Where Ausies don't oft go

Places I've dreamed:

Monsoonal weather approaches Bali by sea... (Candidasa)

Yes... that's a waterfall (Munduk)

Our secret bungalow in the hills (Munduk)

Subsistence farming... in these conditions it really seems to work (Amed)

A garden of delights and a lot of hard work (Amed)

Kingfisher (Amed)

Carting fodder (Amed)

Fruit trees above the field (Amed)

Padi below Gunung (on the road to Tirtagangga)

I cannot write words for these images or to describe the gradual sense of relief I felt having disconnected from all electronic media for two weeks. I hope you can get a sense of it from the images. The challenge now for me is how to continue to live in that space rather than return to my mental and emotional hedonistic, escape from reality cell.

In the yard

News came last month that we'll have to leave our home of 17 years.

As the reality begins to sink in I've been looking around the place and appreciating just how amazing our little part of the world is. In our tiny yard there is a multitude of life! I've probably mentioned it before but so many species, birds, lizards, insects plants... Many of the creatures have become accustomed to us and don't bother to run too far. Before the time comes for us to leave I'd like to document some of the creatures and plants we share our home with.

A walk in the grimy grey

Escaping the nothing...

Like many Australians the first place I ever ventured over seas (abroad... outside my own Island Nation) was Bali. I think the first time I went there I was 18. I wanted to explore the world, Bali was relatively cheep to get to and I was pretty sure it would be a relatively easy place for my first international destination. I remember a fair bit about that first visit. Initially all that existed of Bali for me was the knowledge that lots of people go there for the beaches and to party... I thought it was some kind of Polynesian island paradise, like a cross between the pictures I'd seen of FIJI and scenes from the movie South Pacific. Then I bought my first lonely planet book and was shocked to discover that Bali is in Asia and the natives looked a lot different to my romanticized swarthy Polynesian coconut drinking people of the sea... They were Hindu and apparently looked to the mountains rather than the sea... All this was far too foreign for me... My illusions couldn't cope with the contrast! I had been tricked by my own imagination and ignorance!

Ganesha

What was I to do? Cancel the trip?  No way! I was determined to follow through with my plan. (Actually I would have cancelled except pride wouldn't let me back down, I'd been bragging to everyone that I was going!) I didn't cancel, instead I decided to save myself more embarrassment and read up on this new Bali which I hadn't planned on. Before I left home I had learned that Bali isn't a country, it is an Island in the nation of Indonesia... (I knew nothing of Indonesia) and they eat rice not BBQ'd fish from the bellies of dusky beauties as I'd been dreaming about. (they also eat BBQ fish but not the way I fantasized about). I also learned that the weather there wasn't a bright sunny 25 °C it was humid, hot and sticky... (except on the mountains, where, I learned later, it got bloody cold!) Coming from Melbourne humidity was just an exotique word, I'd never really experienced it. 

I picked up a phrase book practiced a few really basic words and started getting excited again about my trip. I learned about appropriate dress code and behavior in Indonesia, practiced not using my left hand and all those exotic manners I'd never heard of before.

I remember back in the late 80s Bali had already been well and truly 'discovered', Australians had been going there in their masses for decades before I arrived and the locals were very familiar with our surfie culture and other customs and rituals. I arrived in long pants and attempted to use my 'terima kasih' and 'permisi' etc... whenever I could. I soon discovered that in Kuta nobody gave a shit about Etiquette and long pants can become uncomfortable very quickly. I remember the road out to Legian was still mostly dark and nobody ever went to Seminyak. That time I think I spent two or three weeks on Bali, exploring on a motorcycle. Back then I couldn't go very far without a few drinks in me and on my first night I fell asleep at the SC Bar... but now I'm straying from the point of this post.

When I first went to Bali Kuta was already over developed and Ubud was well known but still small. Tourism was a major feature but there were still many aspects to life in Kuta which were distinctly Bali or at least Indonesian. There weren't many hotels over two story high and there were plenty of Losmen (guesthouses) in the main tourist areas. I have read about unfettered development on Bali and the tragic loss of agricultural land, fresh water and just about everything else that is special, thanks to Tourism generated development. But for some reason when I was there last week I realized that Southern Bali is no longer sinking... It has sunk! There was such an ominous feeling of absolute desolation that I felt ill. When I first visited Bali I got really sick, unfamiliar bugs invaded my body, I had dysentery for a month and was later diagnosed as having Hep A. I kissed the soil when I arrived back in Australia and swore I'd never go back there! Once the illness wore off I was left with a strange longing for the smell of burning cloves and the sound of gamelan. I have been back a few times since and have always felt at home there. But this time it was different. A new sickening feeling came over me. This was kind of weird. As I looked around I discovered that everything was too familiar! The Kampung had been smashed and all around enormous multi story hotels were being erected. Concrete on every side, western meals served in every restaurant! The Kaki lima had vanished, the warungs were gone! No ABC sambal at the dining tables... swimming pools everywhere... miles and miles of 5 star luxury air conditioned nothingness! Just like in 'The Never Ending Story', the Nothing's consumption of Fantasia was almost complete! Just like the salt water inundating the dwindling aquifers, the magic that drives Bali had been infiltrated, diluted and polluted with bland Western Consumer driven ugliness!

The New Bali rises... Don't fall in!

In the old kampung there were trees, mango, papaya, jackfruit... space for lizards and birds. Wild bees could nest in the cracks of walls and the sweet smell of incense on carefully folded palm leaf offerings of rice, saffron and fruit kept everything in balance. Now the offerings are less but the debt is so much higher. Who will pay?

Concrete will crumble!

Want a room with Air Con? How about those bad boys?

Kuta and Legian have fallen! Ubud is no longer a village or a town... I followed several lanes and streets out of the centre of Ubud only to find that along each lane hotels entered the rice fields like the tentacles of an octopus stretching out and annexing neighboring villages. I once read an amazing book called 'On the Edge of a Dream: Magic and Madness in Bali' by Michael Wiese. It described a place full of mystical power, of raw and quite wild beauty, where powerful mystical forces kept nature and man in a symbiotic dance of life. Maybe that Bali is gone.

Of course there are some places where life appears to continue as it always has... for now.

Not saying where this is! You can stick your golf clubs where  the sun don't shine

Maybe I have made a mistake? Maybe when I first visited Bali in 1990 I never really wanted to learn the truth about the place. What if instead of seeking truth all I was really doing was trying to re-sculpt the romantic images in my mind to fit what my senses were barely able to perceive? What if that place never really existed? Who am I, a tourist, the cause of the problem to question or challenge any of this? Maybe with all my dreaming and romanticizing I am just part of the virus that is spreading across this place and obliterating every shred of balance nature, time and the careful honour of the Gods had taken so long to create.
I decided we'd drop both Ubud and Kuta from all future itineraries. We and headed for another region where I'd been before. Where it was quiet and still suited my romanticized version of reality... When I arrived I discovered that my secret hideaway had already been infiltrated! Apparently the market for romantic falsehoods is enormous! Everyone's looking for someone else to deliver them to paradise! A book had been written, about some middle-class American woman finding spiritual healing, food and rooting (romance) in Bali! You can guess the rest!
Naturally the film has drawn the eye of the great Nothing to another, unspoilt corner of the Island on another coast and so the blank spaces on the map are filled in until nothing special, no life, no magic remains.

Next time I want to escape I think I'll just get on my bike take a book and go and sit under a tree for a week.

Clean up Day at Rapid Creek

On Sunday as I cycled along the bike path between the horse stables and the creek, I was still oblivious to the fact that the banner I'd failed to read on several other passes was promoting something that I was actually interested in....

However when I rolled toward the 'Red Footbridge' near the freshwater barrage I realized my foolishness for not having read the sign!

As the bridge came into focus, so too did a pile of white and yellow bags filled to the brim with rubbish, discarded bottles, cans and those inflatable foil wine bladders!

(Rapid Creek Landcare Member - with bags - Name omitted due to my shocking memory)

The sign was promoting the Rapid Creek Clean-up Day and I had made other arrangements! I remember saying on previous years that I would definitely help...

I rode past under a cloud of shame as others were dutifully collecting all the trash bottles and debris produced by the abundance of human apathy. (hey I really love the creek OK!) Most of the stuff had been left there by local drinkers, too pissed, ignorant or just plain sick to clean up after themselves. (A complicated series of problems that we could probably find strong correlations between the health of the people and the state of our natural environment but let's not go there now)

I had a brief chat with a couple of the people there but had to keep on moving, promising I'd lend a hand if they were still going when I returned.

By the time I got back to the Clean-up Base Camp most of the volunteers had gone home, but a huge pile of bags filled with trash remained leaning against a tree. Tara the organizer of the clean-up event was still there. I apologized for not paying attention to the sign and missing out on the clean-up to which she replied, "There's still plenty of rubbish lying around" Then I was asked which colour bag I'd prefer to use... Lucky for me I wasn't looking for excuses!

They'd already cleaned away a massive amount of trash but with so much there is always some remaining. I was pointed in the direction of a patch that may have been missed and off I went, bag in hand.

I have to say walking along the banks of Rapid Creek on my own and collecting rubbish turned out to be quite a special experience. I was only out there for about an hour but in that time I removed a huge variety of plastic bags, bottles, a bicycle wheel and even a blanket. I also got to explore parts of the creek that I don't usually see. As I walked I began to slow down and listen to the environment around me. Even though I wasn't very far from the road, I could still hear the traffic, but there was a serene quietness around me that I found quite soothing. I saw several species of birds and sat in the shade of a majestic Milkwood tree. Once my bag was full and I'd cleared, what was a reasonable amount of junk away from the creek, I headed home feeling somehow more content and happy, more centered than I recall feeling for a while.

(Sample of what can be found along Rapid Creek before the Land Care Group does it's thing)

Over the years my relationship with Rapid Creek has swung from being particularly concerned with the future of the creek and it's amazing riparian habitats, to one of detachment as I felt my concerns for environmental degradation tearing me up inside until I had to step back. I have always enjoyed the creek, riding along the cycle paths, paddling on the ocean side of Trower Rd, the unusual fermenting smell of the mangroves even the hoards of fruit bats that rise from their roosts in the evening. Somehow though after having collected rubbish on Sunday my concern and desire for a connection with the creek have once again grown into a need to actively love and care for this very special space. I love the paperbark swamps that drain a pure cool and clean water, filled with small fish, crustaceans and all kinds of micro and macro invertebrates. I love the shady banks, the gnarled roots and the delicate ferns they support. I love the deep straight channels of fresh water flowing strongly through swamp box and the cool dark riparian undergrowth full of frogs and forest birds. I love the wide inlet where fresh and salt waters mingle and I love the abundance of life that flourishes around the mouth of the creek as it releases it's fresh water into the open sea. 

I have shared all these things with my children who have come to know this water too. For them it is normal to watch egrets wander between the horses and cows at Rapid Creek Stables, or look down from the bridge to see garfish swimming against the tide. They know to expect a kingfisher or two on their way to the park at Jingli and that if they're lucky maybe a tree snake or the occasional Shell Duck on the footbridge. These are all part of life when you live near Rapid Creek.

It's time to commit to the glorious Rapid Creek while it still possesses all those magical qualities that other urban creeks and rivers have been robbed of! It's time to make a firm commitment to care more deeply and intentionally for a creek that has already given so much to me!

Settling in time and space

A couple of weeks ago I ventured back out to Elcho Island where there are some amazing things happening, culturally and creatively!

I was there for a week, I slept under the stars, learned to slow down, listen, with my whole body and be ready for the right time to present for every action....

I'm back in Darwin now and things are different, maybe they'll never be the same again...