OUT OF THE SHIRE

The last time I watched The Lord of the Rings I found myself urging Frodo not to leave Hobbiton ... Don't go you fool .. its nothing to do with you. The languid domesticity of home cooked meals, of smoke idling out of the chimneys, of a warm ale at the Green Dragon Inn, all looked so appealing. Comfort, that oozing enemy of vitality, is clearly making a claim on my soul and I need to resist. 

Today that resistance continues, the familiar embrace of the Megalong Valley replaced by new landscapes and people, hopefully not of the troll variety. We have camped at Mt York Lookout, on the western end of the Blue Mountains escarpment, where the explorers Blaxland, Wentworth & Lawson stood. After crossing the Blue Mountains they looked out over a valley of rolling pasture which to the 19th Century mind meant Promise. They didn't muck around. Within a year convict built roads were in construction to take drays and coaches down off the plateau and onto the plains.

For Tommie and I this point represents a different promise on our adventure around Australia. To a large extent we will bear witness to the after effects of that European descent down off this slab of rock, even as we visit Aboriginal communities whose lives have changed irrevocably in its aftermath. The journey of one era becomes the history of another. 

I have pushed off into new country many times in my life, walking from Sydney to Melbourne along the Great Dividing Range, constructing a shack in the Megalong Valley, building a trail through remote mountains in Central Australia. This feels different. I am housed in my Coaster Bus and take with me other sets of eyes and expectations. As usual with big journeys, it is not only what you will find that excites and scares you, but the fear of what you might not find because, at the core of any adventure, is a quest and with any quest there must be the possibilty of dissappointment. 

Over the next few days we head to Coolah where we have been invited to visit by a local blacksmith. A lure of an upcoming story, The Blacksmith of Coolah, is reason enough to visit. But there are others. We have been invited and that is, well, inviting. It means that the community will surrender its stories with greater ease. I have never been there and that has an appeal. It is surrounded by National Park and close to the historical town of Gulgong and the beautifully named Dunedoo. 

Ultimately it is the unknown that most appeals, that psychic landscape in which the unexpected can emerge more easily from the shadows and in which chance plays its cards more boldly. Both happen in the cities of course but the noise that surrounds people is now so intense that the moment can escape unnoticed. 

But all this begs the question. If this was a scene from Lord of the Rings, which characters would  Tommie and I be. I think both are as clear as the nose on your face but I'll let you decide.

Read Tommie's daily WUFFINGTON POST on FACEBOOK

Send your thoughts and stories to swag@electronicswagman.com.au or call Raymond on 0414 929768. If you wish to speak to Tommie just leave a message.