For a long time the aborigines came here to our bend in the river during summer to catch fish and eels and to harvest the kangaroos and forest goodies. They went back to the coast in winter. For even longer the many species of migrating birds have come here to nest in spring and to depart with their new offspring in autumn using the resources available in the warm season.
Some tough bird species hang out here all year by harvesting other resources. The New Holland and White-cheeked honey eaters feed on the river-side Grevilleas that flower during the winter months, the grey thrushes dig out grubs, comatose with the cold from under bark, and magpies and kookaburras mine the grass roots for sleepy worms, skinks and grubs, the crimson rosellas eat seeds and our fallen hazel and chestnuts, the scarlet, flame and yellow robins just peck around at anything and survive very well. Less tough things that can’t go away through the winter months like many insects, bats, reptiles and snakes just sleep.
Plants live here because they have migrated from somewhere else and found it’s OK. Some like the Mountain Pepper Tasmannia lanceolata, a member of the ancient Winteraceae, settled in when the land masses of the world were all stuck together in one southern continent, called Gondwana. It still hangs out here in old growth forest. At the other end of the scale are the recent migrants, escapees from gardens and from agricultural exploits around the country like thistles and fireweed Senecio madagascariensis. Some say plant introductions outnumber natives two and a half times to one in Australia, but they mean introductions since the Europeans invaded in force. Just about all plants are invaders if the time scale is long enough.
In general, wild things live here because the resources they need are also here and because it’s more crowded and more competitive elsewhere. We Creewah humans fit that description though we think our requirements might be a little more complex.
Most people come here because it feels right, maybe some tenth sense. It’s quiet, except for the distant chatter of occasional chain saws while people collect wood. The skies are blue and the views sharp and distant contrasting with the murky grey and close horizons in industrialised Asia and Europe. The river runs clean because it only starts a few kilometres away in tussock grassland; it hasn’t had the chance to pick up all the pollution of many kilometres of settlements dumping rubbish for millennia like the Rhine. The air is clean and biting, filtered through the lungs of the surrounding forest not the exhausts of thousands of motor cars and mill chimneys. All these things make it feel right for some. Maybe it’s some unrecognised hankering for the past when pressures on the globe by humans were small and nature seemed big and in control.
It doesn’t feel right for all. It can be frightening. It can be threatening particularly if you have never had the opportunity to live without the close proximity of other humans that focus existence on the day to day bustle of human things. That’s security. I had a friend who was scared whenever he left the city, whenever he was alone. He was scared to be faced with nothing but nature; a bigger unknown than unknown people.
We sat on a rock and looked at the gently murmuring view climbing over the tussock grassland into the scrubby bush and trees right up to the granite tors. The view looked back at us.
We are so lucky she said. I agreed.
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