Indelible Adventures: Stories of the Bush

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I grew up in the bush!

This poem entitled “My Country” was written by Dorethea Mackellar in 1907 yet typifies the Australia I feel like I grew up in. Every student at our primary school had to learn this poem by heart and would often be asked to recite it on demand; strangely I still remember this second verse (below) word for word. J

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

I remember the distinct feeling of isolation growing up, with the seemingly endless expanse of wheat fields for as far as you could see into the shimmering horizon and heat mirage. The dry heat of the summers would often get well past 40C for days at a time, and growing up without air conditioning would make the nights intolerable, as it was too hot to sleep. Now add on top of this a good dose of sunburn which was also a constant during the summers and it was down right miserable at times.

I remember getting sunburn on top of sunburn and my skin would be peeling all summer long as I shed layer after layer of skin. We didn’t have sunscreen as it was a bit of a luxury, so there was nothing that you could do except grin and bear it, until eventually you went brown and peeled a little less.

Dad’s remedy for sunburn was to take a scolding hot shower, as hot as you could stand it for as long as you could stand it so that it would “neutralize the burn” as he would say… Strangely I still use this method if ever I'm sunburned, so I guess I’m as crazy as he was!

There were also some amazing things growing up in the bush that few ever get to experience. Like walking in the “bush” (Australians are notorious for having the same word with different meanings and expecting the world to know what we’re on about) or forest in the early morning and being intoxicated by the pungent smell of Eucalyptus as the sunlight literally steamed the dew off the gum leaves. Wow, such a powerful aroma!

One of my other favorite memories as a kid with dad was when we got our “block” and made our first visit to walk around and check out the quality of the wood. In those days the Forestry Commission needed to clear a certain amount of bush to help lower the risk of bushfires, and generally thin out the low-lying scrub. They’d also mark the tallest and straightest trees which they would monitor and keep for potential telephone poles, but the majority of the remaining trees could be chopped down for firewood.

Each year, you’d have to apply for a new block of land to clear, once you registered and paid the small fee they'd give you the general location and you’d have to go find it, but with little else to guide you than visual clues and four marked posts driven into the ground out in the middle of the bush. Locating your block was always a little tricky. However, this is where the fun now began.

You only had a certain number of weeks to clear the land, stack all of the timber it into 6’ long x 6’ wide x 3’ high stacks so that the inspector could come and assess your final tally of wood and then charge you on the tonnage that you’d keep. Every year until I was a teenager dad would clear his one acre block by hand with an axe, felling the trees, trimming them, cutting them into 6 feet lengths before my brother James and I would drag them and stack them to dad’s specifications, as you can imagine they were quite rigid! It was all systems go when we got the block, with the three of us working long days every and all weekend until the task was complete. If dad felt that he was behind he’d even go out after work for a couple of hours at night after his full day labouring.

This reminded me of two terrific stories he told me before he died:

I was only about five years old or so and he took me out to work on the block. He was hard at work felling a rather large tree, and had asked me to stay in one place as the tree he'd been chopping was getting close to it falling. So following his directions I’d sat down, but unbeknownst to me I’d sat on the edge of a large bull-ant nest. Now, these ants are no ordinary ants as they’re big (up to half an inch long) and very aggressive. Apparently they had taken to me like a dog with a bone.

As the tree starts to crack and tip he hears me scream and sees me running toward him. I’m covered in bull-ants but directly in the path of the now heavily tilting tree. With no time to grab me out of the way, he leaps into the path of the tree and pushes it sideways with all his mite just enough so that it missed landing on me, but then the fun begins as he now had to catch me as I run screaming into the thick surrounding bush.

Finally catching up with me he literally ripped off my clothes, swatting off the remaining ants as he went only to find that I have a mass of bites all over my body, with the worst of it being my bum and legs which are now completely covered in big, raw, angry bite marks all the while me screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs. I guess we were done for the day!

Another time, my brother James and I, and although quite young were apparently “helping him” trim the branches from the felled trees. James had a small tomahawk and was trimming a nearby sapling when he swung the axe at the thin tree, but the blade glanced off the bark and smashed deep into his knee. The shock of seeing the small axe logged in his kneecap with blood pouring from the wound was too much for James and he screamed in pain. Dad was working on another tree about 100 yards away and covered the distance in what felt like only a couple of seconds, grabbing the small handle and wrenched the axe from his knee. As I recall there was a lot of blood but probably more swearing from dad than anything else!

I still wonder how he was ever able to actually finish a block given our constant "help", but he laughed out loud as he told me these two stories. Thanks dad - awesome stories!

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“Hanoi Posting”

A series of micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Episode 3: I'm your best option

John reluctantly waved him into his office; he smiled but knew something was up by the look on Bill’s face. Although he’d only been with the paper a couple of years he was one of his best and brightest with a reputation that was growing as top notch journalist.

John’s apprehension grew, as Bill got straight to the point, after all it's not that often a journalist just drops by the Executive Editors desk for a cursory visit. “Look, ah…I know about what happened in Hanoi and I want the posting.”

John was stunned…and frankly speechless, which was a first for John. It had been three weeks since the police had found the body in the dingy alley near the Chợ Đồng Xuân in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. So far they hadn’t been able to ascertain what had happened and John feared that they’d pretty much closed the case and put it down to just another foreigner being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time…poor bastard he thought to himself, his mind wandering.

Clearly Bill had caught him a little off guard with his sudden outburst and now tried to elaborate further, but John held up his hand motioning him to stop.

"What makes you think that I would give you the posting to Hanoi", he said almost a little too loudly.

"Because I’m your best bet that’s why" Bill shot back, his gaze not wavering from John’s.

Deep down John knew he was right, but also reticent because of his own personal experience in the Far East, which was far more extensive than anyone knew.

"I'll think about it" he said with a deep sigh.

Next week: Episode 4: Promises

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This weeks photos are from a photo shoot last weekend in Toronto's Allan Gardens - enjoy!