn light, I’d looked carefully through the market crowd and my few fellow travelers. I saw no one I recognised, and no one seemed interested in me. I appeared to have outrun my followers of the last two days. It was hard to believe that only three nights before, I had returned from my club to the Mayfair flat and found Sofia dead — pinned to the parquetry floor, a long knife skewered through her heart, a look of terror frozen on her face — and the Karamanlis letter gone from my desk drawer.

The road ran down into the glen through some slow bends. About two miles ahead a stone bridge crossed the burn, and beyond lay a single croft, a thin drift of blue-grey smoke rising from the chimney. Beyond the croft, the burn emptied into a loch. A few rowboats were pulled up on the beach.

Far to my left, sun glinted off the sea, silvering it. The landward sides of the islands were already purple with shade. I sat on the heather with my back against a boulder and carefully scanned the glen with my field glasses. There was nothing moving below me. The glen had no cover — not a copse or a stand of pine in the whole place. I was relieved. Nothing could move in the glen without me knowing about it.

Carefully I crept the few yards back to the crest, and with my glasses surveyed the way I had come. There was very little traffic on the coast road, and none on my side road. There seemed to be no pursuit.

Not long after, I was crossing the burn on the bridge. I walked up to the croft. An elderly woman with grey hair and a worn face was tending a vegetable garden, a basket of beans and potatoes beside her. She bid me good evening. When I asked about lodging for the night, she gave a drawn smile. “I’ll show you what we have.” In a lean-to on the side of the croft was a small bedroom — spare, but neat and clean. “ You’re welcome to this” she said. “It was our son’s room. He ne’er came back fra’ France”. She pointed me to a well and stone tubs behind the croft, and offered to make tea whilst I washed.

Before the tea she gave me a bowl of creamy milk and fresh-baked bread. I sat in the gloaming watching the glen. There was neither man nor beast abroad, as far as I could see. For a few hours, it seemed I had escaped detection.

After dark, her man came home, carrying a creel with a salmon from the loch nestled in bracken. He was a tall, whip-thin, wind-burned man, a little grey starting to appear in his brick-red hair. We ate slabs of the salmon that she cooked in butter in a skillet, with beans and potatoes.

After the meal, he and I sat in front of the fire with our pipes and drams from my hip flask The conversation was halting, with long periods of silence as we stared into the coals. The talk was of stalking in the district. It was poor, as so many keepers and ghillies had left for the front. I ventured a few comments on the fishing and the game, and circumspectly asked about neighbours. All were old, established families, who had lived here since Noah. I was relieve to hear that no one new had come to the valley for years. When I cautiously expressed support for the new Labour government’s plan to use demobbed men in land and game restoration projects, he came to life.

“I ken fine the idea, and it’s a braw one. But our local member is a Tory and a high laird, and he’ll no be supporting it. I hold no time for either side, syne the war that took the best of us away, and left no benefit to ordinary wee folk. I’ll thank ye not to be a’ talking of the politics in this house. It upsets her too much, syne our lad died”. At this he fell into a brooding silence until our drams were finished and it was time for bed.

Between crisp sheets, the visions of Sofia and her terror mask, and of my escape from the Red Door gang, slipped away quickly. For the first time in days I slept a deep and dreamless sleep.

In the morning she served me ham and eggs with more strong tea. As I was taking my leave, I held out one of my sovereigns. They looked affronted. He said “There’ll be no need for that”, and she walked to the kitchen dresser, took out two baps, wrapped then in paper and held them out. “A wee bite to help you on your way” she said. I made my way down the road beside the loch, towards the sea. No one followed me.

An hour later, I heard the sound of an aeroplane. It came high over the far ridge then dropped, following my road. I stepped under an old pine and watched as a twin-seater biplane worked its way along the coast. I could see the pilot and observer both leaning out to scan the ground. My sense of security of the last few hours fell away. The gentlemen of the Red Door gang had taken their search to the skies. I was still hunted.

That fantasy accommodation isn’t about to happen in a hurry. But a country pub, with a simple room, and a bathroom down the hall, is enough. Especially if it has a decent wine list, a veranda, and a log fire in winter.

A decent network of minor roads; a few country pubs; some pleasant countryside to walk through. That’s what I’m looking. Within striking distance of Sydney, it announces itself. The Central West — stretching from Mudgee to Cowra. High country, rolling hills, big sky. It’s as close as I get to a bush home. Family connections, and a lot of work as a geologist has taken place in the Central West of NSW. That’s where I will start looking for walks.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

The BOM site was going crazy late last week about the impending winter storm conditions that were going to sweep, Assyrian – wolf like, down on the southeast. Snow! Wind! Cold! Rain! End of CAWKI*! A big system pushing north from Antarctica. Snow down to 700 m, at any rate. Beauty, I think, a chance to get out and do some walking in the cold, possibly see some snow, feel buzzing finger tips and ears, eat something great in front of a roaring fire, with a glass of red.

A big system coming up from Antarctica. BOM image

Sunday sees me on a Blue Mountains bound train before dawn. It IS cold, on the walk from home to Central, but lovely in the carriage, as we head through dark suburbs to the inaptly-named Emu Plains. Well — have YOU ever seen an emu thereabouts?

About Warrimoo, the very first sun cuts the dark, a pale pink, nacreous glow; a huge ball of orange soon follows. It is exquisitely, heart-stoppingly beautiful, as I see it through darkened trees, and suggests that, at least to the east, the sky is unclouded. If we are going to see some snow, that system coming in from the west needs to make good time. 

Warrimoo sunrise

It is just after eight when I leave the train at Blackheath, elevation 1070 m. Crisp, but no snow. Rime and frost on the grass near the railway station, and I am off searching for a hot cup of tea and some breakfast.

Civic information, Blackheath

Area of Operations, west of the railway and town ridge

I get walking, and head southwest out of town along empty streets, to the Centennial Glen car park. The sign gnomes near there have a dim view of walking speed. 1.5 km in 40 minutes? Along a sealed road? Even I can walk faster than that. 

1.5 km in 40 minutes?

From the car park, the track winds west though low heath, which really is being blasted today, buffeted by a roaring gale from the west. The track runs along the spectacular cliff top, then takes a dive like an Italian soccer player; all ladders and cut steps, down the cliff line through a deep gully. In places spray from the creek flies up in drifts onto the ladder ways. I walk quickly through those, not wanting to start the day wet. In summer, this would be a lot of fun! Today, it will just be annoying, at best.

The track levels off and follows the base of the cliff line along Colliers Causeway. It is reasonably wide and even in some places, rough and narrow elsewhere.

The wide path ...

 ... and the narrow

 It is generally fairly easy walking. In places, there is some track improvement going on, with masonry works in progress, building retaining walls and easy paths.

Track upgrades

The path is usually right at the very base of the cliff — I can touch sandstone faces with my right hand all along here. The cliffed landscape is the defining, iconic feature of Blue Mountains.

Typical cliffed landscape of the Blue Mountains. Banks Wall Sandstone forms the cliffs in the western Blue Mountains, as here on the Blackheath ridge.

The western edge of the Blue Mountains is transitional land. Cliff-bound hills covered with nearly continuous eucalypt forest, give way westward to a more rolling terrain of open grassland, with patches of forest, usually forming the higher ground. And so it is, as well, with the original inhabitants. The western Blue Mountains, the Megalong and Burragorang valleys, is the home of the Gundungurra people, which continues south into the Southern Highlands. To the west is Wiradjuri land, home of the goanna people, dwellers of the grasslands of the Central West.

As always, geology is at the bottom of it. The cliffs in the western Blue Mountains are formed from my old acquaintance — Triassic-aged Banks Walls Sandstone, part of the Narrabeen Group in the Permo-Triassic (300 – 200 million years ago) Sydney Basin. Further east, down the mountains, beginning about Woodford, the cliffs are built of younger Hawkesbury Sandstone, which crops out so well around Sydney itself. Cliffs form when a resistant layer is underlain by a more easily-eroded rock layer. The soft rock erodes back more quickly, making an overhang; the overlying rock collapses, forming cliffs.

Overhang cave and cliff

Over time, the process continues and the cliff line retreats. In the Blue Mountains the rock layers are nearly flat-lying, so the cliffs can continue, essentially unbroken, along ridge lines for many kilometres. If you stand at vantage points like Govetts Leap in Blackheath, you see the cliffs extending, in spectacular fashion, all the way down the Grose Valley. The rock overhangs must have been magnets for Aboriginal occupation over millennia. They offer shelter, and water from seeps, dripping roofs and cascading streams. Further east, near Wentworth Falls, an occupation site has been dated at 20,000 years old, or possibly older. The tribes have walked these hills for a long, long time.

To the west Sydney Basin gives way to the underlying, older rocks of the Lachlan Fold Belt. These can be highly variable over short distances, compared to the regular, continuous geology of the Sydney Basin. Their variability give rise to the diverse range of landscapes, soil, and vegetation of the Central Tablelands and the Central West regions. Granites are often deeply eroded to soft, rolling landscapes with deep, relatively fertile soils that can sustain grasslands — such as the area around Bathurst. Stronger, more resistant rocks — often metamorphosed sandstone and mudstone, give rise to hilly county with shallow, stony soils that support forest, such as the prominent chains of hills — Mount Lambie, Dark Corner, the Catombal Range, the Hervey and Coccaparra Ranges.

And so, as I walk at the base of the cliff, I can look west across this geological, topographic, ecological, anthropological divide. I am looking through the forest, from Gundungurra land, to the more open grasslands of Wiradjuri country.

Looking through the trees, from Gundungurra, towards Wiradjuri country

Nestled in the valley, right at the bottom of the hill, is a white farm house and outbuildings, in an opening between the trees I can see a house which is the closest to the cliff line. I think of this as The First Farm.

The First Farm

The bush is mainly the olive drab, grey green of eucalyptus forest, but in the deep gullies, where the sun doesn’t penetrate easily, the vegetation changes to dense, multi-green temperate rainforest, fed by the constant spray from waterfalls.

By channels of coolness the echoes are calling,
And down the dim gorges I hear the creek falling.

Temperate rain forest in the tight gullies

Scattered through the bush at this time of year, are splotches of beautiful lemon-yellow wattle — always the first to flower.

Even in the middle of winter, the wattles have got their hurry on, when other plants won’t start to flower until spring starts to warm them up. As well, there is a pretty, but tiny, pink trumpet-shaped flower. It’s pretty. It’s pink. It’s shaped like a trumpet.

That exhausts my knowledge on this plant. I’m better with rocks.

And, in the way of Blue Mountains bushwalks, at the end of the day you repeat the climbing, in reverse. Back up through the cliff line on ladder pitches, to win to the plateau again. At the top of the climb up Porters Pass, there is a lookout, with views again out to the west, over the mix of bush and pasture. This time, the wind is howling, fiercer than before, and a lot of cloud is inbound. I take a short time to enjoy the view, and celebrate my return to the top by supping a wee dram.

Cheers!

In this cold and wind, the whiskey is most welcome. It burns and warms on the way down. I think of the characters in Tim Winton’s “The Riders” — the father and the neighbour — who spent a lot of time standing in an Irish bog, taking a spot of drink against the cold. I don’t think I’ve ever drunk whiskey like this before — outdoors, in the whistling wind and with my fingers freezing. It’s a wonderful moment. The drinking and looking and general huzzah is cut short by the wind, which is screaming always more loud. As I take a picture, light flurries of snow arrive, and this makes my day. Snow, at last. It’s not settling, but, by God! I came to see snow, and here it is!

But the wind doesn't die, and I can feel my legs stiffening. I walk on, staying warm by keeping moving. It’s a short walk through the streets of 1930s holiday cottages, back to the railway station. Where a transformation has been wrought in my absence. The early morning Blackheath was empty of people, bar a few hardy (mad?) souls like me. Now, it is teeming with rubberneckers. It seems that tout Sydney and the mountains has ascended on Blackheath to witness the impending meteorological onslaught. Wintergeddon. The streets seem crowded but the indoors are even worse. The cafes are full to bursting; both pubs have queues as long as a mother-in-law’s memory, waiting to order counter lunches. My dream of a delicious and hearty feed in a quiet café is disappearing, fast. Eventually, I eat an indifferent steak sandwich in a crowded café. But it DOES have a roaring fire, and I am seated right next to it. I am looking out at more snow flurries, although they melt on hitting the ground.

On the way down the hill, there is a serendipitous moment. Near Warrimoo, where I saw the sunrise, the train runs through a short section, where a gap in the trees aligns with a gap in the hills. Far, far out to the east, on the coastal plain, I can see the skyscrapers of Sydney, 60 km away. A shaft of sun drops on the city, through a hole in the clouds, and it is beautiful, glowing, crystalline, in the way it is  lit up. It looks like Dick Whittington's London, Dorothy's Oz, beckoning me on.

This is pretty damn good, after a stiff walk. Warming up, enjoying a sit. Nodding off on the train home, whilst savouring chocolate and a surreptitious nip of whiskey. I drowse off. Simple delights on an afternoon after a stiff walk in the cold. Snow. Just a bit, but good enough.

            * CAWKI: Civilisation As We Know It

On the why ...

Walking.

Isn't that a wonderful word - so full of promise, and delight, and fulfilment? Walking is one of my favourite things. Along with eating, and fucking, and reading. Each has its own delights, but walking is special. Unlike most of the others, it's often best when done alone. It is good day or night, in any weather. And all you need is a pair of shoes. 

I'm not talking about walking around the house, or down to the shops. Nor am I talking about walking with an agenda - like "getting fit", or "training for the City to Surf". Those LOOK a bit like the walking I'm talking about. And are important. I should be doing more of both. I'm talking here about walking to a wider horizon. Walking with no purpose, beyond just getting out into the world, walking across it, and seeing what's there to be seen.

It can be a short walk. But really, I'm thinking here of a walk of AT LEAST a few hours' duration. Preferably all day. And, most preferably, one of a few days together, dedicated to podial locomotion. For when you walk long distance, with no great agenda, or schedule, things start to happen. Your mind opens up. You start to relax. You get time to think, in an unstructured way - noticing the body's steady rhythm, the wind at your back or the sun on your arms. Seeing the various sights along the way - trees, and rocks, and soil; animals, vegetables, and minerals. Watching the landscape unfold before you, at walking pace, from ground level, is one of the most luxurious and relaxing things I can imagine.

Given that we can hold several thoughts in our minds at once, and that, at walking pace, there is time for these thoughts to ferment, mature, evolve - it's a fine opportunity to mull over the problematic items of life. When the going isn't too difficult. Moss forest, tropical karst, button grass swamp, horizontal scrub - all take their toll on progress - and need your full attention to traverse. But when there's open forest or - joy of joys - a track, a fire trail, a back-country road, the walking doesn't interfere too much with the mental journey.

And so, we plod along, in the moment, thinking deep and shallow thoughts. Building to those rewards granted the walker: the view from the top of a hill; a thirst-slaking beer at the end; the joy of a hot shower (or even, if you're lucky, a bath); and that delicious, slow descent into deep sleep that is the reward for today's effort, and the preparation for tomorrow's journey.

For a field geo, walking is part of our stock in trade. We are on our feet from the start of day one. But it's different in ways, that I'll talk about later. But, for now, just know that we walk a lot. And so, we have plenty of time to think about stuff. 

After a long career as a field-based mapping geologist, my work started to spiral inwards, to become more constrained. I've walked a lot as a geo, in eastern and southern Australia, northwest Queensland, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Burma, Bangladesh. But over the last few years, with inevitable career changes, the focus has changed. I've moved from doing regional mapping, where the canvas, the area of interest, may be 100 km wide, to looking at dams. The focus is usually a hectare or two immediately around a dam wall, which may only be a hundred metres long

So, all this has led to a growing sense of claustrophobia. The need to break out, and put some kilometres under my feet.

What I'm going to do - well, that's the subject for another story. I'll tell you another day. Now - I just want to be somewhere, walking towards an open sky.