RSDs

Continuing my happy sojourn in central Victoria, I found myself plodding about the Spa towns of Daylesford and Hepburn Springs. Noted for their natural springs, these towns are popular resorts set at over 600 meters/2,000 feet in the midst of the Great Dividing Range and are a part of the vast Victorian volcanic field.

There are plenty of walking tracks for all levels, luxuriant eucalypt forests to tramp, and a rich indigenous and European based history to be absorbed. I was treated to a dress of colours, shapes, vistas and outbreaks of renewed beauty thanks to the extensive winter and early spring rains. Everywhere is alive and the forests as noisy as I can recall them of recent times. Darting through the canopy were the brilliant red and emeralds of Rosellas, the sharp-eyed laughing Kookaburras with their lawless calls. The Magpies were present, dive bombing anyone who strayed too close to their new nests. The Honeyeaters were feasting on the bottlebrush and wattle blooms, for them a prize season. Even the normally shy roly-poly Wombats were active and seemingly unfussed as they trundled about their business almost tripping me over - their eyesight as 'good' as mine. Mosses carpeted across fallen trees, their jade a cushion breaking down nutrients for prospect foliage, such mosses are an illusion in summer and therefore treasured the more. In this country, you sense the corroboree and the energy of the creator spirit, so important to indigenous lore and often unsubscribed in an empirical age.

On this compassing trod I tracked past old Mine ruins, where hardscrabble navvies toiled mostly in vain for ingots well over 140 years ago, tufts of rock and grime still evident. I can only imagine the backbreak of their labours for this stubborn lucre. Occasionally, I would come across a small bubbling rivulet and cupping the mineral laden waters to my eager lips was like drinking a tonic. Happily, I splashed the flowing crystals onto my unshaven face, the brace tingling! In and around Daylesford and Hepburn Springs in particular, you will find a number of larger and more formalised springs, attended to by devotees of the good earth's splurge. You can bathe in the turpentine waters, the tannins soaking their recuperatives into your skin, or be treated to a massage by trained hands. You can picnic, play, fall in love all over again, or simply wonder at these volcanic leftovers. Quite selfishly, I too filled my water bottles with the mineral cheerfully tipping out the fluoride treated city hydrology beforehand. Underfoot the ochre was soaked, quite an unusual sensation after a dry decade, so much so, in places I could not resist taking off the boots and walking barefoot feeling the mush of the renewed dirt squelch between my toes - I cared not an iota for formality, which fortunately has no currency in the bush. Odd perhaps, but for me, much better than the thud of suburban concrete and bitumen. I was delighted at the granites, the basalt and even large swathes of sandstone, their colours more striking because of the wintry soaks. Even though it was well below 10 C/50 F I had the jacket off, the sleeves rolled up to snare some of the afternoon Sun into my skin. It was certainly a sensual eprouver to feel the vigour of the new season.

About 12 kilometres/8 miles to the north-east of Daylesford is the very small village sized town of Glenlyon, noted for its natural spring. As I hauled the plod body along the road into the springs, heart pulsing with the crisp mountain air, I noticed this array of Road Side Delivery mailboxes or RSDs. Here, was a country Australian serene which is slowly succumbing to modern technology and Post Office cost cutting. Too, it so symbolised the slower aspect of the country hectare. And, sometimes, we have to be learned again of the bounty of this slow paddock, when for a time, we lose sight of the landscape's tutorial.