I hear a rustling in the Galinyala Port Lincoln mallee trees and look up to see a currawong in the top branches pulling away a strip of brown bark to release something that had been slightly deeper inside. What it is I cannot see, but he gets his beak in there, spearing around, like a finger, trying to locate it. Currawong in the morning mallee tree, rustling and reading the bark like paper.

I woke a little earlier for a Sunday and drove an hour up and into the hills; parked between the first and second huts on the Bibbulmun; slightly cooler, low 20’s, an easterly, mostly sunny. I took to the track and found soon a couple of emus marching on and occasionally looking back, the sound of their feet through the bush masked by the wind in the leaves above. Jarrah trees, marri—all of them burned in recent years; balga and jirragee the zamia—world’s oldest fermented food, some currently bursting out into orange fruit—lower to the ground; the occasional stand of sheoak, their needless like a soft bed underfoot, the sound of history blowing through the needle leaves above; as well as a stray banksia here or there. I cut along a line about half way up a hill face, with views to the west and south. Eventually the trail started coming down again, into a more open area of white-barked wandoo by the lighter sand near a winter creekline. Ball Creek Hut with quite a few people involved in morning rituals and packups. I kept on up the trail, crossing the dry creek, past where I’d been before with my wife just a couple of weeks ago. The track went up, then followed a line southish, before starting to go down once again, this time through granite outcrops looking on; down down towards bigger rounded granite rocks, and wandoo spaciousness, and another dried-up creekbed with lighter-green-leaved tuart trees, plus I think some native invasive wetter-area species, also with a kind of bright green leaf. I look around and am suddenly touched by the beauty of the place, the sheer amount of nature here, and feel incredibly grateful that in this one place, at least, on a sometimes full earth, there is space enough for a man to look in all directions and see nothing but nature, nothing but bush. 

The trail went with the creek and granite a while, even a small puddle here or there with water that could be filtered and drunk if ever needed. I make a mental note. I cross a road and go on. I hear a sound behind me and pause; soon a man with poles and small backpack comes running/shuffling past and I let him go. I look out west, and decide it’s time to turn around—that moment—the moment that never comes for the thru-hiker, unless their trip becomes what is called a ‘yo-yo’. I turn and go back the way I came, feeling only slightly sore. I wind along the creekline and back up past the granite, and then along the more level section. And there, among the jarrah and balga I’m suddenly picked up by the place—not just seeing it in connected patterns and images, not just feeling inspired by it, almost music-like, but suddenly filled by it. There’s nothing in particular around me except the jarrah and balga, but all in an instant I’m suddenly inside it, as it is inside me. The knowing of it. The knowing me. I confess I had been singing a little to it; and sing a little more now. The growing soreness in my legs is instantly filled with this place instead. And I am no longer outside it, and it is no longer outside me. What is it to care? It cannot be anything other than this. And so I walk with it, not slackening the pace I usually don’t bother with, and begin to see more, or more comes towards. Dermokalitj the scarlett robin; soon after: bamboon the western yellow robin; chunyart the ringed necked lorikeet later; spider webs minus the spiders. I seem to notice everything now, while before seems like I was merely skirting by, locked up in my own wanderings and wonderings. This experience is maybe not so unusual, for me or for you, I assume, but for me it’s a kind of first time I’d experienced it while hiking, while exhausted, while sore and tired. For me it’s usually one or the other. But this day I was given a taste of something; maybe intuitive hiking.

I reach the hut again and all but a French family of six have moved on. Some small round birds flit around the campsite—and I remember I’d seen some earlier. I sit and let the family get ahead a bit. Eventually some other hikers come. So I leave and soon after pass the family, equipped with all their gear for camping a single night at the hut, plus a newly-fashioned bow, as well as a balga walking stick. One of the daughters holds hands with the dad. It’s a nice scene. And, before long, I’m back at the car, noticing most things as I go driving back down those hills; down down to the town—to the city—below.