THE EARTHRISE DIARY (February 2014)
© Text Don Diespecker 2014 (guest writers retain their ©)
DON DIESPECKER
Summer afternoon—summer
afternoon: to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the
English language.
Henry James, A
Backward Glance.
Feb 24 2014. How quickly everything changes. Summer is
winding down although not seeming at all like summer these past few days:
frequent showers, high humidity, thunderstorms, falling branches and the
occasional tree, greasy roads, the surprising diminishment of cicada percussion
orchestras, infrequent birdsong, rare sightings of dark butterflies, another
snake manifestation in the house and suddenly, ant holes in what used to be Big
Lawn with spoil surrounds that remind me vividly of ghanats in Iran. I often
notice ant holes and surrounding great amounts of spoil in the well-tended
grass between sidewalk and property walls when I walk in Bellingen’s quieter
streets: they seem to me associated with rain and when I think of rain I
invariably think of floods.
What are ghanats,
do I hear you cry? A ghanat or qanāt (from Arabic) is ‘one of a series of well-like vertical shafts,
connected by gently sloping tunnels.’ The ghanats enable ‘a reliable supply of
water for human settlements and irrigation in hot, arid and semi-arid climates.’ The technology probably dates to the
first millennium, BC. ‘The value of a qanat is directly related to the
quality, volume and regularity of the water flow. Much of the population of
Iran and other arid countries in Asia and North Africa historically depended
upon the water from qanats; the areas of population corresponded closely to the
areas where qanats are possible. Although a qanat was expensive to construct,
its long-term value to the community, and thereby to the group that invested in
building and maintaining it, was substantial.’ (Wikipedia).
Although I have qanāt anecdotes and could add to this
information I merely note that when flying repeatedly over Iran I was initially
puzzled by the many mole-like excavations that I saw in desert regions and that
clues to their existence were also visible from the air: nearby mountains were
a source of fresh water, and there were towns and well-irrigated agricultural
areas at a distance from the mountains. In other words, ghanats transport fresh
water to where it best may sustain life. And because ghanats are dangerously
deep and not properly fenced off they are also a threat to all life and not
forgetting that digging the deep and unsupported tunnels will always be
life-threatening (but not unduly so for the blind white fish that live in the
water flowing far below ground level)...
Ghanats aside, I had earlier
this month been inclined to discuss cicada wings but have put my notes aside
for another time: something else has arisen. As announced last month Diary
readers were invited to contribute articles or essays on the subject(s) of
camps and camping. Although there has not been the overwhelming response that I
half expected there are two and a half attractive and engaging pieces in this
edition (your Editor believes in co-writing and co-authoring in blogs which he
then considers to have been enhanced because extra dimensions have been added
to the text) (the Reader may care to ponder this as a philosophical
possibility). And because these writings have arrived in the last few hours and
within hours of the deadline and in desperation I had by then started exploring
some of my remembered camping
experiences. While attending to those incoming writings I quickly realized that
I also was becoming aware of other
kinds of camps, ones having dark and
forbidding implications. Readers with little or no interest in such disturbing
notions are respectfully invited to scroll down to the lighter writing by my
Guest Writers that will follow some of my preliminary scribbles.
A Preamble Of Sorts
The more I remember and recall my early years (I was born in
1929), the more I feel enabled to touch,
as it were, on some of the ambience of that time. Ambience is probably not the right word, either. I’m searching for
the words to describe what I remember seeing and hearing in my family when I
was a child: words and phrases, topics discussed, items of news that were
current in those far-off times. I don’t pretend to remember with any accuracy
and no clarity at all, quite what I was hearing, seeing, picking up and storing
or remembering when I was three or four or five or six years old, but I do
recall fragments, excerpts and stories—as we all may tend to do. For example I
well remember Depression Years topics,
if I may call them that, such as the Lindbergh child kidnapping, the flights of
Amelia Earhart, the warring of Mussolini, Hitler’s rise to power. So began my
sudden trawling of 1930s Camps And Other Related Stuff.
In 1932 Amelia Earhart had become the first woman to fly the
Atlantic alone. She had become instantly famous: news stories in the newspapers
or on the radio speedily made hers a household name and some of that story
began to stick when I was very young: virtually everybody knew about Amelia
Earhart’s exploits. We can’t easily miss or forget events in our early
childhoods without being able to recall some highpoints, some enormously influential
news stories of the time that also were made visible to the world through
newsreels in cinemas, photo stories in newspapers and magazines, endless news
stories on radio programs and not forgetting that one of my well-known uncles,
Dick Diespecker, was a popular radio broadcaster who not only wrote some of
those stories because he was trained as a journalist, he read the stories on CJOR Radio, in Vancouver, BC. There was no
shortage of 1930s news in our house and I was acquiring a general knowledge no
different from that acquired by millions of others. And I also recall that
another of my uncles, Louis, had survived the Western Front, been awarded a
Military Cross for rescuing one of his signallers under fire, joined the Royal
Flying Corps and had flown a Sopwith Camel in the defence of London—against the
Zeppelin attacks of WW 1 (Zeppelins were the airships named after Ferdinand,
Count von Zeppelin (1838-1917), the German airship pioneer). The Zeppelins were
hydrogen-filled airships with rigid metal keels and they partly inspired the
design and construction of large multi-engine bombers.
In April 1933 construction of the Golden Gate suspension
bridge between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean began and was completed
in mid-April 1937. I did not remember and could never have remembered those dates, but I well remember the completion of the bridge as an event
because it was so well reported and filmed at
the time.
On May 6 1937 the Hindenburg airship crashed and burned when
docking at its mooring mast in New Jersey: it was the week prior to my 8th
birthday: we (the family) saw the newsreel films in a movie theatre, within
days: I can easily ‘see’ that again in a topical new visualization of that old event (and it is continues to be
highly visible in video and textual form on the Internet). Later in 1937 when
my family had left British Columbia for South Africa, Amelia Earhart
disappeared without trace somewhere over the Pacific during our voyage across
the Atlantic: aged eight, sailing over the ocean, I remember that time vividly:
the ship’s radio officer broke the story for all on board the 8,000 tons
freighter, SS Bencleugh (my family were signed on as crew; I was the cabin boy:
we paid our way inexpensively (and unforgettably).
(As you read these words please recall a psychological fact
that I’ve several times mentioned in the Diary: think of a time when you last
went swimming (I’m recalling, imperfectly, some of Julian Jaynes’ words in his
book, The origin of consciousness in the
breakdown of the bicameral mind. It is likely, he suggested, that when you
recall, you will visualize an image
of yourself swimming, an experience
that you have never had… See oneself
at a tender age? Yes, indeed. We all do that consistently and not only when we
think of personal swimming in the past: we magically include a picture of our
self, as if seen by another! Is that amazing, or what?
Thus, I remember and recall distant times in the past when
I, a mere toddler or an uncertain child, picked up and remembered parts of what
I heard being discussed, remembered how I also had been present there too, though only as an unexceptional kid, wondering
at grown-ups, their lives, there grown-up experiences. And because I’d been
thinking about the 1930s and remembering some of the events of that time I also
remembered camps and camping. We used
to go camping during the Depression. And I also remembered that when the words camps or camping were used in the family, some of the references were unrelated to
family car trips and camping in a tent in the forest or on a riverbank: some of
the references were made in relation to the
camps in Europe.
When I closed my eyes and reflected on camps and camping I
wasn’t surprised to remember that these were words I became familiar with when
I was a toddler. I knew a little about camping with my family and I’ll mention
some of those instances below; and I also remember camps and camping in a very
different context: my early memories of the word camps are now fuzzy
childhood recollections of hearing the word used in my family and by relatives
and friends as specific references to concentration camps and that such camps
were in the 1930s far away in Europe in a country called Germany. Anyone
reading this will probably know that when Hitler came to power in 1933
concentration camps were quickly introduced as a means of ‘social engineering’
and of power politics being used to defend against opposition to the National
Socialist (Nazi) party. And such places were not invented in the 1930s in
Germany, or even in the Soviet Union.
Prolegomena To Camps And Camping
camp1 n, 1. A place where an army or other
body of persons is lodged in tents or other temporary means of shelter [OE
battle (field), field < L camp(us)
field]. There are 17 principal meanings in this particular category (The Random
House College Dictionary).
On Wednesday 22 March
1933, the first concentration camp will be opened near Dachau. It will
accommodate 5,000 prisoners. Planning on such a scale, we refuse to be
influenced by any petty objection, since we are convinced this will reassure
all those who have regard for the nation and serve their interests.
Heinrich Himmler, Acting Police-President of the City of Munich (See Paul
Johnson’s Modern Times).
I don’t wish to focus unduly on ‘concentration camps,’ but
to show that such places have been used as facilities in many places for a very
long time whether or not they are so named.
Paul Johnson has discussed those times in detail and written
that the ‘camps system was imported by the Nazis from Russia,’ that Himmler
speedily established almost a hundred such camps before the end of 1933, and
that similar camps in the Soviet Union covered ‘many thousands of square miles’
and that they contained many more people than were in German camps. Nor is a scorched
earth policy an exclusively Nazi–era policy. Historically British concentration
camps preceded both those in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union:
Under Kitchener’s
leadership during 1901 the English forces were divided into smaller, more
mobile columns, each relying on accurate intelligence, often provided by
African scouts, to track down the elusive commandos. A vast network of
blockhouses connected by barbed-wire barricades was built, at first intended to
simply defend the railways, but extended to divide the republics into large
squares to be systematically cleared of supplies and the guerrilla groups
within them. By the end of the war, 8,000 blockhouses and 3,700 miles of barbed
wire barricades, had been constructed. About 30,000 farmsteads were destroyed
during the course of operations. Civilians, both white and black, were removed
from the devastated countryside and interned in concentration camps, where a
dreadful loss of life occurred. As many as 26,000 Boer women and children and
14,000 Africans, perished in the overcrowded, insanitary and ill-organized
camps.’ (See The South African War,
edited by Peter Warwick and SB Spies. See also, The Boer War, by Thomas Packenham, who wrote that two British MPs,
CP Scott and John Ellis were the first to use (in March 1901) the ominous
phrase, ‘concentration camps’, having taken it from the notorious reconcentrado
camps, set up by the Spanish to deal with Cuban guerrillas’).
When I lived in
Pinetown (Natal) in 1953 and commuted to Durban by train I passed the abandoned
sites of at least two such places and the industrial suburb where I worked
(called Jacobs) had been the site of such a place during the Second Anglo-Boer
War. ‘Detention Centres,’ now widely considered as camps of this kind (above) (for ‘asylum seekers’), now exist both
within and outside Australia and the governments of many other countries
administer such places and have done so for many years.
Concentration and similar other camps, including refugee
camps, labour camps, ‘re-education’ camps and death camps were not invented in
Germany in the 1930s nor in the Soviet Union although Dachau was intended as a model camp of its kind. My cousin Louise
and I visited Dachau in the 1990s. It was an unsettling experience; all of the
buildings were timber; there were no tents; the adjacent ‘suburb’ was
attractive and there was spring blossom on trees along the streets.
In similar ways, many of us, possibly most of us, may best
remember some of our earliest camping days. Thus, I thought it might be adventurous were some readers (who
are or who have been campers) to write some reflective essays or reports or
assessments on camps or camping. Since emailing that invitation on February 6
I’ve experienced a few adventurously reflective thoughts about this notion
because several of you have expressed misgivings—not about camps or camping—but
about finding sufficient time to chronicle their camping experiences. Perhaps
that should be Camping (upper case C) because the experiences of camping will
surely be of considerable importance to those who indulge in the experience. I
wouldn’t be surprised if there lies behind this presumed importance of camping,
some Olympian or poetic interpretation of the camping experience that is
sufficiently transforming as to be mythic. There is probably much more to
camping than we realize. Camping and it’s importance in our lives ought not be
casually or scrappily addressed: it perhaps deserves at the very least a
journal with many pages rich in descriptions or even a monograph that closely
examines the details of camps and of camping life; and I imagine that there are
almost certainly many books in many libraries that address the varied aspects
of camps and camping. Everyone’s experience of camping will also be unique.
This notion concerned me because despite having good
memories of camping I looked closely at some of my old family photos and saw
that camping in the early 1930s looked static and even impoverished: the old
1920s car model that had brought us to a wild place in the forest, the
ungenerous and smoky campfire, our unfashionable clothes. (Do any Readers
remember motorcars with canvas water bags attached to a bumper, water than
normally leaked slowly and was cooled in the airstream? Do any of you remember
seeing cars not only with running boards, but sometimes with a running board dog-box attached to the boards)? Those
of us in the family photographic frame didn’t look quite like refugees but
there was a distinct lack of lightness and of fun in the old 1930s images (those
early pictures were all taken in Canada or the US: we lived on Vancouver Island
in British Columbia and despite what seemed universal poverty we owned a motor
car and we travelled extensively whenever we were able to). And that made me
think that although I was then very young I knew as my family knew that those
long-ago camps were also consequences of hard times, were the brighter and
lighter experiences of the Depression Years.
One of our campsites in the 1930s was Englishman’s River on
Vancouver Island. The tent was probably not new but it was made of sturdy
canvas that was more or less proofed against rain. A rope between two trees
held the ridge high enough above the ground allowing the four of us to stand
comfortably anywhere inside. The sides of the tent had short ropes attached
(all ropes in those days were natural fibre like manila; generally, synthetic
fibres were not then available). The side ropes were attached to wooden pegs
and the pegs hammered into the ground. The tent interior was covered by a
ground sheet after Dad had cut sufficient pine branches to make a relatively
soft ‘mattress’ (Durbyn always had his secateurs with him when travelling). The
most memorable part of that camping trip was our return to the same campsite in
the forest to rediscover the dozen eggs we had neglected to pack a few days
previously: we made an extravagant omelette with all of the still-fresh eggs.
How had the wildlife missed that ready-made treat?
Our old canvas tent was packed and it accompanied our
luggage when we sailed from British Columbia to South Africa in 1937. We may
have several times used it in Pilgrim’s Rest (Transvaal) although I can
remember only one occasion (c 1941) when Durbyn was the Scoutmaster and he took
several of us camping on the banks of the Blyde River. I also remember that my
father was thrifty and seldom threw anything away if there was the smallest
possibility that some further use for an object might be found: we tended to
accumulate Stuff. I’m no longer sure but I recall a camp down at Amanzimtoti
near Durban that I made with school friends: I have an idea that the old
Canadian tent was used. The beach holiday was unremarkable: we got sunburned,
caught small fish in estuaries simply by paddling a canoe over shoals of small
fish that obligingly jumped aboard; we swam in the surf and even slept on the
beach (but soon abandoned that when early morning riders galloped dangerously
close to out heads.
Pam and I also camped on summer holidays in Europe. I had
bought my first Morris Minor Tourer (second hand) and we travelled widely in
France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Spain. We had a tiny tent made from a
light fabric and never waterproof (it was more like an almost generous double
sleeping back) that could only be crawled into and out of… The more I think
about this absurd little tent the more I wonder how we tolerated the
microscopic space, especially in crowded camps, after arriving in the dark
sometimes and being so surrounded by others that we were always in danger of
being mistaken for an item of clothing or a beach towel, or being driven over
because we were almost invisible to car drivers… I’m exaggerating a little and
it also was fun because we were young in the 1950s and didn’t worry about
trifles…
And that old Canadian canvas tent, survived long enough for
Pam and I to take Nick and Carl camping in the Barrington Tops area and at
Gloucester Tops. I quickly learned never to pitch a tent at all close to
eucalyptus trees: for overseas readers: Australian gumtrees (eucalypts) shed
leaves, barks and big branches when least expected to. The tent had journeyed
with us from Canada to Africa to the UK and Europe until it finally gave up the
ghost in Australia.
After I’d bought the land that was to become better know as
Earthrise, an architect friend, Riq de Carvalho and wife, Kotti, camped here
one weekend when Jannelle and I were living in a caravan. Riq then was free to
walk about and view our house site from many angles, to photograph and sketch
from a campsite that is now the River Lawn (which I presently happen to be
stabilizing—hopefully—with stones that I stored here about 25- years ago). The
local Council approved the plans that Riq had prepared; I became the Registered
Builder; and Jannelle and I built the house.
During residential workshops here (as training in Gestalt
therapy), a good number of our visitors brought their own camping equipment
(others used our first building, The Bunkhouse). Friends who visited over the
years often camped here too.
I now present my February Guest Writers: my cousin Jill and
my old friend Bru Furner; and re-attract the Reader (who may otherwise have
been labouring through dark passages and paragraphs): to some reflections on
camping. Your Editor apologizes for any puzzling shifts from English (including
Strine) to American spellings.
The Camping Trip That Never Happened
Jill Alexander
In 1963 my husband and I decided to head off on our first
big camping trip. We had completed our University studies and had a 10-days
break before starting new jobs. The first step was to get the essential camping
equipment, so off we headed to the army surplus store. Twenty dollars later we were the proud
owners of a used tent in forest green (the perfect colour we thought for a
camping trip), two sleeping bags, blow-up air mattresses, and a Coleman stove.
We were ready to begin our journey. Our destination: the Oregon coast.
Leaving Vancouver, we headed down I-5 [the main Interstate
Highway on the West Coast
of the US]. Just south of Seattle, we made our first stop, a tavern for
a cold draft beer. We had already discovered U.S. taverns on a few trips across
the line to the border town of Blaine. We loved their atmosphere compared to the
beer parlours in Canada that were divided into “Men Only” and “Ladies and
Escorts.” They were usually uninteresting large open spaces with tables
scattered around. In the U.S.
tavern, people sat at the bar and became friendly with the bartender as well as
some of the regular local folk. On the bar there were jars of pepperoni sticks
and Polish sausage, and we always treated ourselves to at least one of these
while drinking a cold draft.
After the first, but certainly not the last, of such stops,
we continued on our way. We checked out several campsites for our first night
and found our perfect spot on the edge of the Oregon sand dunes. Here we
lovingly pitched our new tent, blew up our air mattresses, and prepared our
supper on our new Coleman stove.
Content after an eventful day, we tucked ourselves into our new sleeping
bags and were soon fast asleep.
At some time in the middle of the night the rain started. I
was abruptly wakened by water dripping on my face. We discovered that our ‘new’
used tent was full of leaks. As the rain increased, everything in the tent got
wetter and wetter and we hurriedly made a dash for the car, piling wet sleeping
bags, supplies, and duffel bags into the car trunk.
I can’t remember how long it took to get warm enough to fall
asleep or how long I slept, but I do remember slowly gaining consciousness to
the sound of a voice calling “Hello! Is anyone in there?” As I looked through
the fogged-up car window, I saw that our tent had collapsed. The pegs had come out of the wet sandy
soil and had caused the tent to fold inwards. A man was standing there holding up one corner and trying to
peek inside thinking we must still in there, somewhere. When he saw us through
the car window he rushed over with great relief and invited us to his mobile
camper for a cup of hot coffee. He and his wife were very kind and insisted
that what we needed was a good shot of rum in our coffee. They were the good
Samaritans who came along at the perfect time to lift our spirits. They helped
us turn our disastrous situation into a positive plan.
As continuing with our camping was not realistic with all
our soggy wet gear, the idea of driving to San Francisco began slowly to
materialize. This was a city many
of our generation had dreamed of visiting one day. Before long we were packed up and on our way. We figured
this to be a full day’s drive.
After we reached the Oregon/ California border we entered
the towering forests of the world’s tallest trees: the Redwoods. This was a new
experience for us and we marvelled at the size and beauty of these magnificent
trees. We continued down the coast and after stopping for a bite to eat,
decided to sleep in the car at a rest stop and hit San Francisco the next
morning.
I will always remember the feeling of excitement we
experienced at the first sight of the Golden Gate Bridge. As we got closer and
started across the bridge deck, we burst into song at full volume:
San Francisco open your golden gate, you let no stranger wait outside
your door
San Francisco, here are your wandering ones, saying they’ll wander no
more.
We drove into the city along the Parkway and continued on to
Lombard Street. As we were taking it all in, we saw to our left a sign, “Bridge
Motel, Rooms $5.” Perfect! We drove into the parking lot, went inside and
booked our room. The owner of the motel told us of a cheap place to eat. We
liked the sound of this place: Sam Wo’s.
Herb Caen, who wrote a highly-revered column for the San Francisco Chronicle, mentioned this restaurant
from time to time and particularly the server who went by the name of Edsel
Ford Fung, the “world’s worst, most insulting
waiter.” Caen included Fong in his
guide of things to do in San Francisco and labelled him the “resident
entertainer and madman.”
We eventually found Sam Wo’s, a hole-in-the-wall eatery. The
entrance took us directly into the kitchen. We felt sure we had come through
the wrong door but this was how the restaurant was set up. When we got to the
seating area, Edsel was there, motioning us gruffly to “sit down, sit
down!” When we asked for a glass
of water, his answer was, “No water here, only wine.” He had become famous for
this line. When the food arrived we attacked it with a passion. It was delicious
and, as promised, very cheap. Our huge meal for two cost us less than $3.00.
Further enquiries for our night’s entertainment led us to
the Red Garter, a unique beer and peanut establishment featuring a live seven-man
banjo band. The musicians wore white pants and shirts, red and white striped
vests, and Panama hats. The group featured Dixieland and Ragtime jazz and could
really swing. Everyone sat at long tables on a sawdust floor. We took a seat
and ordered two draft beers from the waiter. They arrived with a huge
complimentary bowl of peanuts in the shell. We settled in for the night. We had not heard anything as
captivating as the sounds made by seven banjos all playing at once; we were in
heaven.
Before long we had finished our beer and the bowl was now
filled with the peanut shells. Our second beer came with another full bowl of
peanuts and our shells were tossed on the floor. This added to the atmosphere
and we savoured every moment of our first experience at the Red Garter. By the
end of the evening we were belting out “When the saints go marching in”
together with the banjos and the other patrons.
As we still had another day and night to spend in San Francisco
before we made our way home, there was no doubt in our minds as to where we
would spend our second and final night. Sam Wo and the Red Garter won hands
down.
We were drawn back to our favourite eating spot and beer
club several times in the years to come. San Francisco became our destination
for long weekends, driving non- stop to spend 24 hours in a city that had
captured our hearts and left us with memories that would last a lifetime.
Editor’s Note: The I-5 is the main Interstate
Highway on the West Coast
of the United States.
It runs largely parallel to the Pacific Ocean and US Highway 101 from Mexico to Canada (California to Washington). See Wikipedia
for more information
Jill Diespecker Alexander is a retired nurse
and business owner and is presently writing her life story.
Camping
Bru Furner
I've been reluctant to
start writing about camping. I don't know where to start or where to finish.
When I first saw Don's request I began to meditate on my relationship with
camping and recognized that it is something that is central to my image of
myself. After all I've been doing it for most of my life.
Ironically, I am
writing this while camped with my wife Tracey at Thora, near Don's home. I
almost gave up the notion of writing about camping until I spent a few hours
with Don this afternoon.
He seemed so pleased
when I hinted that I still might put finger to keyboard that I felt a little
guilty that I had so far done nothing along that line. Reflecting on my guilt
and using a brief formula from Gestalt Therapy, which states that all guilt is
founded on resentment and that the way to resolve these most nebulous feelings
is to deal with the underlying resentment. I first considered whether I
resented Don for pressuring me to write. But, recognizing that the pressure
comes from within me, I quickly realized that I resent my inability to write
easily and fluently.
Understanding this has
allowed me to pick up my phone and begin writing from within our camper tent.
Most immediately, I am dealing with myriad insects, which attracted by the
light of my phone, buzz and flit around me sometimes alighting on my face and
attempting to crawl up my nostrils. Such are the sometime hazards of camping.
We're camped in a free
camp (one of the great Australian institutions currently under attack from
forces of capitalism). Big business Camping Parks resent the loss of income to
free camps and have lobbied our political masters to withdraw the right to free
camp.
On our side are the
many small towns that actively encourage travelers to camp nearby, thus profiting
from the money spent in their communities. Largely this bounty emanates from
ubiquitous 'grey nomads' who live out their lives traveling from place to
place.
It's 10.30 pm here and
the sounds of other campers intrude, reminding me that free camps are not my
favorite camping environment, despite their not infrequent beauty, as mostly
they are a necessary condition of traveling between major centres (which is
what we are doing now, being on our way to a wedding more than 1000-kms from
our home).
What most appeals to me
is camping in remote places, often necessitating 4-WD travel and then having
the luxury of being alone in the bush, without sight or sound of other humans.
It is during these
magical times that I connect most deeply with nature and so with myself. How
did I come to separate myself from nature in the first place? I sometimes feel
that the ills of the human condition have come about as the direct result of
our civilization: the consequence of our move from country to city and the
inevitable loss of connection with our evolutionary evolvement and the sense of
our place in nature.
When camping I often
lie on my back gazing up at countless stars that are unseen in most Australian cities
and I reflect on my minute insignificance until my mind does a back-flip and
brings me back to Mother Earth and I dig my fingers into the ground and comfort
myself by embracing her solidity.
Much of what I have
learned about camping comes from the thousands of hours I have spent in the bush
with my aboriginal brothers, men who have graciously accepted me into their
midst and patiently taught me about their culture, their beliefs and mostly
about their spiritual connection with country.
When I now gaze at
stars, I no longer see just sparkling points of light but am entranced by the
dark spaces between the stars that I have learned are inhabited by spirit
beings, animals and structures all of which are accompanied by wonderful
dreamtime stories. I'm becoming tired as I write at Thora. Time to sleep.
It's now 5 am at the
Thora Free Camp. I've been awakened inside our tent cave from a deep and
comfortable sleep by the cry of a strange night bird. Not that the bird will be
strange to this part of country, but strange to me where I am a stranger. Its
cry will be familiar to Don, who has lived here in the bush for 30 years. Is he
camped there I wonder? Are we all just camped in our permanent /semi permanent
homes? Does camping imply a transitory state?
From my canvas cave I
remember many fine camps in what my binghis (my black brothers) call the rain
cave, a place of protection when the weather is inclement. The ceiling is
stained from the smoke of countless fires over the millennia and this
particular rock overhang lies beside an ancient track. The track is a trading
path and a route linking different tribal groups that have traveled to this
area for thousands of years to meet each other, corroboree, conduct ceremonies,
trade and do all those things that humans do when they come together.
Nearby
there is another cave that I have never seen: a women’s cave, a birthing cave
and out of bounds to we men. It is for those women who have come to camp in
this area. Some have traveled vast distances, sometimes walking for months
while pregnant, to give birth while camped in unfamiliar country. Petroglyphs
carved in the nearby grey sandstone rock faces point the direction to the
birthing cave.
Aboriginal people don't
laboriously carve rock surfaces to create what white folks call art. Each
carving portrays a teaching, a story, provides direction or depicts a map of
country. Campers have assembled here over hundreds of generations to teach
their children the rules of life. Nearby is a mountain, flattened at the top
where a great sky hero, Biami, stepped before departing back to the sky after
camping with the people and teaching them how to live a good and moral life.
Just as I have been
awakened here by the cry of a night bird, I've often lain in the rain cave and
listened to the dawn chorus of birdcalls, sounds in that country that are
familiar to me. I love to listen in particular to the repertoire of the
lyrebird, a great mimic, and a bush concert freely provided.
Sometimes when
camped alone I have been momentarily chilled and then thrilled by the howls of
nearby dingoes, by their lonely evocative cries in the night.
In this sort of camping
I usually sleep in a swag. The modern version of a swag is a far cry from the
time-honoured blanket roll of the traveler. This close contact with mother
earth feels very special. Sometimes I've camped with many men on rock slabs
overlooking vast areas of country which is in great contrast to camping in
gullies amidst towering gum trees.
It's hard to describe
what makes a good campsite. Once Tracey and I were camped in the outback and we
packed up and traveled on. After 25-kms we came to a place that we both knew
instinctively was a good place to camp. Our plans to travel several hundred km
that day fell by the wayside. We stopped and set up camp again in a shallow
wash, with trees encased in extraordinary curly bark the like of which we
hadn't seen before. I recall we cooked a beautiful damper that night and
devoured the lot.
Here at Thora, Tracey
is sleeping quietly beside me and heralded by the cry of an Eastern Whip Bird,
the dawn chorus has just begun. I'll put down my phone and listen for a while,
perhaps go back to sleep.
It's morning. The billy
is on. We've camped another night and it's time to move on. I've written this
in my usual tense ignoring, disjointed style but my guilt is assuaged. I'll
send this off to Don with the click of a button and he may be reading it before
I have my cup of tea.
How extraordinary this
is. Yesterday Don and we talked about how unthinkable this action on a phone
would have been 40 years ago. Certainly it would have been unimaginable 53
years ago when a mate and I rode our pushbikes 70-kms to camp in a basic tent
by a sea inlet near Nelson Bay. We had little sleep because out of inexperience
we camped on a slope and slowly slid down it throughout the night.
How extraordinary it is
to look back from this point in life and think about all those camps.
My
father once wrote about how extraordinary life can be and concluded that the
most extraordinary thing is that we are here at all. After all we're only
camping temporarily.
Bru Furner is a getting greyer husband, grandfather, dog-possessed
traveler and camper.
brutrac@yahoo.com.au
I (or rather Meg), have
a request for an addendum to my camping piece. I’d be very glad if you were to
add it as a PS.
PS: How come I was
forgotten? I am camped at Thora too.
I've accompanied Bru and Tracey on many
camping trips. The tales I could tell.
I have my own special viewing place in
the truck between their seats. I watch everywhere we go in case they forget me
somewhere and I have to walk home. Everything on the road is of great interest.
The back of the truck is my kennel. I often hop up into it for a nap during the
day.
Arriving at a campsite is the best thing: lots of new sights and smells
to follow up. I'm from the Jack Russell clan and hunting is part of who I am.
I can track anything.
Mostly I don't know what to do with what I find so I sit and watch until my
masters (that's a joke: they just think they are in charge. After all, whose
presence prevents them from wandering into National Parks? Think about that will
ya). I once tracked an anteater. Bru calls it a Thikapilla. I was pretty wary
of that. I once tracked a rabbit and sat outside its burrow for two hours, waiting…
until Bru found me. He'd been looking for two hours. He was worried. Said he
thought I was lost. Lost! Me! How silly :-)
The tales I could tell.
No time now. We're off
again. Who knows where to: they don't tell me. Sometimes they don’t know
themselves.
I’d better get into the kennel.
Meg the wonder dog is a ten years old Rough Coat Jack Russell living a
life of privilege with her servants, Bru and Tracey, held in thrall although
Bru sometimes laments that she has ruined his life.
About my eBooks
For those readers
who browse for eBooks, here again are the first of the online books. These
digital books can be found on Amazon/Kindle sites.
(a) Finding Drina is a light-hearted sequel
to my two print novels (not available as eBooks) published in one volume as The Agreement and it’s sequel, Lourenço Marques. Finding Drina is written in three parts and in three different
styles that also are intended homage pieces (to GG Marquez, Ernest Hemingway
and Lawrence Durrell); thus this little book is also meta-fiction (novella,
about 30-k words).
(b) The Earthrise Visits is an Australian
long story set at Earthrise (about 20-k words): an old psychologist meets a
young literary ghost from the 1920s (his girlfriend meets her too) before a
second old literary ghost, unaware of his spectral state, arrives unexpectedly.
(c) Farewelling Luis Silva is an Australian
dystopian long story partly set in Australia, Portugal and France (about 23-k
words). A sniper meets an Australian Prime Minister, an old lover and a
celebrity journalist; three of them meet a terrorist in Lisbon where there is a
bloody assassination.
(d) The Selati Line is an early 20th
century Transvaal train story, road story, flying story, a caper and love story
sequel to The Agreement and Lourenço Marques, lightly written and
containing some magical realism. A
scene-stealing child prodigy keeps the characters in order (novel, about 150-k
words).
(e) The Summer River is a dystopian novel
(about 70-k words) set at Earthrise. A General, the déjà vu sniper, the
Australian Prime Minister and the celebrity journalist witness the murder of a
guerrilla who had also been an Australian university student; they discuss how
best to write an appropriate book about ‘foreign invasions’ (novel, about 70-k
words).
(f) The Annotated “Elizabeth.” I examine
and offer likely explanations as to why my uncle published a mixed prose and
verse novel in which his mother is the principal protagonist and I suggest why
the book Elizabeth (published by
Dick Diespecker in 1950) is a novel and not a biography, memoir or history
(non-fiction, about 24-k words).
(g) The Overview is a short Australian
novel set at Earthrise (about 32.5-k words) and is also a sequel to The Summer River.
(h) Scribbles from Earthrise, is an
anthology of selected essays and caprice written at Earthrise (about 32-k
words). Topics are: family and friends, history of the Earthrise house, the
river, the forest, stream of consciousness writing and the Earthrise dogs.
(i) Here and There is a selection of Home
and Away essays (about 39-k words). (‘Away’ includes Cowichan (Vancouver
Island), 1937 (my cabin-boy year), The Embassy Ball (Iran), At Brindavan
(meeting Sai Baba in India). ‘Home’ essays are set at Earthrise and include as
topics: the Bellinger River and floods, plus some light-hearted caprices.
(j) The Agreement is a novel set in
Mozambique and Natal during December 1899 and the Second Anglo-Boer War: an
espionage yarn written around the historical Secret Anglo Portuguese Agreement.
Louis Dorman and his brother, Jules, feature together with Drina de Camoens who
helps draft the Agreement for the Portuguese Government. British Intelligence
Officers, Boer spies and the Portuguese Secret Police socialize at the Estrela
Café (about 62-k words).
(k) Lourenço Marques is the sequel to The
Agreement. Mozambique in September 1910. The Estrela café-bar is much
frequented and now provides music: Elvira Tomes returns to LM from Portugal and
is troubled by an old ghost; Drina and her companion return with a new member
of the family; Louis faints. Joshua becomes a marimba player. Ruth Lerner, an
American journalist plans to film a fiesta and hundreds visit from the
Transvaal. Drina plays piano for music lovers and plans the removal of an old
business associate (novel: about 75-k words).
(l) The Midge Toccata, a caprice about
talking insects (inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories). This book has a
splendid new cover designed by my cousin, Katie Diespecker (fiction, caprice,
about 26-k words).
(m) Happiness is a short novel set at
Earthrise. The ‘narrator’ is again the very elderly ex-ATA flier who
unexpectedly meets and rescues a bridge engineer requiring urgent
hospitalisation: she gets him safely to hospital in his own plane. She also
‘imagines’ an extension to her own story, one about a small family living
partly in the forest and on the riverbank: the theme is happiness. Principal
protagonist is a 13-years old schoolgirl who seems a prodigy: she befriends a
wounded Army officer and encourages his plans. Her parents are a university
teacher and a retired concert pianist. The family pets can’t resist being
scene-stealers in this happy family (novel, about 65-k words).
(n) The Special Intelligence Officer is
part family history as well as a military history and describes the roles of my
late grandfather in the Guerrilla War (1901-1902). The Guerrilla War was the
last phase of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). The title of the book is
taken from Cape newspapers of the time: Capt Rudolph Diespecker was a District
Commandant and his responsibilities included intelligence gathering that led to
the capture, trial and execution of a Boer Commandant who was wrongly framed as
a ‘Cape rebel,’ when he was legally a POW (Gideon Scheepers was never a Cape
rebel, having been born in the Transvaal (the South African Republic,) one of
the two Boer Republics (non-fiction, about 33-k words).
(o) The Letters From Earthrise, an
anthology of my columns and other essays and articles written for the Australian Gestalt Journal between 1997
and 2005 (fiction and some non-fiction, about 70-k words).
(p) The Darkwood,
a dystopian novel set here in the not to distant future (about 80-k words).
Earthrise is again central to other themes.
February 28 2014, the last day of summer (until December
2014).
Thanks to my guests Jill, Bru and Ms Meg for your writings.
Best wishes to all Readers, from Don.
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