Where the birds have found their voices
Walking beneath a jarrah crown canopy so dense the light barely filters through,
it's hard to believe,
I am just 90 minutes from Perth.
I am in the old timber town called Dwellingup.
Deep in the forest I find the ghost settlement.
Walking around the abandoned old cottages,
around the whitewashed church where no one pray any more,
big city pressures are easing from my mind.
I am lost in different time and space.
I have set out on a 12,4 km walk from Yarragil River to River Road, which is part of the long distance trai,
WA's Bibbulmun Track stretching an incredible 1 000 km through hills,
ghost towns,
and ghost farms. I have never been in a landscape so eerily quiet.
Here you can convince yourself, you are the only one on Earth. I follow old timber trail sometimes weering back among the trees,
finally before me open a view of abandoned farm, spotting the derelict farm house in the distance,
I can not escape the urge to look through its dusty windows if someone is still around.
Track winds through coastal plains,
once I enter the forest again, the big hollow-out jarrah stand by trail and the waugal sign it bears points me in the right direction.
At the end of my trail I discover an overgrown sunlit plateau where the humans lost their trace and the birds have found their voices.
Deep in the forest
I find the area
strewn
with think branches
that have been sheard
from thick trunks
by the wild storms
that pounded the region
in recent months.
In some parts
trunks
have been
uprooted
leaving gaping holes
where proud trees
once
stood tall.
And above it all,
darkened ruins
mark the place,
where an old governor
built his holiday retreat.
I open my sketch book
and start to draw,
not what I see,
but what I hear,
what I smell
and what I feel
this place
looked like,
long time ago
A late Victorian house
perched on a hill
with sweeping views
of the forest
bellow,
the house of fragile beauty.
Moving quietly
around
not to wake up
sleeping ghosts,
I touch gently
its delicate bones
of finely detailed
timber fretwork,
cast-iron brackets
and balustrade.
'A portrait of late Victorian house'
I write on the top
of my sketch paper
and start to draw
the deteriorating
carved wood,
iron fence,
the distressed effect
of peeling
painted timber
and suddenly
in my imagination
a lady's face appears
among the beautiful patina
of frame,
her wrinkled skin
hidden behind a veil
speaks of age
and the wear of time.
Just like the old house
she is a ghost
balancing
on the brink
of non-existence.
The last owner
in black velvet
looks straight at me,
her pleading eyes
reveal the traces
and pains
of former inhabitants,
constructing a kind of mythology
or archeology of decay.
An abandoned Victorian house
standing
after 150 years
inspires you
to imagine
the history of its habitation
and the events
that have occured
within its walls.
The charm and nostalgia
of the grieving widow
in the old house,
their muted twilight colours
and dark menancing shadows.
An old house,
a motionless face
behind a dark veil
as if seen
in a bad dream.
Picture of an old age
and decay,
the pictorial drama
of an old lady
in an old house,
in the space
between
old culture
and nature,
the owner is dying
the house is the victim,
a disquieting sense
of just how
rickety and unstable
ones life,
a built structure
is
when confronted
with
the unstoppable
forces
of nature
and time.
A portrait of late Victorian house
becomes a portrait
of a lady in black,
locked in its ancient walls,
forever.
When I finish my drawing,
I look around,
the plateau of fallen trees
changes the mood,
cold shadows embrace me,
the ruins of the house
are lost in dark.
Rushing back home
through the damp forest
and airy bush
which crackles underfoot
I leave behind
the many moods
of the forest,
that never cease
to change.
It is dynamic.
It is alive.
When I sleep,
that night,
warmed
by the flue
from the log fire,
the lady in an old Victorian house,
smiles at me
in the warm light
reflected on her face,
by my hand,
she has become
alive,
again.
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