Sometimes, if you listen closely, a greater force sends you a message that you'd be mad not to heed. Call it a primal instinct but if you truly tune in to it, the world can open up in incredible ways to reveal the path less trodden.
It's been nearly a fortnight since my social media accounts were hacked. Without warning I was locked out of platforms that I had used for up to 18 years, along with an archive of photos and stories that I have openly shared with up to 5,000 "friends". Why? Because my account didn't follow "Community Guidelines". By the way, if you ever saw something in breech thereof please let me know!
My online cancellation coincides with a glamping trip up to Sheepstation Creek Campground in the Border Ranges National Park. It is actually a 'Rest and Restore Retreat' perched high on the rim of a massive extinct volcano. There is no coverage up there so I forget cyberspace and soaked up the energy of the forest.
I have little choice. My Mullum-based mates Ruth and Bob Walker are running the show and everything is under control. There is impressive camp kitchen and handy tools for creative workshops - cardboard clipboards, pens, watercolours, pastels ... the works.
There are also seven tents for seven women - adventurous souls who have reached a stage in life where they need a bit of pampering while exploring the wilderness. I am not used to this level of camping. Remarkably soft mattresses beckon inside the tent flaps with white organic cotton sheets and cozy blue doonas, snug little cocoons for three whole nights.
Tune in to my audio journey where those nifty canvas tents provide shelter from the storm
and I go barefoot in the The Gondawanan Rainforests.
A short walk through the forest leads down to a waterhole where we strip off to our togs and gingerly enter the refreshing waters of the creek. It's a welcome baptism into this sacred place that used to nurture a forest of majestic Red Cedar. Strangler Figs wrap around the remnants of old trees and soar skywards for light while birds nest ferns nestle in their forks. One Antarctic Beech tree is announced by a sign declaring it to be 1,200 year old. Fossils from the leaves of these trees were found in that great southern land of ice hence its common name. We mere mortals are dwarfed in the presence of its majesty.
Back at camp Bob has juicy chops cooking on the open fire along with boiled spuds and some of the most delicious spinach I've tasted sourced from the Mullumbimby Markets. After bananas baked in their skins with molten chocolate on top, we gradually disperse into our tents. I keep my back flap open so that I can see the stars above the tree canopies through the fly screen.
The delicious nutritious meals keep flowing with beef stew and potato and pea curries filling up our plates. Ruth leads a workshop in which we set off slowly to find fallen objects that we bring back to the shade of the camp tarp to write about and paint. This is not something my busy life often allows but the sense of groundedness it brings makes me pledge that I will return to this practice in the future.
We do breath work sessions before breakfast with Amanda Jane who gives us mattresses to lie on, headphones to tune in to and eye masks to block out the light. Then, when we're horizontal under blankies, she guides us through a meditation to connect with our breath and deliver some conscious mindset mentoring. Through visualisation we are encouraged leave the space and travel far in our imaginations. It's wild.
On our Sunday walk along the Helmholtzia Track we find the pink flowering swamp plants that the path takes its name from, ancient Gondwanan beings that endure here, along with those Antarctic Beech trees.
These forests are part of the remaining one percent of subtropical rainforests left anywhere in the entire world. Tragically, more than half of them were burnt in the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires damaging some parts irrevocably.
As we walk through this mountainous landscape along creeks and up ridges, I notice by hiking boots are disintegrating under my feet. I'd patched them up with super glue the night before but it was like trying to stick together flakey fairy floss. I take them off to bathe in the running water and it occurs to me that I needn't put them back on.
Lying back in the shallow stream I shed the last vestige of pressure from my body. This is what it's about - life in nature, forest bathing or shrinrin-yoku as the Japanese call it. For now it's all that matters. It's our duty to be custodians of the land we live on and the land we visit too. This is Bundjalung Land, land of the Wahlubal the Gidhabal, Galibal and Githabul and about as sacred as it gets. I feel so grateful to be here.
While wars rage and the world goes nuts and troll farms pump out fake news to instil fear in the 8 billion plus people on the planet we owe it to ourselves to connect with the natural environment. Over and over it proves itself to be the healing balm we need. Whether you're camping or glamping it's a tonic for the soul.
I sling my boots over my shoulder and walk back along the forest floor barefoot. It's delightful. I've done this before on a walk part way down Wollumbin/ Mt. Warning, the volcanic plug at the centre of the caldera we are now in and it was magical as it is now. Nothing stings me, no cuts or abrasions, I don't break anything, only my ties to all that meaningless white noise.
And guess what? I haven’t been on FB or Insta since.
Find out more about how you can treat yourself at Bower Camp Co.
