A slow meandering track

Tacking gradually into the forest along a track of the Great Otway Range National Park is to embark upon a journey of discovery and respect. This is a dominion of eucalypts, for the most part, unperturbed by the imposition of the modern world. It is the ground of the Wathaurong people whose rhythmic custody lasted tens of thousands of years, truncated only in a blink of ship people from Europe ravenous with buckshot, false promises, disease and grog. Today it is a precarious continuation, sniped at by the pressures of development and the need of space. It is persistently threatened by the firestorm of a bushfire, though from fire often comes a natural renewal. Always at the ready slinking in the background is the axe and chainsaw efficient to convert centuries of eucalypt into woodchip. Only the parchment of legislation deters their lustful slice.

Yet, to drink this treescape, to over indulge the senses is what the forest grants to those intent of worship of its religion. Along this track, there is a tutoring.

A glimpse of Kalimna Falls track, west of Lorne.