I know a couple who walk in the
Macedon Ranges. They drive out from Melbourne for the day, and their idea of
walking is to cover territory. 18 kms, 20 kms, in all weathers. They arrive
back at our place for a cuppa, glowing. I listen to their talk about the distance
covered, in what time, with that bemused attitude the old have in the face of
the energy of the young.
They used to invite me, but I declined.
I don’t want to walk that fast, and there’s always work that needs doing around
the property. The one time I did say yes, some years ago, we went up a stony,
exposed slope so fast that I found myself unaccountably out of breath, my heart
running very fast. This was the tachycardia I had been scrupulously ignoring,
that came and went and came again until I and half a dozen medicos settled the
matter in an operating theatre. Alright, I had very little to do with it,
though they couldn’t have done it without me!
Anyway, I’d written off that kind
of walking as ‘not my thing’, and my friends had given up inviting me. Then one
Saturday recently, she was busy and he still wanted to walk, and out of
obligation really I said yes, plus there was a promise of a short walk, just 12
kms. We drove up past Mt Macedon village, turned right into a steep cleft in
the range, and parked beside what the map told us was the Macedon Ranges Walking
Trail. Tight steps winding up, a slope as stony and exposed as the last time I
was here, and winter’s chilling wind.
This time, my pulse lifted and
levelled to a satisfactory work rate. Up the slope, onto a broad hilltop of
small trees and grasses, then to a good dirt road. The blood and oxygen flowed,
with air so sweet and cool! With the benefit of a little altitude, I found my
breathing rhythm and my stride. Trees rose on every side, and the track wound
on ahead. Then it came to me, or truer to say, I walked my way into it: ‘Ah,
this, this is why you come here!’ My
companion nodded, beaming - ‘But of course!’
We walked. The sun came out,
lighting up the hillside, then retreated behind cloud. The trees and
understorey adjusted themselves in the most subtle ways to changes in slope and
aspect. We traversed a living land. Eventually, we came to the picnicked parts,
rounded the lake and headed back down the same track, different taken this way
and as fresh as the upward journey. Thigh muscles complained but held good down
the final steep slope to the car, and then to sausage rolls at the Trading
Post. Magnificent!
The next day, I was digging through
digital folders, tidying up, and came an interview with John Berger. After his
success with ‘Ways of Seeing’, Berger turned his back on London and the art
scene and settled in the mountains of the Haute Savoie in France. A passionate
intellectual, he lived and worked alongside the peasants there for the rest of
his life. Of that place, he
said: “This
landscape was part of my energy, my body, my satisfaction and discomfort. I
loved it not because it was a view – but because I participated in it.”
Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare
