Galah Issue 1

GALAH.

GAL AH .

ISSUE 01 . limitations

GALAHPRESS.COM

ISSUE 01 . limitations

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contents

08 BEYOND MUNGO

56 PENTLAND

A photo essay exploring the hauntingly beautiful Mungo National Park and beyond.

This tiny Queensland town is thriving.

18 LES MURRAY

A mini essay by Tim Ross about the simple pleasures of road tripping, then and now.

58 THE ROAD TRIP

Obituary writer Mark McGinness remembers our beloved bush poet.

60 A LIMITED HOUSE 22 LIMITATIONS

Indigenous art gallery manager Leah Carr reflects on boundaries she chooses to ignore.

Architect Aaron Peters examines the imperfect beauty of Queenslander houses.

64 THE FAMILY FARM

24 LIE OF THE LAND

A photographic spotlight: what remains after a bushfire.

Cartographer Alex Hotchin maps a property that is close to her heart.

66 FRAMING

26 LIFE AND DEATH AT THE RIDGE

Meet the group of volunteer undertakers who’ve taken matters into their own hands.

Artist Dan Kyle reveals how bushfires and the land he lives on inform his art.

74 SHANNON GARSON

40 A SENSE OF PLACE

A property developer with her eye on regional Australia, shows us her gorgeous cottage in Windsor, New South Wales.

50 WHY SOME TOWNS THRIVE WHILE OTHERS FADE AWAY

When you drive through regional Australia, some towns feel vibrant, yet others feel like they are dying. Rosanne Barrett finds out why.

This ceramicist tells the tale of her journey to becoming an artist.

80 DEL GOSPER

Tenterfield artist Del Gosper on what she has learned from Matisse’s wife.

86 LUCY CULLITON

Artist Zoe Young embarks on a series of ‘Goodtraits’ for Galah magazine.

88 ART SCENE

120 TWO WAYS: MERINO SHEEP

Fiona Bateman picks favourite works

by Australian contemporary artists.

Two people doing the same thing, but in very different ways.

90 WINDOW SHOPPING

Caitlin Melling’s wishlist for the summer comprises homewares, gifts and books.

124 THE JOYFUL PLEASURE OF CREATING SOMETHING FROM NOTHING

92 A LITTLE AREA

Michelle Crawford’s delicious recipes for when the cupboards are nearly bare.

Books with Meg Mason.

132 HIGH HOPES ROADHOUSE 94 SONGS OF THE EARTH AND SKY

Trisha Dixon makes the most of not being able to go overseas this year.

Julie Gibbs reviews this restaurant on the road across the Blue Mountains.

136 STAY: LETTES BAY TASMANIA

96 CHASING THE LIGHT

Meet the Australian photographer who shoots remarkable gardens all over the world.

A tiny coastal retreat offers an idyllic getaway for two people.

140 STAY: SAPPHIRE COAST

104 A DROUGHT SURVIVAL PLAN

Garden designer Carolyn Robinson shares lessons she learned in her own garden.

Discover sleepy Pambula in southern New South Wales.

142 PERSPECTIVES

110 MEET THE PRODUCER

Ed Hickson grows pecans on the New South Wales–Queensland border.

Two Australian writers give us insight into their daily lives.

144 THE BETOOTA BRIEFING

118 LIMITATIONS

Sophie Hansen writes about the benefits of not trying to do it all.

The Betoota Advocate’s Editor-at-large Errol Parker reports on a recent shocking court case.

Editor-in-chief ANNABELLE HICKSON annabelle@galahpress.com

Creative Director GIOTA LETSIOS

giota@galahpress.com

Special thanks SARAH BARRETT RYAN BUTTA

Subeditor MELODY LORD

CONTRIBUTORS Aaron Peters Adam Hollingworth Alex Hotchin Anson Smart Caitlin Melling Carolyn Robinson Christella Zujic Claire Takacs Claire Lloyd Em Callaghan Emily Harris Errol Parker Fiona Bateman Hugh Stewart Janeane Waters Jayne Cuddihy Jeremy Simons John Hickson Julie Gibbs

Leah Carr Lee Towle Leslie Graham Luisa Brimble Luke Burgess Mark McGinness Meg Mason Megan Holbeck Michelle Crawford Phoebe Tully Pip Farquharson Pip Williams Rosanne Barrett Sally Batt Shannon Garson Sophie Hansen Tim Ross Trisha Dixon Zoe Young

FIND US on Instagram @galah.press and online galahpress.com SUBSCRIBE Never miss an issue. Subscribe at galahpress.com For inquiries about subscriptions please contact subscribe@galahpress.com or call (+612) 8227 6486 CONTACT US For general inquiries, please email us at info@galahpress.com SUBMISSIONS If you’d like to contribute, please email us at info@galahpress.com SPONSORS To inquire about advertising or sponsorships, please write to annabelle@galahpress.com STOCKISTS If you’d like to stock GALAH, please get in touch wholesale@galahpress.com ©Galah Press Pty Ltd 2020 ISSN 2652-8959. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, or other direct or electronic methods, without the prior written permission of the editor, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Printed in Australia.

Galah acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which this publication is produced and read.

We pay respect to Elders past and present. Readers are notified that this publication may contain names or images of deceased persons.

Front cover photograph Annabelle Hickson Back cover Pip Williams Inside front cover Jeremy Simons with thanks to KAON 4x4 camping & touring Facing page Leslie Graham

a letter from the editor

LIVING IN REGIONAL AUSTRALIA IS SOMETHING I VIEW AS A GREAT PRIVILEGE, BUT I DIDN’T ALWAYS THINK THAT WAY. When we moved to what is now home on a pecan farm 80 kilometres west of Tenterfield, on the New South Wales– Queensland border, I was scared that it would mark the end of my career and my social life. We are an hour away from a town. I can drive to that town without passing another car. I thought it would be good for my young family, good for my husband, but bad for me.

Seven years on, I see that those fears were completely unfounded.

Freedom, space, solitude, resilience, a sense of agency, community, accountability … these elements of country life have turned me into a proper grown-up. And at the top of this list of life-enriching elements, at least for me, is the sense of courage I feel when I am out of the city.

I feel emboldened to try things that, in my city life, I had not thought I was qualified to do. It’s a small valley and comparison—that thief of joy—is nowhere to be found. Unhelpful thoughts like, ‘why bother trying that when there are already so many who are talented/successful/experienced doing it?’ don’t bubble up as much. Dreams of starting a print publication, even as masthead after masthead closes its doors, don’t seem so far-fetched.

And so, may I introduce you to Galah: a publication documenting regional Australia and this way of life that has surprised and delighted me in equal measure. I started Galah to celebrate the innovative and exciting things happening here. I want to recognise and reflect the diverse, talented and creative people I see when I look around me. I want to create a bridge between the country and the city. Important work is being done in regional Australia— the way we grow our food, the way we use limited resources such as water, the way we live together in a community and at the same time hold different views—and these are matters that concern us all.

But mostly I started Galah because life in regional Australia has given me the courage to do so.

I hope you enjoy it.

Annabelle

Words Janeane Waters Photographs Jeremy Simons

BEYOND MUNGO

We travelled the length of the New South Wales–South Australia border, in search of solitude, space, stars and silence.

We started at the World Heritage-listed Mungo National Park, about two hours north of Mildura. It is the home of Mungo Man and Mungo Woman, the burial remains of Indigenous ancestors that have been dated as 42,000 years old. The landscape is ancient, timeless and boundless, and beauty is everywhere: in the patterns of the everchanging sand dunes, in the sedimentary layers in the jutting lunettes and in the multitude of tiny furrows at their bases. But also in the spinifex and mulga leaves, in the bark coiling and twisting off branches, in bird calls, in fragile-looking hardy flowers hidden between pebbles, in tree trunks pressing out between slabs of rock.

The spines of the sand dunes and the Walls of China glow with iridescent hues of red and copper, merging into pink and amethyst, before the indigo blue of the desert night. You can walk beyond the paths and viewing platforms into the landscape, but it’s wisest to go with a guide.

North of Mungo, Mutawintji National Park is rich in Indigenous history and culture.

Here it was impossible not to think about our relationship with the land and with Australia’s black and white history. The meeting place for the Malyangapa and Pantyikali people for thousands of years, it features an abundance of stone etchings and rock art.

After Mutawintji, we headed to the northwestern corner of New South Wales, to Tibooburra and the Sturt National Park, the lands of the Wangkumarra and Malyangapa peoples. This is the main route to Cameron Corner, where New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland meet.

Tibooburra’s distinctive landscape offers huge, sculptural, balancing granite tors.

And the jump-up country in Sturt National Park is a plateau of flat-topped mesas and cuestas that fall away spectacularly.

These are lands to walk slowly through, to listen to the wind and the voices from the past in the shady, quiet gullies or crevices in the rocks. This is a land of speechless beauty and openness. n

Facing page Exquisite details at Lake Mungo. Following pages Lunettes, Mungo National Park.

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Above Storm clouds gather over Dead Horse Gully, Sturt National Park.

Following pages The intersection of Gorge Loop Road and Silver City Highway.

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THESE ARE LANDS TO WALK SLOWLY THROUGH, TO LISTEN TO THE WIND AND THE VOICES FROM THE PAST. Above Jump-up country, Sturt National Park.

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LES MURRAY Les Murray left us on 29th April 2019, with some 30 volumes of our country’s most visceral, original, breathtakingly bucolic verse. His fellow poets say it so well. To Peter Porter he was ‘the custodian of Australia’s soul’. Joseph Brodsky claimed, ‘it would be as myopic to regard Mr Murray as an Australian poet as to call Yeats an Irishman.

He is, quite simply, the one by whom the language lives.’ To Derek Walcott, ‘There is no poetry in the English language so rooted in its sacredness, so broad-leafed in its pleasures, and yet so intimate and conversational.’

Words Mark McGinness Photograph Adam Hollingworth

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Leslie Allan Murray was born on 17th October 1938, the son of Cecil, a timber-cutter, and a nurse, Miriam Arnall, in Nabiac on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. The Murrays had left poverty in Jedburgh, Scotland, in 1848 and settled in the Manning River area. Three generations on, Cecil rented a farm in Bunyah from his father, John: ‘Dad’s father kept him poor, and they had a hell of a lot of droughts at the time too.’ While the early view of the world for Banjo Paterson, Geoffrey Dutton, Judith Wright and David Campbell had been from the homestead verandah, for Les it was from a hut. The Murrays lived in a slab house, with a shingle roof, lino on the dirt, light and wind through the walls (‘brutally harsh, smelly, idyllic childhood’). One critic thought Les’s the most destitute childhood of any poet since John Clare.

Les taught himself to read at four. Miriam had an eight-volume encyclopedia and Les read and re-read the Bible (and then ‘every book in the district’, including the Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue). He did not go to school until he was nine—rather late, especially for a lonely, asocial, aggressive only child.

In 1951, Miriam suffered the last of a number of miscarriages and poor Cecil, in calling the doctor, felt unable to describe her true condition because Aunt Jane (the biggest gossip in the area) was running the phones. Cecil blamed himself for Miriam’s death and was grief-stricken for the rest of his life.

Honouring Miriam, Cecil persuaded Les to continue his education and he endured a hellish few years at Taree High School. Poor, huge and maladroit, the bullying was unbearable; the girls would flirt then taunt him. This poverty, loss and cruelty shaped his life, his outlook, his politics—and fed his poetry.

For half a century, it also pitched him into spells of deep depression.

Les won a scholarship to the University of Sydney and, at eighteen, he discovered poetry. Of course, he read everything: Irish, Latin, Greek. Also, Hopkins and Eliot—and Milton in one weekend. A few of his poems were published, yet he was unsettled, left university and for a period was homeless. But while playing Satan in a passion play, he met the remarkable Valerie Morelli, who was the wardrobe mistress. Her love for this awkward giant with no degree and few prospects won through and they married in 1962.

Two years later, Les became a Catholic (Valerie’s faith since birth). From then, all his poetry would be dedicated ‘To the glory of God’. Over the next two decades they would have five children.

In 1963, his astonishing facility for languages got him a job at the Australian National University’s Institute of Advanced Studies. He could translate, at sight, 10 languages and manage another four. In 1965, The Ilex Tree, his first book of poetry (jointly with Geoffrey Lehmann) was published. In 1969, The Weatherboard Cathedral included the celebrated

‘HIS ART HAS ALWAYS REMAINED FIRMLY ESTABLISHED IN THE HINTERLAND, AS IF HIS SUMPTUOUSLY VARIED DISPLAY OF POETIC PRODUCE WERE A KIND OF ROYAL EASTER SHOW BROUGHT TO THE CITY’

revelatory ‘An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow’; later books featured the joyous classic, ‘The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever’ (Selected Poems, 1986) and the powerful ‘The Quality of Sprawl’.

From 1971 he devoted himself entirely to writing poetry and editing. ‘Poetry is what I do in real life,’ he later wrote. Les’s output was prodigious and, while he was often classified as a rural and religious poet, he could, and did, write about anything.

When Les’s grandfather John Murray died in 1962, the farm on which Cecil had long worked 16-hour days was divided up among the family and an uncle bought it. In 1974, Les bought from a cousin a section of it at Bunyah, ‘The Forty Acres’, for Cecil and the family would join him for holidays (prompting the wonderful ‘Buladelah–Taree Holiday Song Cycle’).

In 1985, they returned there permanently—and thus, ‘The Bard of Bunyah’.

When Les’s 10,000-line verse novel, Fredy Neptune, appeared in 1998, poet and professor, Ruth Padel, wrote of its ‘dignity, vigor, compassion and bite. It is what poetry ought to be … —at the end of another millennium given over to war—a force for good.’

This goodness—no, this greatness—was duly recognised: his Order of Australia in 1989; the T.S. Eliot Prize in 1996 for the superb Subhuman Redneck Poems and, in 1998, the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. The photo at Buckingham Palace in 1999 of vast, dark-suited Les beaming at the Queen as she

beams back is marvelous. ‘I thought it would be a sin against anthropology not to meet that rarest of human occupations—a reigning monarch.’ Yet he had written, ‘Australia will be a great nation, and a power for good when her head of state is part-Aboriginal and her prime minister a poor man. Or vice versa.’

There was one prize that eluded him: the Nobel.

The New Yorker’s Anna Heyward enjoyed imagining ‘the Swedish Academy reading about Coolongolook, Wang Wauk, Forster, Wallamba, Gloucester, and Tuncurry.’ In that vein, Les’s university contemporary, the eminently quotable Clive James, paid tribute: ‘the base of his art has always remained firmly established in the hinterland, as if his sumptuously varied display of poetic produce were a kind of Royal Easter Show brought to the city for a long and imperishable season.’

Les’s death recalled his father’s in 1995 and ‘The Last Hellos’ (which begins, ‘Don’t die, Dad — but they die’ and ends with ‘I wish you God’).

Valerie, their two daughters, and three sons survive him—and those millions of words; among them, his rallying cry, the image of him forever in his shorts: To be walking meditatively among green timber, through the grassy forest towards a calm sea and looking across to more of that great island and the further topics. n

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22

LIMITATIONS As I sit down to write this, on the eve of my 28th birthday, I feel like I finally have a strong sense of direction for where my life is heading—without limitations.

Growing up in a small country town there are limitations to what you can do, where you can go, even where you can shop. You’ve got to be creative and make your own fun.

I knew from early on in my life that I would be met with many limitations, but maybe not as many as my sister, cousins, aunty or uncles. You see, I am a 28-year-old Aboriginal woman living in Moree, New South Wales.

That single sentence spells out many limitations. And the older I became, the more aware I was of the limitations around me. Because I am fair-skinned, with green eyes, dark hair and freckles, you could easily mistake me for someone who’s not of Aboriginal descent. I didn’t endure the watchful looks of shopkeepers or have to take my hat or hood off to enter a store as my sister and many of our family members have had to. I didn’t have to ‘dress up’ to go into the local real estate agency to apply for a house, just to be completely overlooked by the receptionist and then watch my white husband receive the information I had been asking for just a minute before he walked in.

I am very aware that because of my fair skin, my limitations don’t match those of my sister, who is BLESSED with the most gorgeous caramel skin.

My sister’s limitations in life are greater than my own simply because of her skin, so I take up the baton for her every single day of my life.

I am the manager of the Yaama Ganu Centre gallery and café. I love my job. I get to wake up every morning and work with an

awesome café crew; train staff to make great coffee; and educate people about our art and culture. I oversee operations on both sides of the business. In terms of business growth, I’d like to believe that it’s limitless.

I’d like to believe that with the right team, a bit of guidance and steady minds, we can achieve our business goals. I do believe in working hard and making the most of what you are given in this life.

Nevetheless, there are many aspects of my life when, at times, I feel limited or feel like it’s a struggle to break through creative barriers. As a working mother of two little girls, I feel like I don’t spend enough time with my babies. On the other hand, I don’t commit enough time to my work.

But I don’t stay with those thoughts—I don’t sit in front of these barriers—I try my best to break away and find new ways to move forward. Because if I don’t do it, who will? I push through for my family and my community. Just by me accepting my current position, it has driven a lot of change within my workplace. The way I see it is: if I’m going, we are all going. If I’m making a success of things, then my family and community is sharing that success.

So, yes, I acknowledge that I have met with limitations and barriers across all areas of my life as a young 28-year-old Aboriginal woman from Moree. It gives you thick skin; it gives you grit. I choose, every day, to wake up, overcome, drive change and be better. I don’t want my limitations to define me. I am more than a statistic; I am more than a ticked box. I feel that with every success, small or large, I want us all to gain from it, because if I’m going, we’re all going. n

Words Leah Carr Photograph Hugh Stewart Opposite page Leah Carr with her daughters Aria, three, and Ella, four.

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WHAT REMAINS

On that morning, my sister took her children out for the day, just in case. They would return for bedtime. The littlest hopped into the car, wearing her favourite pink thongs. A day later, they were the only shoes she owned.

12 November, 2019. A date our family will never forget. In the preceding days the Gosper’s Mountain bushfire had swept through nearby national park land. It was a threat, but the experienced firefighter and his little family were prepared. Gutters were cleared, socks filled with sand to plug up roof pipes, wallaby dung raked up and there was water nearby. Then it came. Like a wild beast, with relentless fury. Unstoppable in its course, unbelievable in its result.

On what scale do we measure the loss of all earthly possessions? When weeping becomes part of the everyday, when there is nowhere to call home. There’s that reflex to reach for a needed thing, knowing exactly where it hangs or in which drawer it lies and then remembering that the ‘where’ and the ‘thing’ are no more. n Words and photographs Christella Zujic

lie of the land

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LIFE & DEATH AT THE RIDGE I don’t know if the man being buried at the Lightning Ridge cemetery was particularly large, but his coffin certainly was.

Too big, in fact, for its hole.

Words Annabelle Hickson Photographs Hugh Stewart

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As the friends and family of the dead man began trickling into the cemetery for the morning graveside service, some sitting on plastic chairs around the freshly dug hole framed with strips of artificial grass, others standing, chatting and offering condolences to the grieving son who was wearing a joyful Hawaiian shirt and a fedora, I wondered how the coffin problem would be solved.

The hearse was parked among the graves near the hole, boot open, its interior filled almost completely with the homemade coffin which, with a very pleasing nod to the concept of maximum efficiency, had been used by its

maker as a coffee table before becoming his burial casket today.

Volunteer undertaker with the Lightning Ridge Funeral Advisory Service, Ormie Molyneux, a bearded third-generation opal miner in shorts, thongs and a cricket hat, was undeterred. ‘We’ll just take the handles off after we’ve carried it to the hole.’

Ormie flip-flopped over to the three men standing by the hearse: his brother Joe Molyneux and two friends, Nifty Martin and Tom Urquhart, who are also volunteer undertakers, to discuss the plan and, presumably, find a spanner.

The music shifted from the passions of a ‘Con te Partirò’

instrumental to a jazzy Gershwin number, lending a convivial atmosphere to the graveside gathering—and I got talking to Maxine O’Brien, the secretary– manager of the Lightning Ridge Miners’ Association (LRMA), who also handles administration for the funeral service.

Maxine explained that the volunteer-run, non-profit funeral service, which started almost 20 years ago, was born out of necessity. Lightning Ridge did not have its own undertaker and the closest was 75 kilometres down a dirt road, in Walgett. It was often tricky to get the bodies there or to get the undertaker to come out. >

Above Volunteer undertakers of Lightning Ridge Funeral Advisory Service.

Facing page Ormie Molyneux is a third-generation opal miner and volunteer undertaker.

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So the people of Lightning Ridge did what they always do and worked it out for themselves.

‘Ormie asked the board of the Miners’ Association if they could volunteer my time to take over the the admin of the funeral service.

That’s how I got the job … on the condition that I wasn’t making the bloody flowers and that I wasn’t touching any dead bodies. It’s nothing I’d have ever imagined I’d be doing, but it’s really humbling.’

Today the funeral service is still run by volunteers. The amateur undertakers have buried about 750 people, most of whom were their friends and neighbours.

They charge ‘tops $4000’ for the service, which includes burial fees, and the profits they make are put back into the community.

By comparison, in Sydney a standard cremation with no service costs about $4000, a standard burial with service is about $10,000 and can cost up to $30,000.

Back at the grave, Ormie, 61, was having trouble unscrewing one of the coffin handles. He and his friends had managed to carry the casket to the hole, but the bolt was not budging, which meant the coffin still wouldn’t fit.

‘Fuck,’ he says, not angrily, before striding over other graves to his ute to get a tool with more purchase. Gershwin was still playing, the crowd still mingling.

It is Ormie and a group of other volunteers who carry out the undertakers’ work in a morgue at the back of the local hospital.

‘We prepare the bodies.

Sometimes we dress them too.

It’s something that we don’t encourage, but if that’s what they

want us to do, we certainly will do it,’ says Ormie gently. ‘It’s better if you dress them when they first die rather than later on when they’re pretty stiff.’

The local men’s shed makes the crosses and a local artist paints them. This is a community service, run by the community, for the community. Ormie, although an understated man, is visibly proud when he talks about the kind of community that takes on the responsibility of creating their own funeral service.

‘There wouldn’t be a person in Lightning Ridge who hasn’t benefited somehow from this service. It’s cheap and we’re still

‘There wouldn’t be a person in Lightning Ridge who hasn’t benefited somehow from this service.’ making money. That money’s there for the people. And it’ll always be in Lightning Ridge, I’ll guarantee that.’

Says Maxine, ‘One thing we’re looking at now is a scholarship for local kids to help with tertiary education, whether it be for apprenticeships or something else. It’s alright for kids starting off in the cities: they can live at home, but for country kids it’s really difficult,’ says Maxine.

‘Death is a great leveller,’ says Ormie. ‘There are a lot of people who think they might be a little bit of a cut above the rest of us. Death

brings them all down to the same level. All of humanity.’

If death is the ultimate leveller, I think living under the beating sun of Lightning Ridge might be a close second. Although looks can be deceiving, miner Butch McFadden warns me: just because someone looks rough, ‘with his arse out of his pants’, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a holiday house on the coast and millions of dollars of cash in the safe, says Butch.

‘I reckon I know 50 millionaires, and some of them have made tens of millions.’

The town proper is like a lot of other rural Australian towns in that it has a main street and motels and restaurants and a supermarket and two cafés. There are bigger houses and smaller houses, a school and a hospital. There’s an impressive swimming pool and diving centre: fundraising for the complex was spearheaded by five cupcake-baking local girls who were sick of travelling to Walgett to swim. They had raised almost enough for the first stage when they went to Canberra to receive an Australia Day award recognising their efforts. One of the girls, Crystal, used her acceptance speech to thank Prime Minister Bob Hawke for the award and then hit him up for the rest of the money they needed to make it happen. He gave it to them.

But venture out beyond the town and you’ll find yourself in another world entirely: the camps.

Camps are temporary-looking dwellings made with tin and rocks and caravans, set up on the opal fields. There are no amenities— such as water, electricity and >

Facing page Locals relax at the bore baths, where natural hot spring water soothes away stress; opal mining made the area famous.

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gas—servicing the camps. There is no air-conditioning and the dry heat in summer is ferocious: a blistering 48.5°C is Lightning Ridge’s highest ever recorded temperature. Camps are the homes of people—of around 50 different nationalities—who have come to mine opal.

Note: you mine opal, not opals.

Some more lingo: if you steal opal from someone else’s mine, you’re a ‘ratter’. ‘Ridge nails’ are wellplaced rocks on roofs. The mounds of dirt dug from the mine shafts are called ‘mullock heaps’, dotted throughout the landscape like sandy piles made by hundreds of tunnelling beach crabs. To

‘speck’ is to simply look down and keep an eye out for opal while you’re walking around. And it is not without its rewards. (A couple on holiday uncovered a $20,000 black opal in a specking dump just outside the visitors’ centre.)

To ‘noodle’ is to get something like a butter knife and poke around in the mine waste. A ‘genny’ is a generator, a very important part of life without mains power… and there must be so much more.

Living is off-grid, not because of a hipsteresque choice, but out of necessity. The 2016 Australian Census estimated the population of Lightning Ridge to be almost

2300, but given the uncounted people living in the camps on the surrounding opal fields, the actual population could be double that.

The post office says that during the mining boom there were anywhere between 6000 and 10,000 people, but now they estimate the number has levelled out at around 4000.

Amid the shanties and shacks and slapped-together structures, there are moments of pure arte povera: the house made of beer cans, with coloured glass bottles for windows, at Nettleton’s First Shaft Lookout; the cheerful white interior of Fred Bodel’s 1916 hut—possibly the oldest camp >

Above A window of coloured glass bottles in the beer-can house at Nettleton’s First Shaft Lookout.

Facing page Danielle King grew up in Lightning Ridge and has a real affection for the local landmarks.

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in the area; a succulent and cactus garden at the Grawin, an hour out of Lightning Ridge, which felt very Georgia O’Keefe.

Local Danielle King, who grew up on the Three Mile opal field in a two-room hut with her parents and three siblings, showed us her favourite car wrecks in faded pastel hues surrounded by cacti, and they too were beautiful.

‘I wouldn’t swap my childhood growing up out here for anything,’ says Danielle, 43, who lives in town with her partner, three stepsons and their daughter. ‘We went out specking, we dug holes through the mullock heaps, sometimes we snuck down old

shafts. We’d go motorbike riding.

Wild goats would run over the mullock heaps. When the genny went out everyone cooeed and it was time to go to bed.’ Danielle beams as she shows us around.

Danielle now works as a towtruck driver in Lightning Ridge— she’s kept busy with the grey nomads and their caravans—and for the local Fire + Rescue New South Wales service. For the past 10 years she’s been trying to buy back the lease of her childhood home. She’s also on the committee for the proposed $33.4 million Australian Opal Centre, designed by world-renowned architects Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin,

which is to be built just up the road from her childhood camp at Three Mile.

Murcutt, the sole Australian winner of the Pritzker Prize— architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel—regards the Lightning Ridge opal centre as a building of ‘great significance’.

Special Projects Officer for the Australian Opal Centre, Jenni Brammall, says they hope it will be the MONA of north-west New South Wales, acting as a model for what is possible out here.

The off-grid, carbon-neutral, partially underground project with a Gondwana fern garden sprawling over two levels has >

Above This camp consists of a caravan whose roving days are forever behind it.

Facing page A garden at Three Mile. Following page Pete Cooke in his workshop.

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secured $20 million in funding for the first stage of construction, which will begin early next year.

Stage 1 is set to open in 2022.

‘I think this building will really open up Lightning Ridge on an international level,’ Danielle says.

‘In saying that, I’d be unhappy if it disturbed the countryside out here. This is what I remember and I’d like it to stay this way for the rest of my life, and be here for my grandkids. But times change and things need to happen.’

Times have changed in Lighting Ridge. In the late 1980s and early nineties, when the field price for the best quality black opal was $8000 per carat and demand from Japan and China was strong, you could, even as a small scale operation with a jackhammer and a bucket, strike it rich. Today the field price for top quality black opal is $10,000. But the industry is more regulated and there are more hurdles to jump before mining a claim. And the increased regulation has made it harder for people to speck. Locals will often quote a 2001 University of Canberra study that showed seven out of every 10 Lightning Ridge families rely on welfare as their main source of income.

We visited miner Pete Cooke’s workshop in town, where he washes his opal dirt and does contract washing for other miners, as well welding fabulous creations such as earthquake detectors and a container to house aliens in. ‘I’m one of the few blokes in town that has a registered truck and a licence,’ he says, laughing.

Down the street, police have circled a house for a drug raid, but Pete, 59, is not fazed.

‘I did a road trip with my dad 35 years ago and fell in love with the place; been coming here ever

since. And for the past 10 years I’ve been here full time. It’s a very diverse community, there’s a lot of room for eccentrics and people outside the square here. I love it.’

Pete, whose hero is Leonardo da Vinci—something reflected by his workshop with its mad and wonderful creations—is one of the larger scale miners. He has excavators and big trucks, but he says, although it’s not always easy, you can still find opal with a pick and a wheelbarrow.

‘The little bloke has a chance.

Some blokes have come here with millions of dollars to set up, thinking they’re going to change the industry. Then a couple of years later they leave town with

Ormie Molyneux finally got the handle off. He lowered the coffin into the grave and it fit like a glove. their tail between their legs and they’ve gone broke.

‘Resilience is important. You can go a long time between opal.

A couple of years is not unusual,’ says Pete. He could have been talking about farming.

‘I’ve got a big tip truck that holds 20 tonnes of dirt. I’ve done 90 of those in a row. Trucked them, brought them into town, processed it and found nothing.

Then the next truck could have a quarter of a million dollars in it.

It’s crazy. Big businesses have gone broke trying to understand the process, where really it’s just pot luck. If anyone thinks they know what they’re doing, they’re just bullshitting.

‘Opal makes up its own rules.

It’s capricious. But you’ve got to keep plugging away,’ Pete says.

Back at the cemetery, Ormie Molyneux finally got the handle off. He lowered the coffin into the grave and it fit like a glove. I felt compelled to clap.

Gershwin stopped, which also made me want to clap, and the service started. It was a lovely send off. The son in the Hawaiian shirt spoke beautifully.

I didn’t know the man being buried, or his family and friends who threw dirt onto the coffin. But what I did recognise was a group of people willing to give time to a service the community needs.

There were old people and young people, white and brown. Some arrived at the cemetery on foot, others in new cars. I saw care and kindness and decency.

After the service, the crowd milled around the grave, clinking shot glasses and telling stories.

The volunteer undertakers rolled up the artificial grass strips while they chatted to the family. They were there as friends as well as service providers.

And then the council worker arrived, driving a small tractor with a disproportionately loud engine, and started to backfill the hole, despite the lingering crowd.

It felt ridiculous and wonderful.

Ormie packs up the speaker, the microphone and the plastic chairs.

This cemetery is where his mother, father and brother, and aunts and uncles and cousins are buried. It’s where he’ll be buried too.

‘It’s better if you know the people,’ Ormie says, about burying his friends. ‘It’s easier. It’s something else we can do together and it’s got to be done. It’s very good for this town.’ n

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A SENSE OF PLACE Property developer, urbanist and retailer Linda Gregoriou can’t understand why you’d go for a ‘Hamptons’ look if you don’t live in the Hamptons. Or why you’d have a formal garden out the front of a simple worker’s cottage. She is obsessed with a sense of place; with identifying and respecting the unique qualities and characteristics that make a place what it is. It’s as if knowing where you are helps you know who you are.

Words Annabelle Hickson Photographs Anson Smart

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Above A vignette of artworks, including Indigenous art and weaving, a carved drum from Papua New Guinea and a cigar box from Cairo. Opposite page The white-painted sitting room showcases Linda’s eclectic style.

Previous pages Linda’s home and garden reflect her sense of her place in the world.

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‘What does it mean to be Australian? It’s a question I ask myself all the time,’ Linda Gregoriou says.

Growing up in the beachside Melbourne suburb of Brighton with a Greek–Cypriot father and an Anglo mother descended from the well-known Western Australian Sharpe pastoral family, Linda has always known that being Australian could be many things.

Even though her mother’s family had been in Australia since 1840, she looked like a Cypriot and was ostracised by her Anglo peers, but also she didn’t identify with a lot of the migrant families around her because her father had moved to Australia to attend Melbourne University.

This sense of being an outsider has helped her to take note of the many facets of what it means to be Australian; to look for the set of circumstances that defines a place; to be open to the juxtapositions.

She collected Aboriginal art seriously for 30 years, with annual lengthy stays at various art centres across Western Australia and the Northern Territory. This curiosity also influenced projects as diverse as working on the design masterplan for the Sydney Olympics (a job she took on as a 29-year-old); or creating the post-mining placemaking (an urbanist term to describe the reinvention of community spaces) strategy for Jabiru, the World Heritage listed town in Kakadu National Park, which will soon be handed back to its traditional owners.

She’s taught urban design at university; she’s been an investment banker, a retailer (her now-closed Sydney store, Pure and General, was named ‘best store’ in Louis Vuitton’s Sydney City Guide) and the CEO of Retail for the National Trust of Australia, among many other executive and board roles.

Today Linda, 55, is sitting on the grapevine-clad verandah of her 1860s Georgian cottage in Windsor, a historic town 60 kilometres north-west of Sydney on the Hawkesbury River surrounded by rich soil,

farmland, bush and Sydney’s urban fringes. She has lovingly revitalised the two-bedroom cottage over the past three years, painting the tongue-and-groove walls, installing a bathroom, filling the walls with art and objects collected over many years from all over the world, but mainly Australia. She liberated the split-slab barn in the back garden from a huge Banksia rose that had almost entirely hidden the twostorey building. This is her weekender, her ‘room of one’s own’, her place to garden.

She’s feeling a bit fed up with the city, where sense of place feels somewhat dimmed. The big developments feel soulless to Linda and she says the real estate prices are ‘idiotic’.

‘From an urbanist perspective I’m finding Australian cities are becoming more homogenised.

When I moved from Melbourne to Sydney 25 years ago, it was a delightful place with a lot of unique pockets and there was a very strong community feel in those different places. Now there is so much development, it’s like one big construction site.

‘Often you have real estate agents dictating to developers the form and typology of the buildings. If it’s retail, often what you’re left with are really big, almost barn-like shops. That’s not what’s appealing about an area. You want little shops with distinct personalities. If I see that a popular chain store is going into a high street, I know that’s the death of that particular place.

‘The faster Australians realise that what people find appealing about this country is uniqueness and not homogeneity, they will do better with their tourism, they will do better with their retail, they will do better with their housing. You have to respect the sense of place. See it for what it is and look after it.’

Instead, Linda has her eye on regional Australia.

‘I work with investment bankers and fund managers and I head up property and infrastructure for a >

Opposite page The small, dark kitchen is a homely, cosy space, featuring raw hardwood walls.

The floor is tiled with roofing bricks from Slovenia, bought from Gather Co, South Windsor.

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Above A favourite painting by Australian artist Suzie Riley hangs among small objets d’art in a corner of Linda’s eclectically furnished home. Opposite page In the upstairs sitting room that looks out onto the barn, the window is flanked by artworks by Bessie Liddle (left) and a Snugglepot and Cuddlepie print.

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boutique investment firm. We only invest in projects and businesses that have a cultural or social benefit, design excellence and a sustainable element. And predominantly we’re finding that in regional Australia.

A lot of projects we’re looking at are regional.’

Linda cites the convergence of unaffordable city real estate prices, the homogenisation of city retail and the cultural blossoming of regional centres as the reason the regions are so appealing.

‘Regional Australia is being reinvented. We are one of the most highly urbanised nations in the world.

Something like 85 per cent of the population is urbanised and much of that clings to the eastern seaboard. In the past 10 years, people—especially those in the 20- to 35-year-old demographic—have been moving back to regional areas and moving between regional places as well.

‘There’s been more out-migration from Melbourne and Sydney than there has been in-migration. And they are going to places like Newcastle, the Gold Coast, Geelong, Bendigo, Bathurst and Ballarat. This is the first time this has happened since these postcolonial cities were established.’

Linda says the cultural scene in these regional areas is exciting, so much so that ‘you almost question why you would even need to go into the city: for an airport, maybe?

‘Now we have an amazing opportunity for a lot of regional and rural places to get their retail going again. It’s actually a great time to start up a business.

It sounds counterintuitive, given the economic climate, but I think it’s perfect. There are so many people who are making beautiful things and being very creative out in regional Australia: I say to them, go and open up a shop. Become a destination. Don’t try to be like anything else that’s out there. You have to have a point of difference.’

Back in Linda’s Colonial–Georgian cottage in Windsor, her obsession with sense of place is evident.

The cottage is understated. The kitchen is dark with raw hardwood walls and a brick floor and simple pendant lights reused from the barn out the back.

Upstairs, nestled under the cottage roof, is a lightfilled living room, painted white with splashes of pink in the soft furnishings. The house is filled with objects Linda has found, inherited, collected and commissioned over years.

‘It’s really important for me that it’s not pretentious.

That it’s not styled, that it doesn’t look like the Hamptons or a little English Cotswold cottage. It’s actually Australian, and it’s filled with stuff from all over Australia. Every single thing here has a story.’

On the walls are Aboriginal weavings from Maningrida, Northern Territory, and works by Indigenous artists Barney Ellaga and Lorraine Connelly-Northey. There is modern Australian art by Dee Smart and Victoria Alexander (you can see her work on the opening page of this story), and an Ian Marr painting above the kitchen fireplace that was a gift from artist Luke Sciberras in exchange for a palm tree from Linda’s back garden.

She’s planted five shades of nasturtiums, foxgloves, hollyhocks and cineraria in the beds flanking the brick paths out the back, and nasturtiums and fragrant jasmine climb up the picket fence at the front.

‘Gardening is for me a meditative space and it’s about creating something that’s beautiful. You know, people go off and do meditation and yoga or whatever.

This is actually about nurturing something. ’ And with that she goes to make a pot of tea in the dark kitchen, in the heart of this wonderful place that reflects Linda Gregoriou and her multifaceted Australian life. n @pureandgeneral

Opposite page Linda finds an outlet for creativity and relaxation in her small cottage garden, nestled between the white cottage at the front and the two-storey split-slab barn at the back of the property.

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WHY SOME TOWNS THRIVE WHILE OTHERS FADE AWAY Words Rosanne Barrett Photograph Sally Batt

There was something about that speck on the map known as Nundle that kept luring Megan Trousdale back.

It was beautiful, yes: the road snakes through the Peel Valley around the base of the Great Dividing Range with vistas at every turn; the timber fence around the oval; the double-storey goldrush pub on the main street.

But there are lots of pretty towns.

There was something else about Nundle, New South Wales. The small town 400 kilometres north of Sydney had an energy that made Megan feel like this was somewhere she could belong.

The Sydney-based journalist had seen a lot of country towns.

Almost all of Megan’s childhood holidays were spent in the regions (her dad was a teacher during term-time and a mad fisherman in the holidays); she went to an agricultural high school in Sydney and then worked as a rural journalist for a number of publications, taking her all over the countryside.

‘I’d always come back from those trips wanting what those people had. I wanted their sense of community. I wanted to be the person who was helping organise festivals and markets. I wanted that life,’ she says For a work assignment, she was sent to Nundle to write a story about regional renewal. Several buildings in the main street of the town had been bought and restored.

A seed was planted in Megan’s heart, and later she returned to do more research with a photographer, then again with her partner Duncan. The seed sprouted.

Megan and Duncan started talking about making a permanent shift. What if they could turn their backs on their big-city rents and commutes and, instead, make a life in Nundle?

Twenty-one years later, Megan is part of a thriving community that is defying the slow population decline of Australia’s rural areas.

Nundle is a handful of streets, 45 minutes’ drive from Tamworth.

By rights it should be following

the trajectory set by other rural and remote towns of a steady drip-feed of people to bigger regional centres and capital cities.

But Nundle’s sense of self, its community spirit and its strategic vision has seen it add 50 more people than it has lost over the last 15 years—not bad for a town now numbered at 307 townsfolk.

A Regional Australia Institute report this year, The Big Movers, found that more young people are moving between country centres than to the cities. The report used the most recent census data to show that an extra 65,000 people moved out of cities, compared to the number who moved into the big smoke. Yet the number of people living in remote and very remote centres has declined, and has done so for decades.

While seven in 10 Australians live in cities, one in 10 live in the small towns of fewer than 10,000 people that form the backbone of regional Australia. Why do some of these towns buck the trend and thrive, while others fade away? >

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WHY SOME TOWNS THRIVE As the world has globalised and urbanised, demographers and social researchers have searched for the answer to that question.

What they have found is that it comes down to the people: the people in the town who either welcome the newcomers or shun them; the people who engage with new ideas or shut them down; the community that gives it a go or gives in.

Organisational psychologist Dr Ian Plowman investigated this as one of the authors of a key report into innovation in Queensland towns, back in 2003.

‘It’s about the fundamental behaviour of collectives,’ he says.

‘The findings are universal. I’ve had people from the wheat belt in Canada contact me and say, “Were you over here?” And I’ve also had people in Tanzania in Africa [contact me].’

He found towns thrived when they were open to different people, when they had more doers than leaders, when they were committed

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but not conservative and when they embraced outside ideas and resources.

Important factors stood out across the most innovative towns.

They were willing to embrace creativity, they had decentralised decision-making systems and had sufficient resources, education and knowledge across the community to make things happen.

‘WELCOME THE WEIRDOS’ When artist Luke Scibberas first visited Hill End in central New South Wales, he recognised it was something special.

A well-established haven for the arts, there was also a vibrancy and care across the population that extended to newcomers.

‘In every sense they have supported each other,’ he explains.

‘It’s the sense of care people have for their environment, their history and for each other, but also the built environment.

‘It makes you feel as though you aren’t fighting for your life, but thriving.’

Hill End knows about boom and bust. The home of Australia’s biggest-ever gold nugget, in the 1870s its population hit more than 7000. By the time of Federation, it was down to 1000. Now it is just over 100, but in the past few years its numbers have held steady.

The town has been a magnet for creatives for decades. Regular visitors have included Russell Drysdale—who depicted the great Australian pastime in The Cricketers with Hill End scenery—John Olsen, Donald Friend and Brett and Wendy Whiteley.

Since 1999, the tradition of the artists’ visit has been formalised in the Hill End Artists In Residence Program, operated by the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.

A total of 364 residencies have so far been awarded to artists across many disciplines.

Luke has lived in the town for two decades. ‘I have to live in a country town because I find the intimacy of the community feeds my imagination,’ he says.

‘When the leaders seek control over what happens, they are almost inevitably conservative and not progressive.

For them it is almost always “my way or the highway”. So good people leave.’

Left Megan Trousdale.

Following page The former council chambers at Tenterfield.

‘There is a secret code in country towns that either acknowledges the contribution of individuals or doesn’t. It is a mystery to me how it does, or doesn’t, work. I’ve been to country towns where you can really feel this gloomy sense of people living their very insular life and not wanting to participate or contribute to other people’s lives.

‘That gives me a dreadful sinking feeling.’

When creative people are accepted in communities it is often a sign there is openness to ideas, and probably great innovation underway, and this can lead to greater social and economic benefits. Dr Plowman puts it plainly: ‘Creative ideas come from people who are different,’ he says.

‘Welcome the weirdos.’

LEADERS ARE A LIABILITY Back in Nundle, some of the residents are getting together to figure out future plans. This is one of about 26 community groups in the tiny town.

‘There are a lot of options for finding your place and having a voice,’ Megan says. ‘And you get to know people.’

The local businesses—including Megan’s Odgers & McClelland Exchange Stores that sells household necessities from a 120-year-old building—pool their resources to market the town and its regular festivals.

They recognise they have set their own path for Nundle. They don’t compete directly with nearby ‘big city’ of Tamworth, but offer a complementary experience for tourists along the way. And they do it together, with all the decisions and the funding pooled.

It’s this sort of collective decisionmaking that rings true to those who have studied successful groups.

In Ian Plowman’s 2003 report, centres that fared best had the lowest number of self-reported leaders. Towns that fared worst had the highest.

‘Leaders are a liability,’ he says; ‘it’s completely counterintuitive.

‘When the leaders seek control over what happens, they are almost inevitably conservative and not progressive. For them it is almost always “my way or the highway”. So good people leave.’

He says, from an evolutionary perspective, respected elders were critical to maintaining the norms, values and safety of the group.

‘This has kept society safe for 90,000 years,’ he explains. ‘It is predicated, however, on the wisdom of the elders being acquired in the very same environment in which they wish to impart it 30 or 40 years later, and that is no longer the case.’

A FRESH SET OF EYES It starts with an idea. It could be a new use for that crumbling old building, or a different idea for that land at the back where nothing seems to grow. Or maybe a new set of eyes that can see opportunity where others only see stagnation.

Steve Haslam saw potential in the scrubby back block of a >

The towns that thrive ‘don’t sit back and wait for another larger organisation to do things for them.

If you want change, you make it.

You don’t wait or complain that someone isn’t doing it for you.’

farm for sale in 2001. A 400 acre parcel of never-cleared land between Bald Rock National Park and Girraween National Park in northern New South Wales, it presented Steve with an ideal opportunity to create a nature reserve for an animal he had become fixated with finding: the quoll.

When he met his partner Bianca Wicks, she not only supported his love of quolls, but also saw beauty in the ageing town of Tenterfield.

When the crumbling 1884-built council chambers came up for sale, they snapped it up to start the laborious process of converting it into luxury accommodation.

‘Everyone thought we were mad,’ he says. ‘They just thought, who are these crazy people who are spending way too much time and effort on this building?’

The Tenterfield council and others have been nothing but supportive throughout the whole process. Other small businesses catering to city-based high-end tourists are also flourishing in

town, Steve says, creating a critical groundswell for visitors seeking a retreat.

Now they’re finalising their renovation and restoration of the local church, converting it into an event space for classes and a farmers’ market.

‘It is fabulous and it has worked,’ he says.

The accommodation business is humming along nicely and the quoll reserve continues to offer a refuge for the spot-tailed quoll, with Steve continuing to work on new fencing and protection systems in the reserve.

IT CAN WORK Famed country cook and media personality Maggie Beer took a leap into the unknown when she and her husband Colin moved to the Barossa Valley in South Australia from Sydney in 1973.

The region was dotted with wineries, but there was none of the food culture that exists today.

After travelling to Scotland for Colin to complete a Churchill

Fellowship in pheasant farming, they returned to the Valley with the idea of establishing their now iconic restaurant, which has expanded into the Farm Shop.

‘We opened the farm, but it was off the rockiest road,’ she says, laughing. ‘It was the antithesis of position, position, position. It was in the middle of nowhere.’

But the new restaurant became a magnet. ‘Everyone was so excited,’ she says.

‘I felt I belonged from the moment I arrived, which is interesting, because it’s not always that way. We bought a property and Colin was very good at talking to the neighbours—and I was pregnant. It was just great.’

She says there was an incredible, ongoing sense of community across the Barossa that resulted in a sense of collaboration.

It was the community that had built the local hospital, the local hotel and the local co-op grocer.

And she says that community continues on, with a shared purpose and collaboration.

Momentum in the food and wine industry, propelled by successes such as the popular Maggie Beer brand, have continued into strong population growth and prosperity.

‘What’s so exciting about the Barossa is that it’s beautiful and there is a real sense of community and there is a real sense of hospitality,’ Maggie says.

‘The wineries and the businesses are in opposition, if you like, but they are collaborative—they agree that the Barossa is the most important thing and everyone doing well is the most important thing.”

So it continues to thrive. The sons and daughters of the previous vignerons are returning with new ideas to create new businesses and opportunities.

Maggie says that regional communities are ‘a lovely thing’.

‘You know, people look out for you,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to work at it. If you want to be part of a community, you’ve got to become part of the community.’

THOSE THAT THRIVE At the end of Dr Ian Plowman’s research, he visited the small Queensland towns in his study to present his findings.

In one town the dominant, conservative leaders invited the community to the council chambers to hear the outsider speak. There wasn’t room for everyone so the high school students had to stand.

Dr Plowman highlighted his findings. Those towns that were thriving took the chance to welcome the weirdos. They had more people involved than leaders who took control. They kept at it.

They viewed outsiders as an opportunity. They allowed young people to leave, then welcomed them back with their new ideas.

And they sought out and accepted outside professional help. ‘Be alive to new possibilities,’ he urged his audience.

Towns that thrive are towns that can cultivate a sense of hope and opportunity. They can plant seeds in people’s hearts. These are the

towns that whisper, ‘There is a place for you here. You can contribute. You can be seen.

Dreams are possible.’

On reflecting why Nundle is thriving, Megan says it’s about attitude. The towns that thrive ‘don’t sit back and wait for another larger organisation to do things for them. If you want change, you make it. You don’t wait or complain that someone isn’t doing it for you.’

This attitude, like a selffulfilling prophesy, leads to actual empowerment, change and innovation. This is the energy Megan felt when she visited Nundle all those years ago.

The fertile ground where seeds sprout does not belong to specific main streets or particularly pretty buildings or only to villages nestled in winding valleys. The fertility of the ground is linked to the attitudes of the people who live in the town.

‘All you need to do is look around and dig in and join in,’ Megan says. n

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DESTINATION PENTLAND Words Jayne Cuddihy Photographs Sally Batt

‘Blink and you’ll miss it.’ A tiny sentence that might describe any number of tiny towns across Australia.

Pentland is a gem hidden in plain sight. With a population of 250, it straddles the highway halfway between Hughenden and Charters Towers in North West Queensland. For many travellers, Pentland is a highway marker, a measure of how far they are from somewhere else. But it is a small town with much to offer. It is a community that is reinventing.

‘People called us stupid to our faces,’ says local artist and coffeeshop owner Louise Dean. ‘They told us, “You’ll never get local support and you’ll never sell art in Pentland”.’

The Deans’ Wookatook café and gallery has become a destination. Visitors will travel hundreds of kilometres for the gallery experience paired with good coffee and homemade food in the converted railway house.

‘We’ve had astounding support; so much, we need to start slowing the business down!’ says Louise.

‘We came here for a quiet life—to paint and write poetry—and we’re run off our feet!’

Louise and her husband Graham moved from Winton five years ago.

Pentland was attractive because of the landscape and the atmosphere and the fact there were no flies, unlike in the western Queensland outback, where the air can be thick with them.

‘We’re chuffed we’ve designed a place where people want to be.

People plan to come here. Even if they come in a hurry for takeaway,

by the time you bring them their food, they are happy to sit and enjoy it on the verandah. There’s a real atmosphere here.’

Further down a little back street live Jet and Katie Jones, a young couple with three school-aged children. Jet grew up locally, working as a stockman all over the north. While on the rodeo circuit in Canada he met Katie, a journalist with a background in fine arts. Fast forward a few years and now they sip tea barefoot in the yard, quietly discussing details of their third children’s book. Jet pens the poetry and Katie illustrates.

For them, telling stories of the Australian bush is a responsibility.

‘When Katie first came to Australia, she couldn’t get over the perception of the bush in the cities.

We want to bring the romanticism back.’ Jet is the quintessential Queensland cowboy: blue eyes, big hat, rough hands. But he has his own barriers to break.

‘The whole idea of performance —be it song or poetry—has been lost in the bush. There’s a foolish perception that it’s not really macho, but if you look back at history a lot of poetry was written by stockmen. Banjo Paterson hunted buffalo, was in the Boer War, and was a terrific horseman,’ he says.

At his kitchen table in Pentland, Jet writes lyrics for the likes of Golden Guitar winner Dean Perrett, between writing poems for his books and working on the land.

The Joneses have been based in Pentland for the last five years, with Katie continuing her drawing and conducting art workshops in

the community. She recently curated an art exhibition, ‘We are Pentland’, in nearby Charters Towers, featuring 15 local artists.

‘I was literally hanging pieces on the wall and people were telling me about more artists in the area who I didn’t even know.

I couldn’t believe it!’

Throughout the township are bright reminders of local talent in murals, public mosaics, decorated houses and fences and quilting displays. The arts community is helping Pentland to thrive. And long-time local, Robyn Muller, has been leading the charge.

‘It started in the early nineties with Ray Rumbold, a retired art teacher who would take a lesson by the side of the creek where he lived. We had weekly gatherings of around 20 people. It was a wonderful community.’

Robyn says Pentland, like many small towns, has a transient population and, as arts and regional funding slowed, so did their community. Their local gallery downsized and the population ducked below 200 a decade ago, but currently there is a number of young families, boosting the school and giving new energy to the township.

What was once a railway town is now showing that an artistic movement can keep communities vibrant. The call to action has come through the likes of the Wookatook Gallery.

‘The isolation of where we live actually serves to bring people together and encourages everyone to pursue what they love,’ says Robyn. n

Opposite page, clockwise from top left Louise Dean; the landscape is an artist’s dream; a Pentland personality; arts and crafts for sale; good coffee and homemade food on the verandah at Wookatook; Jet and Katie Jones; people come from miles around to call in and say hello; a mural decorates the pool shed.

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THE ROAD TRIP I love to romanticise the great road trips of my youth. The green Holden Kingswood full to the brim, hours on the open road without air conditioning, our heads out the windows like labradors, doing anything we could to keep cool. There was no water in the car when I was a kid.

If we needed a drink, Dad would pull over and we would help ourselves to water from the garden tap of a random house on the highway. A stop at a bakery for a pie was unheard of. For us it was all flattened, sun-warmed sandwiches and weak cordial. Today it sounds torturous but back then it was magical. There were new sights and sounds, the monotony of the everyday was broken and, despite some early fireworks about the art of packing the boot, Mum and Dad were happy.

Road trips allowed us to disengage, to decompress in real time and, despite our internal organs overheating on the vinyl-covered seats, we instinctively knew that our parents were relaxing. Holidays were our time and road trips through the countryside let our little eyes take in the colours of the Australian bush: landscapes like those of the great artists seeped into our minds and forever linked us to the places we passed through.

Over the past 20 years the seduction of cheap flights has taken us out of our cars and into the skies. We like to think of ourselves as a nation of travellers. There was a time when we would go abroad and return home in awe of what exists beyond our shores, but with a deep sense of gratitude for home. At some point I think we started to forget the latter.

The lure of cheap overseas travel has done us a disservice. We used to lament the poor country towns that missed out on passing trade when the new highway bypassed them all together. Now we don’t just bypass the country town, we bypass the country completely.

When we fail to see our own backyard, we fail to connect with ourselves, our community, our country. Much can be gained from the simplest interactions in our regional areas. The place where we stop to get a vanilla slice, stay a night or make new friends, helps us to understand and appreciate another part of our country. One of the silver linings of COVID-19 has been seeing people hit the road in that wonderfully oldfashioned way. The result will change us for the better. Once again, we will connect with the bush and understand how our landscape nourishes our souls. That is surely a good thing.

My kids love a road trip more than any other holiday. They love an old school motel. They jump up and down on the bed just as I did when I was a kid. My kids want to know who we are as Australians and that’s not found out in the classrooms or on an electronic tablet. The answer to that is discovered in real life, in our rather large backyard, through the places we go, the people we meet and the landscapes that define us. n Words Tim Ross Photograph National Archives of Australia

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A LIMITED HOUSE Queenslander houses are part myth and part misconception.

These splendid constructions range from elegant timber homesteads to austere workers’ cottages that are little more than flimsy wooden tents.

Despite their ubiquity in the subtropics, Queenslanders are poorly adapted to their climate, vulnerable to termites and rot, and occasionally blown down the street in a cyclone.

Yet, the timber houses of north-eastern Australia persist.

For many who have lived in a Queenslander, they not only transcend their apparent limitations, but engender a lasting affection.

Words Aaron Peters Artwork Margaret Olley, Cane farmer’s house, North Queensland 1955, oil on canvas 60.0 x 75.0 cm, UNSW Art Collection

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As with many mythical creatures, the origins of the Queenslander are not entirely clear. These houses were typically constructed almost entirely from timber; capped with corrugated iron roofs; entered via a front verandah; and raised above the ground on timber stumps that happily serve to facilitate airflow and ventilation in the hot and humid climate.

Undoubtedly, the availability of building material was a significant factor (the region was endowed with forests of suitable timber, ripe for plundering), but many also point to the Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885 that precipitated generous boundary setbacks and large subdivisions, giving rise to the equally iconic rambling Queensland garden. Some say the timber stumps were designed to guard against termite infestation and manage the undulating terrain, or to accommodate the nineteenthcentury pseudoscientific fear of low-lying miasmas.

The increased airflow appears to be more of an accidental effect than a planned feature.

For extolling their virtues, few rival the Brisbaneborn writer David Malouf when it comes to evoking the haptic qualities and cultural resonances that cling to the Queenslander. His memoir 12 Edmondstone Street—named after the address of his childhood home in South Brisbane—perfectly captures the essence of the Queenslander: They have about them the improvised air of tree houses. Airy, open, often with no doors between the rooms, they are on such easy terms with breezes, with the thick foliage they break into at window level, with the lives of possums and flying-foxes, that living in them, barefoot for the most part, is like living in a reorganised forest.

The creak of timber as the day’s heat seeps away, the gradual adjustment in all its parts, like a giant instrument being tuned, of the house-frame on its stumps, is a condition of life that goes deep into consciousness.… Air circulates from room to room through a maze of interconnecting spaces; every breath can be

heard, every creak of a bedpost or spring; you sleep, in the humid summer nights, outside the sheet and with as little clothing as decency allows; and yet privacy is perfectly preserved.

What I find most remarkable about Malouf’s retelling of his childhood experience is an emphasis on the apparent imperfection of the building. He loves its creaks, its darkened recesses. This is how the Queenslander becomes indelible in the minds of its occupants: the minor inconveniences, the disturbances, the oddities, the supposed limitations.

The strategic flaw, the mild inconvenience, the prolonging or withholding of fulfilment are some of the most powerful tools that an architect can deploy.

A flaw disconcerts, arouses a reaction or arrests attention. It’s a way of engaging an audience that doesn’t require grand, overt gestures: it can be small, subtle, and economical, leaving a nagging itch that requires a second, third or fourth visit. This type of engagement between a building and an occupant grows gradually, laying down a foundation upon which lasting affection can prosper.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be the owner of a newly built Australian project home—the kind of house that is intended to conform with the majority of people’s expectations for what a home should be and definitely not a building that ‘adjusts its parts’ or that is on ‘easy terms with the lives of possums’. Fortunately for me, our family is lucky enough to live in a Queenslander of our own.

Our journey started, not in a timber house, but with an apartment on the top of a hill. When our young family expanded, we found ourselves leaving our lovingly renovated apartment and stepping through the door of the stereotypical ‘worst house in the street’: a timber workers’ cottage in Brisbane’s West End. The house had been heavily ‘customised’ with DIY modifications and an assortment of teetering backyard structures. The building had been painted in a riotous cacophony of primary colours that had served an odd sort of purpose by deterring would-be

buyers and lowering the sale price to the level at we’ve crawled under the floor, clambered about in the which we were able to make an acceptable offer. ceiling cavity and stood on the peak of the roof with The privilege of home ownership isn’t always a one arm wrapped around the roof ventilator watching straightforward affair. After removing the desiccated the chooks scratch around in the garden. floor linings, we discovered that the pine floorboards Limitations have long been seen as the nemesis of had been eaten out by termites and borers, and that the designer: obstacles cast in the way of the creative the undersized and overspaced floor joists needed process, robbing the creation of its full potential. This wholesale replacement. As a result, I had the dubious is a concept I’ve never really understood. Designing a privilege of opening the front door to our new house building is a process of imposing constraints to slowly only to be confronted by an expanse of bare earth, eat away at the enormity of the challenge, like a interior partitions hanging in the void. It was going to sculptor working at a slab of stone until the outline of be pricey. The architect in me was not deterred. a figure begins to emerge. I’m equally enamoured by A few weeks later, as I stood on limited art: the song that defies the footpath staring up at our the conventions of its genre; the crooked, garish and newly-floored painting with the disconcerting Limitations house, I tried to visualise the next perspective; or the novel with have long been step of the restorative process: a the abrasive tense. Reflecting seen as the big can of white paint. At that on the Queenslander house nemesis of moment a young woman walked reveals a timely and prescient the designer: past and enquired whether I was lesson that, sometimes, the the owner of the house. When I most imperfect works of art are obstacles cast in replied that I was, she smiled and in fact the most compelling. As the way of the said, ‘Every time I see those bright an architect, the Queenslander creative process. colours it makes me so happy’. also reminds me that the Good for her, I thought, but I still creative process is often easier, hopped in the car to go and buy those tins of whisper- more cohesive and, frequently, more successful with a white. Again, the architect in me was not deterred. firm tether of limitations to guide the process.

Our trim, white cottage now sits somewhere around It’s an immense privilege to be able to own a home, the midpoint of its journey. We don’t have an elaborate and a greater privilege still to be in a position to kitchen, just an old sink screwed to the wall, but we do ‘choose’ restraint and live within self-imposed limits. have a vegetable patch and a little outdoor terrace that However, the truth is that our very survival as a can fit a garden table. The process has taken about species may depend on our ability to place limits on four years to reach its present state, the product material culture. On average, Australians are now of limited attention from its architect/amateur building some of the largest, most well-appointed tradesperson and our equally limited funds. houses on the planet, and this trend doesn’t appear to Our experience of stripping back a hundred-year- be slowing down. But there is an alternative. When old home to its original core, clearing out the backyard, we consider the pleasures of moderate inconvenience, and shoring up the structure has, for me, truly made deferred gratification and uncomplicated living, we this house our own. Imperfection feels like an begin to see the greater pleasures to be found in opportunity to realise something remarkable. After living within our limitations. In my view, perfection all, it’s hard to take for granted what you’ve toiled is not only unattainable; the very concept of it leaves hard to bring into being. We know our house because a lot to be desired. 

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THE FAMILY FARM

Alex Hotchin is a cartographer, illustrator and storyteller. She seeks to explore the world by foot and bicycle and never leaves home without her sketchbook. To see more of her artwork, visit alexhotchin.com

Our family farm lies among the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. We had just met, this farm and I, when I created this map. The compact undulations of hill, valley and meandering creek were thrilling, and I set out to get to know them all over many days— exploring, recording and drawing.

I traced the pathways: creek, gully, animal track, road and fence. A hidden fern valley and a tiny waterfall appear at the western corner of the page. Caves, big enough to crouch in, punctuate a hill—there is evidence that they are favourite siesta spots for roos and wallabies.

As I surveyed the stands of trees, I recorded their scatterings, lingering longer at the older sentinels. Laid over the rooted and eroded are the transient parts—paw prints, the homes of water dragons, goannas and eagles. Significant personal stories make up the final layer: where Buzz is buried, or the place where Snuffy the possum sleeps in his paint tin full of nails.

It is an interwoven story of the world that is alive on our family farm. It pays respect to all things: the plants and animals that inhabit it and the events that have occurred here.

Strangely, it is not a place where any of us live, but it’s where we all gather to be together. We have always been country people and this place retains that connection to soil, sky and freedom of movement. It’s a place to belong.

Years have passed since the making of this drawing. I have explored much more, and an updated map would be bigger, packed full of many more observations and events. My visits over the years have given me the delight found in returning to the same patch of soil many times over. To see flood and drought; the water dragons disappear and then return; the grasses take hold and seed. Last year we made the discovery of a patch of wild orange trees at the base of a lantana hill, in a cloud of caper white butterflies, with the superb fairy-wrens visiting for a butterfly feast. The fruit tasted like passionfruit with a bitter aftertaste.

I continue to store in my memory the new discoveries and adventures and, as the farm and I become more familiar with each other, I wonder how different the new map will look. n

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DAN KYLE

FRAMING I inherited this piece, a profile of artist Dan Kyle, from another writer. Before I drove up the long, winding road to Kurrajong Heights in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, I’d already seen the photos, read someone else’s notes about Dan and his partner Andy Macdonald.

When the wide metal gate slid open, I knew I’d see a four-metre-high sculpture of a deep-sea diver, the work of Dan’s uncle. I knew that Dan’s work captured fire management in delicate paint; that if the wind hadn’t changed on 21st December 2019, this quirky space of succulents, art and shade crafted through the decades would have been ash, like the ridges above.

Words Megan Holbeck Photographs Luke Burgess

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I already felt that I’d been here, that this profile was writing itself, but Dan was way ahead of me. He knew which bits were important: not their home’s cluttered, art-filled and charming interior, the beautiful new outdoor bath, the coffee and cake (lemony and delicious) – ‘the puff-piecey stuff’.

Instead, this article was to be about the stress and devastation of living through fire; about how love and understanding of the land informs Dan’s art.

That’s Dan’s list. I’ll add: it’s about how Dan’s status as both resident and outsider allows him to see the bush in its beauty, intricacy and danger and translate it into paintings that help others understand.

I get out of the car and Dan wanders over, freshfaced and open. He’s 31 years old: tall and lanky, he moves with the slight awkwardness of a teenager, of someone who hasn’t quite finished inhabiting his body. There’s a similar dissonance between his creative self and the practical realities of country life. As he makes coffee in the kitchen (charming, cosy, a cake in a tin on the counter) he describes a recent stay on a sheep farm in the middle of lambing, gifting me a perfect example. The distress of the lambs and the bluntness of receiving a lamb roast was both confronting, for ‘sensitive artistic types’, and as farm-to-table as you can get.

Boston lopes in, a glossy black Great Dane rescued five years earlier. Following him is Andy, who’s been in the studio framing Dan’s work. Andy sits outside at the table he’s made, on the paving he’s laid, under the pergola he’s built, the epitome of belonging. His old black T-shirt has ‘Rural Fire Service’ fading on the front; boot protectors fit over his shoes. Andy is properly local: 17 years ago he bought this property, from where he can almost see the property on which he grew up. He is a stonemason, a garden landscaper; practical in a way you don’t get from urban living.

We sit in the sun, patting Boston, eating cake. Dan talks more, but directs traffic to his partner: ‘Andy, could you talk about burning?’

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When Andy speaks it is with authority. He only joined the RFS two years ago, but is heavily involved, keen to make change. He talks of big changes, decades in the making: of hazard reduction burns being smaller blazes every five years instead of the prescribed 10. Of prioritising the health of bushland with cool, slow burns.

Both men are fascinated by cultural burning: the Indigenous practice of lighting small (knee-high) burns in circular patterns from the inside out.

According to their proponents, when done well, these low-intensity blazes not only help prevent bushfires but allow animals to escape, encourage the growth of native vegetation and leave a healthy mosaic of plants. These changes are more than theoretical to the couple: last summer was the most destructive up here in living memory, and their property was loaded with bone-dry 11-year-old fuel.

There was fire on their doorstep for more than three months as the Gospers Mountain fire burned in the Wollemi National Park. As Dan explains, ‘That’s a whole community thinking about one thing, talking about one thing—at the local pub, the IGA—for months.’ Andy and many others didn’t work during the season, instead volunteering for the RFS. On 21st December, Dan was evacuated while Andy spent 24 hours straight fighting fire. It burned to within a kilometre of their property before the wind changed.

Then there was the aftermath: intense gratitude mixed with a weird anticlimax and the knowledge that there will always be another summer.

Dan says, ‘This is home, this is subject for painting, this is everything for us. It’s so out of your control when summer rolls in. If nothing’s done about it, you’re potentially saying goodbye.’

We walk around the property, past the amazing claw-footed bath with views over the bush, stopping for Andy to dig with strong hands in the soil, showing the city dweller the hummus layer and the moisture beneath. We arrive at the studio—the centrepiece of any artist profile. This light, calm space is made >

from two repurposed shipping containers, big doors opening out on to trees. It is still under construction— it needs lights, a fireplace—but Dan moved in last week, hanging a few paintings on the walls. They’re gorgeous, muted pieces, of bush and light, the changing play of fire and weather and smoke and haze, the splodges of paper daisies. What they’re not about is harshness, fear, the intense black of destruction or bright green regrowth. Dan’s take is that they’re devoid of time: they are during, before and after. ‘It’s sort of like trying to paint the event, but retain the beauty. I feel like I’m painting the bigger picture.’

Dan has always loved the bush, been fascinated by Indigenous histories. He grew up a creative kid in western Sydney, starting at the National Art School in 2008 without a Plan B. He moved in with Andy a year later, only a month after they met. Dan’s style developed here as he learned to see the bush, trained his eye to see its history and beauty.

His appreciation and love of the land is obvious as he speaks, walks, looks, paints: the animals, the plants, the land and its light, moods and changes. As he puts it, ‘You’ve got to live it. You’ve got to see it every day in all of its changes. It’s a never-ending subject.’ But he’s an observer rather than part of it: as he says, he could never join the RFS, but he bakes a cake for every meeting. So instead of belonging, he’s interpreting, translating what he sees. So others can see the beauty, the cycles, the preciousness and precariousness. And they can understand and share.

‘We’re just trying to make the richest life possible.

Painting, cooking, bushwalking, gardening: it all creates a world here.’

Dan gives me a tour of the garden, scattered with intricacies: skulls and sculptures, bright South African flowers that look like toucans, or lizards wearing hats. Andy goes back to framing, giving me an apt metaphor on which to end. Because while Dan makes the art, it’s Andy and the land that provide the frame. n

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SHANNON GARSON

I’ve wanted to be an artist ever since I was a little girl in primary school. Back then, I didn’t even know what an artist really did and I certainly didn’t know any real artists, but I was searching.

Living in a very small country town made this search difficult, so while I searched I also practiced. Art is an undeniable force that has driven me for my whole life.

Words Shannon Garson Photographs Shannon Garson, Annabelle Hickson

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For many years I couldn’t even tell people I was an artist, because the words just didn’t seem true. This private, solitary journey to become was undertaken alone, mostly in my head. Yet, in the outside world, where I was learning skills and gaining experience, I found a powerful, generous, magical strand of people who helped me get the skills I needed and who have supported me throughout my career.

These magical people, I recognise now, are those who would be called my peers, other artists. My first art teacher was an old-fashioned watercolourist with a passion for native flora. Marvene Ash was an artist living in a little wooden house with her tiny baby and huge, emotional pastel drawings of everyday things like couches, shoes and cakes. I went to Marvene’s house every

Wednesday after school and learned how to draw what I could see.

So many chance meetings along the way: I was always hopeful of finding people who were inspiring to me and when I saw them I tried to meet them. While I was doggedly following this obscure solitary path, my peers helped me by giving me the tools I needed to keep going.

There were no huge events that shaped my career, but rather a series of small but powerful influences that continue to carve my path like the action of water on stone, making channels, carving river valleys changing my course. It seems that I have to continually ask myself, ‘Do I want to be an artist?’ and then choose, once again, to go forward and be one. n shannongarsonporcelain.com.au

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artist

DEL GOSPER

Del Gosper is standing in her living room, surrounded by books, piles of old The World of Interiors magazines and art. She tells me not to bother sitting on the deep, dark pink sofa, because it is not at all comfortable. The kettle is on. Del’s pulled out a stack of her favourite books and she flicks open a biography of Henri Matisse’s wife.

Words AnnabelleWords Hickson andPhotographs photographsxxxxxxxxxx Annabelle Hickson

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‘It’s like he just sucked the energy out of her completely,’ says Del, pointing to the photo of a 60-year-old Amélie Matisse being carried out of her house on a stretcher.

‘Everything was focused on Henri.’

According to the book, soon after Matisse met Amélie he said, ‘I love you dearly, mademoiselle, but I shall always love painting more.’ For (almost) the rest of their married life, Amelie was happy to be his wife and manager, devoting herself to Matisse and his work. In the end he sacked her from his studio.

She divorced him. He died.

‘Amélie became more and more unwell over time.

She couldn’t walk,’ says Del, waving the book in her hand. ‘But when Henri dies, she gets up with a new energy and starts collating all of his work.’

How much to give and how much to take is a topic on my mind. I’ve just left my husband at home with our children to do this interview. He is busy pruning the trees that provide the bulk of our income. I am busy too, I say. The children don’t seem to mind and they are good at making toasted sandwiches. So I drive off and that not unfamiliar worry of am-Itaking-too-much pecks at me from its perch in my chest. Ed prunes and I wonder if his chest hurts too.

And then I wonder if my chest should be hurting more, because after five minutes on the road it’s not really hurting at all.

‘Perfectionism, good-ism, being the good, helpful person,’ says Del. ‘It can really stop you from doing the things you want to do.’

Now in her seventies, Del spends most of her time painting on the north-facing verandah of her small brick cottage in the New South Wales town of Tenterfield. Her three sons are grown men, she has retired and, after selling her family farm in the Bangalow hinterland, has lived in this sweet onebedroom cottage with the bathroom on the verandah for the past seven years. She fills her days with what makes her feel good: her books and her painting and her cooking.

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‘If I get too bogged down in other things, I get a really sore back.

‘That has helped me to decide to stay here and just paint. That’s what I like to do, that’s what makes me feel happy and that’s what helps my back.’

When her boys were young, Del chose to push many of her personal interests to the side. She always put her family first. Her former husband worked a lot and so she kept the home fires burning; for a while, quite literally, with a large wood-fired kiln. She’d make ceramics between her other commitments, but that became too hard and she stopped.

A bit later when the boys were in their teens, she began making patchwork quilts. ‘I used to cut up bits of material and sew them back together,’ she says matter-of-factly, adding that for someone like her— the youngest of five girls—there was a lot of male energy in this part of her life. ‘It was a way of remaking my world somehow.’ Later she started painting, taking classes here and there, while continuing to be the backbone of her family as a mother and a grandmother.

I don’t think Del regrets any of the time spent nurturing her family. She doesn’t give that impression at all. What she does make clear is that she values the time, space and freedom that comes with living by herself in this stage of her life.

‘I often have a roast dinner at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, a glass of wine or two and then not much at night. This freedom to listen to my body and do things at my own pace, it’s so precious. I am very grateful.’

Del discovered the Tenterfield area through her late partner Jim, a ‘beautiful soul’ whom she started seeing in 1995. ‘We never lived together because he worked throughout New South Wales. But whenever we got together, we’d get in the car and head west. He showed me this lovely New England area.

‘Our travels made me realise I didn’t love the coast so much. So when I sold the farm, I thought, well, >

‘WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN TOLD IT’S GOOD TO SOCIALISE, THAT YOU’VE GOT TO HAVE SOCIAL INTERACTION.’

I think I’ll go to Tenterfield. Everyone said, “what do you want to go there for?” For me, it was the old buildings, this sense of history, the landscape and the seasons.’ Jim had already bought a house around the corner. He never lived there: they had talked about moving in together, but that’s not how it worked out. Jim died this year.

Del says they had a wonderful time together and that, along with many other things, Jim had taught her to not take herself so seriously. ‘I always thought I would go first,’ she adds and then laughs, as if following Jim’s advice.

Del has also formed close friendships with a handful of women around her age in Tenterfield.

Some came from the coast as she did, and most of them are single. Her family lives within a few hours’ drive from her cottage, and one of her sons lives, on and off, in the shed in the garden. This network—as well as the visual inspiration she gets from following artists on Instagram (she just looks rather than comments: ‘I wouldn’t really know what to say’)—is all Del needs. That, and her books and paints and cooking pots.

Since moving to Tenterfield, Del has discovered how much joy she gets from spending time alone.

She said the move, as well as the book Quiet by Susan Cain, gave her permission to not feel as though she should be socialising all the time.

‘We’ve always been told it’s good to socialise, that you’ve got to have social interaction,’ but Del points out that for introverts, time alone is important, too, and there is nothing wrong with choosing it.

‘Back in the seventies, they changed the classroom configuration and instead of having the kids lined up facing the teacher, they were in little groups facing each other. There was no recognition with all this stuff that not all people want to socialise.’

I can’t help but think of my time in an open-plan office, crouching under my desk to find the privacy I needed to be able to concentrate. Or last weekend

when Ed said, ‘Let’s take the kids for a walk to the waterfall’ and I made up some reason why I had to stay at home so I could lie in the bath in silence until it went cold.

Del puts down the Matisse book and makes a pot of tea. We sit on the sunny verandah where she paints still life images of persimmons and bunches of flowers from friends and ceramic pieces that catch her eye. She likes painting these everyday things.

The challenge to paint the shapes in front of her, without her brain reminding her that it’s a persimmon or a rose, motivates her to keep on painting. She doesn’t have exhibitions and she’s not interested in making her art a business. Occasionally she posts photos of her paintings on Instagram, but only when she ‘finds the courage’.

To me it looks like Del has courage in spades. She seems to have found a balance—one that works for her—between how much to give to others and how much to take for herself. She has figured out how to avoid the stretcher and instead stride into this new stage of life where her days are about space and freedom and colour and shape.

‘What do you do if you don’t do this stuff?’ says Del. ‘I mean, what else do you do, when you’re an old woman?’

I have no idea what any of us are meant to be doing.

How much is too much? How little is not enough?

The balance of giving and taking shifts every day, and, at least in my experience, never seems to find a permanent equilibrium. I am a good mother and borderline neglectful, a loving wife and an absent partner, a solid friend and completely flaky. I don’t know if I’m getting any of it right. But I am trying.

And from where I’m sitting, watching Del, I can see that some things are worth striving for. We must erect some boundaries around our own hearts.

Sometimes the walls will be too high, other times not high enough. But the striving alone might help keep the stretchers at bay. At least for another day. n

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zoe young paints

LUCY CULLITON Portraiture is not easy—nothing will ever ask more of the painter than a face—but one of the great things about painting people is that you get to meet them. I’ve had some great conversations with Hollywood film directors, Olympic sports stars, fashion designers, writers and a list of incredible individuals who have enriched my life beyond the portrait. In this series of works for Galah, I have embarked upon ‘Goodtraits’, a project to find and paint individuals in regional Australia who are cultivating some good, in their own way.

I first met Lucy Culliton when she was judging the local art award at The Raglan Gallery in Cooma, southern New South Wales. At the time, I was living at our family hotel at Crackenback. After one of my woodcuts won an award, Lucy invited me to visit her home and studio in Bibbenluke.

I didn’t know how to drive then, so Mum offered to take me, no doubt hoping some of Lucy’s creative success might rub off.

Lucy said we were welcome to join her for ‘feed time’, as she proudly showed us her mob of rescued sheep, dogs, cockatoos, lambs, chickens, geese, emus and horses. We were delighted by Lucy’s frank tone when it came to her animals. ‘If you want your dinner, fucking stand back,’ she said to one boisterous sheep.

Mum had been dubious about the sustainability of my life as an artist. The recent announcement that I was pregnant hadn’t helped. But I saw a spark of hope in her when she met Lucy. She was absolutely riveted by this self-assured and independent individual; the only woman she’d ever met who had made a success of the path that I, too, had chosen.

Since then Lucy has been, for want of a better word, a ‘mentor’. She’s never advised me to do anything; however, she has led by example and has been a generous and honest friend when I’ve asked questions.

While Lucy was at art school, a lecturer announced to the room that, of all the art students there, statistically only one would make it as an artist. Ever the individual, Lucy smiled to herself. ‘That’s me,’ she thought. Lucy has the most integrity of any artist I’ve met. She competes with no-one, yet conquers all.

From a pet sheep in her bathroom, to common weeds elevated to the status of prized peonies, under

Lucy’s gaze every inch of the painting, even the air, is painted with a sincerity that is hard to emulate.

While other artists scream for attention with the shock of the new horrific, in this year’s Archibald Prize Lucy sang a soft ballad of the farmer next door, her neighbour Charlie Maslin, quietly bringing our attention to the regenerative work he is doing on the land.

Lucy’s home is full of love, work and care. It’s a smorgasbord of collections, clusters of figurines, draped crochet and works by her friends Ben Quilty, Reg Mombassa and Euan Macleod—testament to the way she is respected in the art world. Windows frame a view onto the cascading garden of hellebores, blossoms and daffodils, swaying in the spring breeze.

‘Lucyland’ is enchanting, but beauty is not enough to keep devastation at bay. This year has been tough.

Lucy’s parents lived on a farm in the Blue Mountains. During the bushfires, she moved them to Bibbenluke to escape the fires. The fires found them anyway, as flames licked the nearby pine plantations.

The exposure to smoke did its damage and Lucy’s mother died 11 days before her father.

‘I really miss him when I finish a painting,’ Lucy says quietly, during our sitting. ‘He was always really excited to see a painting and was interested, I miss that.’ Having the same relationship with my own father, I can’t begin to fathom the void left behind.

Since painting Lucy’s portrait I’ve been thinking how those in her orbit are touched by a generosity not just of things, but of thoughts. So often we think being generous is about how much we can give in things, in objects. But really, generosity of spirit— giving people the confidence to pursue their dreams, believing in people—that’s true generosity, and Lucy has it in spades. n Lucy Culliton lives and works in her studio at Bibbenluke, on the Monaro, New South Wales. One of Australia’s most recognised female contemporary artists, she is the only female Australian artist to be a finalist in the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes in the same year. Her work can be found in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Parliament House, Canberra; the National Gallery of Australia; Macquarie Bank; the New England Regional Art Museum; and Tamworth Regional Gallery.

Words and artwork Zoe Young

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ART SCENE

with Fiona Bateman @fionabatemanart

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D an Kyle @dan_kyle @edwinacorlettegallery @martinbrownecontemporary It’s as if Dan is part of his forested plot in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, where he paints gums and paper daisies. There’s endless subject matter in those trees and that land: he could keep painting it forever and we would never tire of it.

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K iata Mason @kiatamasonart @akbellingergallery Kiata has an enchanting way with colour and scale that makes you feel an intimate part of her work. Her paintings are nostalgic without being sentimental; here she has put all my favourite things together and painted them, as if it was done just for me.

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R obert Malherbe @robert_malherbe @michaelreidsydney @michaelreidberlin @jamesmakingallery A celebration of the human form, Robert’s strong colours and cropped positions combined with tender skin tones are always an absolute joy to behold. A Malherbe nude has such presence that it could be hanging among a hundred other paintings and your eyes would always go straight to it.

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Nicole Kelly @nk_nk_ @arthousegallery I adore this painting, part of a series made during isolation. Nicole says, ‘These new works are a direct observation of my own familiar and private domestic space, and a search for stability, in unfamiliar times. They consider the unexpected stillness and the experience of a deeper connection with that which we are surrounded by.’

Artworks Dan Kyle After the Burn 2019 oil and mixed media on board 120 x 120 cm; Kiata Mason Gardener’s Table 2019 acrylic on canvas 95 x 95 cm; Robert Malherbe DS 16 2020 oil on linen 72 x 72 cm; Nicole Kelly Kitchen sink (portrait of isolation) 2020 oil on polyester 53 x 48 cm.

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Evelyn Malgil @warmunart @galeriepompom Evelyn Malgil is a traditional owner for Winniper Springs in the Kimberley, who paints her Country. That streak of deep blue, the pebbly shapes and the bright colours are joyful, but this work was exhibited as part of Between the Fence and Freedom, suggesting the undercurrent of discontent.

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Gemma King @oldbob.originals @walchagallery Gemma uses a reduction linocut process where more is carved out of the block with each layer.

One morning in Walcha it was so smoky that Gemma King had to rest her eyes after moving a mob of sheep through the scrub. When she opened them again an ocean of smoke had hidden the anthill that was close by. It was a beautiful vision but one she hopes to never see again.

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S amuel Miller @ninuku_arts @yaamaganugallery Samuel Miller was born at Ernabella Mission and now resides in the Kalka Community, South Australia. Miller’s paintings depict the traditional iconography of his Country using mesmerising and varied colour, largely drawn from the radiant colours in the landscape that surrounds Kalka.

I can’t wait to see Miller’s new show at Yaama Ganu Gallery, Moree, early in 2021.

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Eleanor Louise Butt @eleanor_louise_butt @nicholasthompsongallery Abstraction in Mustard and White was painted while in residency at Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, UK. Butt wrote, ‘The rough winter ocean smashed against towering granite cliffs and reverberated through my legs and into my body. I hadn’t imagined that I could be inspired by landscape in a way that wasn’t visual.’

Artworks Evelyn Malgil Winniper Springs 2015 #1 acrylic on canvas 100 x 140 cm; Gemma King Anthill in Smoke II 2020 linocut on fabriano 25 x 25 cm; Samuel Miller King Untitled 2019 acrylic on canvas 91 x 91 cm; Eleanor Louise Butt Abstraction in mustard and white 2019 oil on cotton 47 x 42 cm.

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WINDOW SHOPPING with Caitlin Melling @caitlinmelling

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Avalon and Co, Tamarama, NSW Modern Love beach towel 170 x 170 cm, $240. theavalonandco.com

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Tigmi Studio, Byron Bay, NSW Brass trapeze mirror 110 x 90 cm, $785. tigmitrading.com

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Tony Assness X Alex and Trahanas Roman banquet candle, $169. alexandtrahanas.com

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Banjo & Co, Walgett, NSW Linen bed sheet set queen size, $539. banjoandcohome.com

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Winterwares, Fremantle, WA Stoneware mug, $49. winterwares.com.au

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Elise Cameron-Smith, Helensburgh, NSW Pleated shell sculpture made with love and white beech 16 x 14 x 4 cm, $350. elisecameron-smith.com.au

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Mimi Thorisson Old World Italian: Recipes and Secrets from Our Travels In Italy, $69.99. penguin.com.au

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Sarah Nedovic, Melbourne, Vic Ceramic lamp handmade to order 50–60 cm tall excluding shade, $2,350 (+ GST). sarahnedovic.com

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Alex and Trahanas Apulian oval ceramic aperitivo plate 27 x 18 x 5 cm, $85. alexandtrahanas.com

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Jatana Interiors, Federal, NSW Cappuccino Cuzco tiles 20 x 20 cm each, $7.20 each (sample price). jatanainteriors.com.au

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Dog Boy Knives, Brompton, SA Recycled sawmill blade chef’s knife with timber handle, $POA. dogboyknives.com

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BOOKS with MEG MASON

A LITTLE AREA At the end of 2018, I was on a book program, a live panel discussion with two doyennes of the publishing industry and me, a doyenne of my own kitchen; talking about our best books of the year.

Bookshop shelves had bowed under the weight of good Australian fiction that year so it made sense that the doyennes listed between them Boy Swallows Universe (Trent Dalton), The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (Holly Ringland), The Shepherd’s Hut (Tim Winton) and others. I was surprised that by the finish, neither had named a single international title, since it was also the year of Olivia Laing’s Crudo, Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under and Richard Powers’ The Overstory. Rachel Cusk gave us Kudos, the last of her trilogy. Karl Ove Knausgaard concluded My Struggle and I concluded mine with his. And then, of course there was Sally Rooney’s Normal People which threw critics into such paroxysms of delight, we all felt duty-bound to read it, even those of us with legally recognised relationships and jobs and thus not her target demographic.

They were all on my list, as well as the Patrick Melrose trilogy (Edward St Aubyn) which, not new, was new to me and I was fizzing to talk about it. So finally, the moderator said, and now, Meg, what were your favourite Australian books of the year?

No doubt it had said so in the email invitation which, even less doubt, I would

have read on my phone, at traffic lights or the fish counter, intending to come back to it later, forgetting to, and thus, missing the key word, ‘Australian’.

The studio lights seemed to get so much hotter in the seconds I spent trying to come up with one, then trying to think of a way to say without saying that I hadn’t read a single Australian book that year, nor could I recall an Australian title I had read ever, because I don’t really go in for local fiction.

My defence is flimsy, although twopronged. First prong, much of Australian fiction deals with landscape, but I grew up in New Zealand. The landscape in my bones is mountains and kauri forests and dark green rivers. When I first moved here, before I got my eye in, the Australian landscape just seemed brown, and hot.

I see the beauty of it now, but there still isn’t a sense of deep recognition, the feeling of home, which I feel as though I need in a book to love it.

Second prong, I didn’t read when I was young so I never did the Alibrandis and Alison Ashleys, which are surely preparatory texts for future enjoyment of the Moriartys.

When I finally came to reading, I had all the classics to get through and once I’d done

Dickens et al, I glanced right past Australian fiction, 1900 to present, in the rush to get to Woolf and Waugh, and onwards to Muriel Spark, Dodie Smith and the Barbaras, both Pym and Trapido.

Still, on the way home from the panel and out of shame—as an adult woman, the single motivating force behind all my actions and decisions—I vowed to read the Australian canon. Happily, after googling ‘the Australian canon’, I realised I have read, and deeply loved, a lot of homespun novels already. They’re just old, or slight.

These forgotten volumes might already be on your shelves, wedged between a pair of Peter Careys and, if so, they deserve to be taken down and dusted off.

If they are not, they might fit well in the space made when you Lifeline-book-fair all your Bryce Courtenays.

I thought I would write about one here: Jessica Andersons’s Tirra Lirra by the River (Macmillan, 1978; this edition is published

by Picador, 1997). It’s a slender volume—to paraphrase Nancy Mitford, a perfect little cutlet of a book—about a woman escaping a dreary marriage, as all the best novels are; in this case, to a man who is sanctimonious and mean and called Colin.

Nora leaves him, and Sydney, for London where she becomes a dressmaker, rents rooms in crumbling Georgian terraces, falls in with racy people and says things like, ‘all the same, unless I have a warm bath very soon, and I lie down, something regrettable is bound to happen.’

What won me to her and the book, utterly by page 19, is her explaining: ‘In whatever circumstances I have found myself, I have always managed to devise a little area, camp or covert, that was not too ugly.

At times it was a whole room, but at others it may have been only a corner with a handsome chair, or a table and a vase of flowers. Once, it was a bed, a window, and a lemon tree. But always, I have managed to devise it somehow, and no doubt I shall do it again.’

Reading the entire Australian canon is far too lofty a goal, I have decided. But I hope, here, I can devise a little area, for books— chiefly Australian—that will nourish, cheer, or draw the eye away from a grim backdrop we can’t do anything about.

It might lead me on to the heftier volumes.

But, as Nora says at a point vis. how much housework she is willing to do, for now, ‘this is absolutely as far as I intend to go’. n

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SONGS OF THE EARTH & SKY In this unprecedented year, Trisha Dixon swapped international travel for a bicycle that allows her to explore her local landscape at a slower pace.

When I came to live on the Monaro plains at the foothills of the Snowy Mountains in my mid-twenties, we were plunged straight into drought after drought.

Thankfully I had a pilot’s licence and a writing and photography background to fall back on. I took on commissions, and, with time, my work led me further and further afield. Now, I am fortunate to take tours to the Greek islands, cycling and sightseeing in France, Morocco and throughout Australia.

This year, of course, looks very different.

COVID-19 has clipped my wings and I’ve found myself at home for the longest stretch in over a decade. But what fun it is. It’s such a relief not to be in and out of cars, planes and boats and instead to be able to immerse myself in the beauty of home.

My fabulously unconventional parents thought nothing of canoeing, rafting and exploring wild rivers—sleeping in old army hammocks slung between two trees along isolated river banks. My father always wanted me to see as much of Australia as possible before going overseas. I am now so pleased I followed his creed, as it did imbue such an incredibly strong sense of country and of place. And of the vernacular. Of beauty in deserts and gorges, in the road less travelled, in old rural buildings and being able to travel simply.

This has stood me in great stead while abroad, but also at home too. And especially now.

I’ve been out on the bicycle each day exploring every small dirt road I can, with stops for photographs along the way. It’s the vernacular that catches my heart strings. A simple sheet of corrugated iron, mud spattered or with peeling paint, has as much resonance as walking through a stand of white-trunked eucalypts or an abandoned farmhouse in rural France.

I often think about the Australian sculptor Rosalie Gascoigne who, in her late fifties, began transforming found farm objects from around this area—pieces of corrugated iron, old road signs, wire, wooden crates and enamelware—into pure poetry. She knew about the beauty of the vernacular. She knew how to shine a light on it so that it glowed.

Somehow Gascoigne, and other artists such as Fred Williams and Arthur Boyd, and writers such as Tim Winton, Bruce Pascoe and Charles Massy help us see more than what simply meets the eye.

Their work rests deep within, and can transform the way we see, we evaluate, we marvel at our surrounds.

‘Like the druids of old,’ Gascoigne said, ‘artists should sing songs of their district.’

That’s what this unplanned but joyous stretch at home has given me time to do: to sing a song of this district—an ancient landscape that comes back from the brink of drought, fires, floods and all we impose on it, and nurtures, delights and uplifts the spirit.

A place that will always welcome me home. n

Words & photograph Trisha Dixon

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CHASING THE LIGHT I’m looking at a photo of a garden in central New South Wales.

I’m there. The sun is setting behind me. My eyes dart from the eucalypt-forested hill in the background, down through the blue and purple zigzag of perennials to the yellow and blurred grasses in the foreground, while a constellation of stars or snow or … what are those exploding insect things in the sky glinting at me? I don’t know, but they are delightful and golden and I can feel the cool night air coming. I want it all, so I drink with my eyes and gulp my tea and stare, and before I know it I’m chanting the Jack Kerouac quote buried somewhere in the notfront part of my brain about how the only people for him are the mad ones, ‘the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.’

Words Annabelle Hickson Photographs Claire Takacs, Thomas Gooch Gardens Hillandale, Yetholme, NSW; The Garden Vineyard, Moorooduc, Victoria; Claire photographing the garden at Great Dixter, East Sussex, England; Cloudehill, Olinda, Victoria.

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What I am trying to say is that you can be sitting on a once-white sofa in your tracksuit pants in front of the computer on a Tuesday afternoon and this is what a photograph by Claire Takacs can do to you.

Claire is an Australian photographer at the top of her game. She takes remarkable photos of remarkable gardens all over the world; from Piet Oudolf’s naturalistic Netherlands dream at Hummelo, to Christopher Lloyd’s Great Dixter and Dan Pearson’s Lowther Castle in the United Kingdom, or the new masterpiece of Windcliff in the United States. She has published two books and is now working with Noel Kingsbury—in my view the greatest writer about contemporary naturalistic garden design—on a new book to be released in 2021.

Claire didn’t start taking photos seriously until she enrolled in a two-year photography course in Melbourne when she was 26. She had always liked art, especially landscape painting, but she didn’t consider herself to be creative. After an environmental science degree which she ‘completed after four quite miserable years,’ she bought a one-way ticket to Europe and spent a few years there, working to travel, before coming home, ready to commit to a career. A walk on the Sorrento beach, involving a rainbow and a sunset, helped her realise she wanted to take photos.

And so she went to photography school.

‘The photography course cost a fortune and in no way held up to its promises, but it did teach me about light,’ says Claire. ‘Part of the course was a landscape assignment which led me to Cloudehill, Jeremy Francis’s beautiful garden in Olinda [Victoria]. It reminded me of the grand gardens I had seen in Europe, so I asked Jeremy if I could photograph it.’

Jeremy agreed, and from that morning on, Claire was hooked. Jumping fences in the predawn mist with a tripod and camera was to be her metier.

‘There was a definite moment of magic that morning, watching the light start to highlight the tops of the trees and move through the garden. My job was to watch it and chase it, capturing the garden in the most beautiful way I could, with the help of light. I had sensed then, and I still do now, that gardens are living works of art that change day by day, moment by moment,’ says Claire.

‘It wasn’t really a conscious decision to become a garden photographer. It was more of a feeling and then a relentless determination to make it happen. I had found something, finally, which I felt passionate about. I gave everything to make this happen.’

For much of the past 15 years, Claire has had no fixed address. She travels the globe to photograph

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gardens at their peak, one month here, one month there. It sounds glamourous, but behind the gorgeous photos is a lot of hard work. Claire has amassed a significant body of work, a keen appreciation for garden design and, thanks to her time with Noel, a growing knowledge of plants. Ansel Adams said you bring to the act of photography all the pictures you’ve seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved. Claire’s photos are so much more than clicks of a button.

‘The great joy in what I do comes from a place of complete presence. When I am in a garden and the light is good, I seem to get into a flow state. In the beginning it felt like a kind of magic. But now I know it’s about being completely present in a space where thoughts subside. I can just be and create and it’s often just me and the garden, which is how I like it most. Nature, beauty and light are guiding forces.’

Claire speaks with gratitude about the work she does and the connections she makes, but she also touches on the difficulties of her career.

‘It has been a long and solitary road. My social life has definitely taken a back seat. I have often given my work all of me, which I now realise is not right. I am never bored, but there needs to be balance and rest.

‘Financially, for many years it was hard to survive.

And a frustration I still face today is that people seem to love my photography, they need it and want to publish it, but don’t want to pay for it. There is a constant flow of questions and requests from people for advice and my time for free. I don’t have a lot of free time as it is, so I find this challenging.’

Before COVID put an end to most of her travel plans for this year, Claire had hoped to visit the Tokachi Millennium Forest in Hokkaido, to photograph the park commissioned by entrepreneur Mitsushige Hayashi to offset the carbon footprint of his national newspaper business and to offer Japan’s mainly urban population the chance to engage with the landscape, forest, gardens and farms.

In a reverse way, Claire’s photos have let me engage with landscapes and gardens and farms, without having to fly the miles to see them. A virtual Tokachi experience with no offsets required. Her photos have given me an opportunity to channel Jack Kerouac and most importantly they’ve given me the drive to build a garden for myself.

So while I cut back my perennials, Claire is living in the UK, working on her book project with Noel, planning trips for when the world reopens and she is free to chase the light that explodes like so many spiders across the stars. n

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A DROUGHT SURVIVAL PLAN In Australia, the next drought is inevitable. Yet all around me I hear, ‘when the seasons return to normal’ and ‘now that the drought is over’. It’s as if we refuse to recognise the nature of our land. But we must consider the way we garden, the way we farm and the plant choices we make to survive with these droughts, not in spite of them.

Words Carolyn Robinson Photography Claire Takacs, Annabelle Hickson

drought. My father always said that when you need your dams the most, they are dry. So instead we invested in two 250,000 litre tanks, not ever thinking that for almost a year my 2.5 hectare garden would, or in fact could, survive largely intact with a handheld hose.

In retrospect, I have realised that there were several factors that assisted in that survival.

I have gardened through severe droughts before. Between 1991 and 1995, 2000, 2002 and 2009, with prolonged dry spells in between. But this most recent three-year drought, particularly last year, was off the charts.

Especially the extraordinary heat, which made everything worse.

Soil, plant and atmospheric moisture was stripped away and we watched as the tree canopies in our gardens and native bushlands around us fried in the daily heat.

The worst aspect of droughts is how interminable they seem. The dry bare soils, the dust and then the smoke. Day after day after day. And then one day it rains.

When we moved to Eagles’ Bluff, a property in a quiet valley south of the New South Wales town of Tenterfield, I was well aware that my water supply was limited. Our small river did not run permanently and our soils were not conducive to holding water in dams. I do believe dams can be useful, but unless they are monstrous in size or spring fed, they are of limited help in a severe

PREPARATION When I create a new garden bed, I incorporate large quantities of organic matter, which greatly increases the moisture-holding capacity of the soil. I also rip the soil deeply. This enables plant roots to push far down into the soil in their early life. I then protect the beds and new plants with rock mulches.

On the subject of mulches, many people think that mulching heavily with organic mulches such as lucerne will protect their gardens from drought. But if the mulches are too thick, the small amounts of rain that do fall during a drought do not get through to the soil underneath. I used organic mulch very sparingly during the drought period so as to maximise the penetration of our rainfall.

After all, I certainly didn’t have to worry about weeds.

PLANT KNOWLEDGE Another key to the garden’s survival was my doggedness with the hose. I had a written schedule and hand-watered the gardens systematically. Although not all plants received a drink. Those

that I knew (or hoped) were tough enough had to manage on the small amount of rain we received.

I have gleaned more knowledge on plant drought-hardiness and resilience in the past two years than I had in the previous 10!

A couple of other things became clear, too. The plants that were the real survivors were also the biggest bullies: eucalyptus species, Chinese elms, gleditsia, ceanothus, acacias and melaleucas, to name a few. The other plants surrounding these bullies had a real battle to garner any water, but I did make an effort to keep the understory alive, as I realised that replanting would be very difficult. What new planting could ever compete with such tactics?

To my surprise, the native species did not outperform my drought-hardy exotics. I had significant native losses, especially with more short-lived species such as grevilleas. It stands to reason that a plant nearing the end of its life would not fight to survive, especially if a plant is a reseeder not a resprouter. (This latter, with the ability to resprout from the hardwood following times of stress, is very much overlooked by gardeners. Removing a large, dead grevillea and replanting with a new one is much more difficult than watching your callistemons reshoot from their own hardwood.

That being said, I would not ever forgo my grevilleas: the habitat they provide for birds is fantastic.)

On the whole, I found that my deciduous or herbaceous species dealt with the prolonged drought better than many evergreens.

Many deciduous trees did not break their dormancy until almost the end of spring, after the good fall of rain at the beginning of November. It meant that these species needed very little moisture for six months; a huge benefit, especially when it came to my hand-watering efforts.

Evergreens, on the other hand, draw on soil moisture all year round. I should mention here, too, that frost exacerbates the effect of drought by dehydrating evergreen foliage further. Frosts are always harder in drought years when humidity and rainfall are low.

Despite the severity of the drought and its impact on our garden, the wider landscape had it worse. And so the garden became a haven for wildlife, with many birds, insects—particularly bees—reptiles and marsupials seeking refuge.

The garden pickings, however, were still very lean. The snakes I saw were very thin. Echidnas, who ordinarily hunt at night, were also busy during the day. They had a tough time digging for ants because the soil was so hard.

Nevertheless, the garden provided more than was available outside.

WHAT LIVES OR DIES There comes a time when you must decide which plants your can save with your limited water. My strategy was to let the reseeders go. Plants like gaura and centranthus will reward you aplenty with lots of babies following rain. Bulbous plants such as dahlias, and those with fleshy roots such as tradescantia

and hellebores, will retreat underground and then resprout when it rains.

With perennial plants that propagate through division, save one and let the others go. Last year when I was worried my water would not last, I built a holding bed and transplanted one of each of the plants I did not want to lose.

Concentrate instead on saving structural shrubs, trees and plants under the trees. Hedges too, although I found them difficult to water. I vowed that next time I plant a hedge, I’ll make sure it’s a resprouting species and I’ll plant it in a shallow trench so it can be flood irrigated.

Conifers, as a group, handled the drought poorly, with many losses; they don’t reshoot from the hardwood (an exception is English yew: Taxus baccata). A hedge with dead plants is a smile with a tooth missing.

Despite some losses, I am astonished at the survivability of so many species. It’s almost as if they metaphorically pulled in their belts, hunkered down, suspended growth or, in some cases, retreated underground and waited it out.

The water I was able to give to plants was limited: no more than a bucket each week. The soils became so dry that I dug a hole with a mattock around or uphill of the plants to help water penetration.

It kept them alive, just.

I experimented with pruning, lifting tree canopies and cutting shrubs back, but decided from observation that the rule of thumb is to wait to prune back only

following good rain. Pruning encourages a plant to want to grow which, if soils are dry, will only increase their stress.

There is no doubt that plant roots are compromised in drought and there is often significant dieback. Cutting back shrubs and perennials following good rain will facilitate their recovery.

IGNORE THE LAWN The drought was so severe and went on for so long that I thought that my lawn and grass areas could not possibly recover. They looked completely dead and in many areas there was just bare soil. Yet, a month after the resumption of good rain, the grass responded miraculously. The message here—particularly if you have running grasses such as kikuyu, buffalo, and couch—is not to waste precious water on lawns. They will recover.

To look on the bright side, there are gardening upsides to a drought: for almost a year I didn’t get out the mower and the weeds certainly kept their heads down.

I am so glad that I did not give up, although on so many occasions I nearly did. Talking to gardening friends helped; a misery shared was, to some extent, a misery halved or at least mitigated.

Over the past few years our land and gardens have endured floods, droughts and fires. The rain has come again and the gardens and hills are green. I think now is the time for us to hunker down, accept that droughts are part of life, and have a long think about what is happening to our precious planet. n

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CAROLYN’S LIST OF DROUGHT-HARDY PLANTS REQUIRED VERY LITTLE ADDITIONAL WATER trees and shrubs Abelia species Acacia species Acca sellowiana (feijoa) Arbutus x andrachnoides Atriplex nummularia Berberis species (can be heat affected) Buxus mycrophylla var. japonica Callistemon species Ceanothus x delileanus ‘Gloire de Versailles’ (where no tree competition) Coleonema pulchellum (dwarf) Cotinus coggygria Cytisus species Eleagnus ebbingei (if no tree competition) Eremophila species Eucalyptus species Euonymus japonicus Euonymus ‘Silver Queen’ Grevillea (shrubby varieties) Jasminum nudiflorum Lavandula angustifolia Magnolia grandiflora ‘Little Gem’ Mahonia bealei Nerium oleander Phlomis species and cultivars Prunus glandulosa ‘Rosea Plena’ Prunus laurocerasus and lusitanica Punica granatum (dwarf) Raphiolepis species Rosmarinus officinalis Senecio viravira Spiraea cantoniensis ‘Flora Plena’ Symphoricarpos albus Teucrium fruticans Ulmus parvifolia ‘Seiju’ Viburnum tinus

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perennials, small shrubs, ground covers and ornamental grasses

MINIMAL WATER NEEDED

Agapanthus varieties Allium species Amsonia tabernaemontana Artemisia species Ballota pseudodictamnus Beschorneria species Calamagrostis species Canna cultivars Dahlia varieties Euphorbia species Gazania species Helichrysum petiolare Iris tectorum Liriope species Lomandra species Miscanthus species Nepeta species Oreganum species Panicum species Pennisetum cultivars Perovskia atriplicifolia Poa species and cultivars Ruta graveolens Salvia (some species and cultivars) Santolina chamaecyparissus Sedum species Stipa species Tulbaghia violacea ‘John May Special’ Tradescantia species Yucca species

Anisodontea hypomandarum Buddleia species Caryopteris cultivars Ceanothus ‘Marie Simon’ Choisya ternata Cistus species Correa alba Cotoneaster dammeri and horizontalis Daphne odora Deutzia gracilis ‘Nikko’ Euonymus alatus Homoranthus species Ilex species (holly) Kunzea species Lagerstroemia species Loropetalum chinense Philadelphus species Roses Westringia species

(less than 10 litres per week)

shrubs

perennials, small shrubs and ground covers Achillea cultivars Agastachys species Aqueligia Bergenia species Boltonia asteroides Crambe maritima Dianthus species Echinacea Echinops ritro Epimedium species Erigeron Hellebores Knautia macedonica Melianthus major Polygonatum species Salvia species and cultivars

meet the producer

EDWARD HICKSON

Galah’s first featured Producer is my husband Edward Hickson, who grows pecans in the Dumaresq Valley on the New South Wales– Queensland border. I promise I’ll cast the net wider for future issues, but for now, please forgive me. I can’t help it, I think he’s great.

He’s really into sniffing soil. A handful from this paddock under the young trees, a handful from that paddock with the older trees, and then—he’s running now—another handful from over there under the gumtrees where it has never been cultivated. ‘Smell it Annie, isn’t it good?’ he asks, as he lifts his soil-filled hands to his nose and breathes in deeply. And I swear to you he partly closes his eyes as he inhales the rich hummus smell.

Ed Hickson grows pecans on the alluvial soils of the Dumaresq Valley, 80 kilometres west of Tenterfield. It’s a new industry for the district, and it’s been a steep learning curve for the former cotton farmer; however, he is determined, a little obsessive and not afraid to wait.

Pecan trees are slow to mature and need about seven years to produce nuts. You plant a pecan nut in its shell into the ground and, like magic, a pecan tree grows. Onto these baby trees you graft certain varieties that can pollinate each other with the wind. Pecans are relatively new to breeding, which means the varieties grown now are very close to ancient heirloom varieties. In late autumn a tree-shaking machine vibrates the trunks with such controlled force that the nuts pop off the trees like confetti.

Out where we live, they don’t need pesticides or fungicides. The longlived trees are majestic and, if we let them, they’d grow more than 30 metres tall. But Ed will prune them with giant spinning saw discs mounted onto tractors to keep them at 10 metres to optimise yields. You don’t want all the energy going into the height of a tree; you want the energy going into the nuts. This is one of the many things he has learned since planting the first lot of pecans seven years ago. >

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Words & photographs Annabelle Hickson

‘THERE’S A REAL INCENTIVE TO TRY TO GROW PECANS THAT TASTE BETTER AND HAVE MORE NUTRIENTS AND ARE ORGANIC, EVEN IF IT COSTS MORE. YOU CAN MAKE A BUSINESS OUT OF THAT BECAUSE YOU CAN ACCESS CUSTOMERS WHO ARE WILLING TO PAY.’

‘I always wanted to do a permanent crop. It’s such an interesting, longterm project where you have to use water efficiently, design and build infrastructure and maintain a living farm that goes on living for 100 plus years,’ Ed tells me over tea and scones (not really), while our daughter Daisy takes notes (really).

Ed has become obsessed with soil and microbiology. There are farmers who’ve been thinking about soil health for a lot longer than Ed, but he’s making up for lost time, experimenting with composting and soil biology.

One method he’s trialling is the Johnson–Su bioreactor, where you create a mini universe of bacteria and fungi in a large container through aerobic composting, which you can then use to inoculate farm soils.

‘I’m at the tip of the iceberg, but there is this whole new science behind soil health running in parallel with the science about the gut biome. The idea of having healthy, resilient crops through healthy soils, rather than relying on chemical and synthetic inputs, is immensely appealing.

‘From a business sense, I like the fact that pecans are a higher value product. I’ve always been in commodity agriculture where you’re racing to the bottom, trying to grow as much as you can as cheaply as possible.

There’s a real skill in that: using water as efficiently as possible, maximising yields. But with the pecans, I think there can be a different model.

‘There’s a real incentive to try to grow pecans that taste better and have more nutrients and are organic, even if it costs more. You can make a business out of that because you can access customers who are willing to pay for better products. Connecting with consumers, for the sort of farming I did before, was almost impossible, at least at my scale. You had to go through a lot of middlemen. Whereas with pecans, it’s not prohibitively expensive to access consumers directly and as a result you can be rewarded for delivering a quality product.

‘But mostly I just love the idea of an orchard, of being able to walk around in it, enjoy it. That is the real reason. Then you try to convince yourself with all the smart reasons as to why you are doing it, but don’t tell my bank manager that.’ n hicksonpecans.com

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APÉRO PECANS 50 g butter 2 tablespoons caster sugar 2 rosemary sprigs, leaves chopped 2 thyme sprigs, leaves picked

2 tablespoons fennel seeds ½ teaspoon dried chilli 2 teaspoons sea salt 500 g raw pecans

Melt butter and sugar in a large frying pan over medium heat. When the sugar has dissolved, add the herbs, fennel seeds, chilli and salt and cook for a minute or so. Tumble in the pecans and continue to cook, stirring, until the nuts are coated and toasted. Perfect with an aperitif before dinner.

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LIMITATIONS ‘Like most rural women, I wear many hats. In no particular order, I’m a mum, wife, food writer, social media educator, caterer, recipe developer and farmer.’

This was my opening line at a writers’ festival some years back; in that one line I listed five careers like it was no big deal.

Some time, and some anxiety about trying to stay across this multihyphenated creative career later, here’s the lesson I learned: without limits I end up feeling like a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’. And that’s not a nice feeling.

Fifteen years ago, I moved from Sydney to country New South Wales. In a high wind of new love, I’d quit my job as an editor and bid farewell to a career in magazines to live on a farm and marry the handsome man I’d just met.

Soon afterwards I started writing recipes, taking photos of them and sharing them in the newsletters I’d write for the farmers’ markets (we were on the road selling our farmed venison nearly every weekend for 10 years) and also online, in a tiny corner of the internet I made my very own.

My blog Local is Lovely was born and from there (cue loads of learning and hard graft) came all kinds of previously unimaginable opportunities. A cookbook. Then two. Now a third in the works?

Crazy! Collaborations, cooking workshops, social media seminars and catering for private functions.

I started my own podcast, I taught e-courses on content marketing to

small business people around the country and then I won the 2016 AgriFutures National Rural Women’s Award.

It is incredible just how many different opportunities can present themselves if you put yourself out there. I was saying yes to everything, and it was great and exciting and provided an income stream that was complementary to our farming business. But, for me at least, it wasn’t sustainable.

There are no limits to the things you need to learn, stay abreast of and be ‘top of your game’ at.

In my experience, having no or few limits to your professional offering is stressful. There are no limits to the things you need to learn, stay abreast of and be ‘top of your game’ at. It’s exhausting.

As any freelancer knows, closing yourself off to work is a scary prospect, but it was the sensible thing to do. I needed to pick a lane.

All over Instagram and beyond we see platitudes telling us to ‘live a life with no limits’, but what ever happened to the idea of doing just one thing well? And how do you choose that one thing?

So I wrote lists, brainstormed business ideas, made spreadsheets

and ultimately listened to my gut.

I realised that the thing I’ve always loved most and am best at, is writing and sharing recipes and stories around beautiful produce and the people behind it.

Here’s where I landed (and it’s my new ‘about me’ line): ‘I help producers and food businesses create, capture and share recipes and stories in a way that builds communities of advocates around their product or service.’

Next, I edited my ‘work with me’ page, started referring jobs to capable friends when I knew the jobs weren’t in my lane, and reframed the way I talked about what I did. I also signed up for online courses to deepen my skills, concentrated my reading and research. My confidence and my productivity bloomed.

This was all just a few short months ago, but so far so good. I am creating recipes and content for a manageable but wonderful list of clients, I am working on a reboot of my blog, a recipe-related podcast and I can’t wait to take my third cookbook on the road next year.

And when I do, when I stand up to talk about what I do at book events, I’m not going to talk about all those hats.

I’m just going to say, ‘Like most women who have had career changes, breaks, bumps and blips, it’s taken me a while to figure out exactly what I want to do. And this is it.’ n @locallovely; local-lovely.com

Words Sophie Hansen Photograph Annabelle Hickson 119

two ways

MERINO SHEEP

54 MERINO SHEEP

LEE TOWLE, GUNNING, NSW 120

Meet Lee Towle and John Hickson. They are both sheep farmers, but at very different ends of the scale. Lee rears her small flock on a grassy paddock in the Southern Highlands in New South Wales, while John runs his vast mob on his large grazing property in the north of the state.

They share their stories of how they cope with the ups and downs of breeding, feeding and succeeding with merinos.

8000 MERINO SHEEP JOHN HICKSON, BOOMI, NSW

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LEE TOWLE, GUNNING, NSW

I swear I could see a twinkle in his eye. Our very own Father Christmas, who arrived at dawn on Christmas Eve, driving a ute and trailer filled with young merino wethers and a gaggle of grandkids.

He pulled up, got out and opened up the back of the trailer. His grandchildren started making whooping noises and the sheep catapulted themselves off the trailer into the long grass. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing, except for us.

Co-captain and I, in yesterday’s clothes, with bed hair and not a slurp of tea between us, looked shellshocked as we watched the sheep scatter at speed.

Despite negotiating this delivery for four months, we hadn’t yet installed fence lines. Our small flock—our new tool in the plan to rejuvenate the land, this grassy paddock we called home—had arrived.

We count the boys every day. We subconsciously cast a quick glance to gauge their demeanour whenever we walk past a window. We know EXACTLY how many sheep we have on our place. Apparently this is not normal on the larger sheep farms.

I’m standing at the ag shop, waiting to talk to the livestock person. I’m here because I have read that I need to worm test and drench my sheep. And I want a bale or two of lucerne and something called licks because I’ve read that sheep don’t thrive on standing hay alone. The owner, trying to get a handle on the provenance of me and my sheep—how many, my skill level, experience at drenching and, actually, being around sheep at all—is asking me questions.

‘How many sheep?’

‘54,’ I reply. The one thing I truly did know.

He looks at me. Given my vagueness in every other area, my sureness here was unexpected.

‘54 wethers,’ I repeat. Finally, he decides it’s easier to throw the information at me and see where it lands.

I did not disappoint. I took home a worm test kit, a bale of lucerne, a lick and a brochure on sheep runs.

Some time later, I am doubled over in pain, trying to catch my breath, gasping. I had just outrun a flock of 54 sheep. It was drenching day and I had hoped to lure the sheep into the yards with a biscuit of hay. We had hand-reared four of the sheep, and they liked to stick to me, especially when I had a biscuit of hay.

They came close. The other sheep then decided they wanted to be close. And suddenly we were all running like mad towards the yards, with me just in front of the pack. That was a lesson, I thought, as I sucked in lungfuls of air, clutching onto the rail.

I recomposed myself for the task at hand. Armed with a spray-gun attached by a tube to a backpack of worm killer, I knew what I had to do. I knew where the gun had to be placed, I knew how to hold the head and I knew speed was important, but the only animals dewormed that day were myself and my Co-captain.

Over time, the boys have accepted me, or rather, my bucket of treats. Who am I kidding? It was only ever the treats. But our trips to the yards are now casual strolls along a drive, or across paddocks, like something out of old Europe. As they eat out of my hand I sneak a deep inhalation of their heads. The smell of unwashed wool, lanolin and musk immediately centres me, and connects me to my heart. Unless I smell a top note of cypress and then they are busted for having been in the tree lots.

After watching them for the past few years, I see they lean into each other. I think they do this as an act of reassurance. I find the act of leaning into these gentle souls satisfying, sustaining and reassuring too.

Daily visits and conversations mean I now get to lie down among the grazing flock, listen to them mow my grass, snuffle at my clothes or face, and see up close their fat woolly bodies, hooves and faces. I am utterly charmed by them.

I feel a sense of achievement at having earned my flock’s trust. I now select my flock according to who will produce a special fleece. I know stuff. I have acquired skills and knowledge far beyond anything I ever thought relevant to me. My flock have become my support as we adapt to this new life. Looking out the window to see my woolly sentinels rousing themselves for the day is affirmation that we are rural and on an adventure that is fantastically different to what we had originally planned.

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The wool industry can be a pretty traditional place and, for many of us, change happens one funeral at a time.

Our family has grazed merino sheep to produce wool for generations. When I came into the industry in the 1990s as a decision-making adult rather than a kid on the back of Dad’s motorbike, labour was cheap, chemicals were effective, mulesing was the norm and we were blissfully unaware of the effects of our grazing management on the environment.

Now things look different. We have chemical resistance and residue problems, we have a consumer who is much more environmentally and ethically aware and we run our sheep in very different ways.

The fundamental shift for me began when I attended a ‘Grazing for Profit’ school in 2003. My eyes were opened to a more holistic approach to running a business that worked for you, your animals and your environment. This approach not only accounted for short-term profit goals, but also longterm environmental goals, animal welfare goals and personal goals, such as having a holiday. Our next journey had begun.

At the school we were shown the deleterious effects that animals can have on grassland environments when they are continuously grazed. Since that time we have been running a time-control grazing system (cell grazing) where animals are run in bigger mobs on smaller areas of land for short periods of time. We also now run a certain number of stock per 100mm of rain. This, combined with careful observation of paddocks, means that we are only running the number of stock we have grass for.

We have also altered our breeding: instead of only breeding sheep to produce more better-quality wool, we have placed emphasis on producing an easy-care animal that is better suited to our environment.

Through all these changes we are seeing results.

And, while we haven’t had to wait for a funeral, it has taken time.

After a long campaign of selecting animals that are less prone to flystrike, we have recently stopped mulesing and have also greatly reduced the reliance of our enterprise on chemicals and labour.

The results, from a grasslands management perspective, are notable too. Where we once had bare paddocks that were slow to recover even after rain, we now have a proliferation of native grasses throughout the farm. We were able to maintain groundcover through the recent drought, which allowed the grasses to leap back into life when the rain finally came. These native perennial grasses

JOHN HICKSON, BOOMI, NSW

can be a powerful environmental tool, actively sequestering carbon dioxide from the air and putting it in the soil.

There is now interest in trying to measure how much carbon can be captured in grazing systems.

If it can be captured and measured, the sequestered carbon has the potential to provide both a positive environmental outcome and another source of income. Regardless, increasing carbon levels in the soil is a worthwhile thing to do. It increases water infiltration and storage capacity of the soil, which makes land more drought resilient and improves water catchments below.

We are making progress in our objective of producing a fibre that the consumer really wants, while improving our natural environment. There have, of course, been many challenges—the usual poor market conditions and long dry periods where we have had to destock; however, the most difficult challenge to overcome is the mindset that wants to take you back to that position of safety from where you have come.

We have found that to stay the road we need clear objectives and constant encouragement from a few others who understand what we are trying to achieve.

Twenty years ago we thought of ourselves as woolgrowers. Now we see ourselves as managers of a natural ecosystem that is producing the most environmentally friendly fibre.

We have a long way to go, but the future looks bright and we are confident that we are on the right road. n Photographs Em Callaghan, Annabelle Hickson

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THE JOYFUL PLEASURE OF CREATING SOMETHING FROM NOTHING Words & Photographs Michelle Crawford

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When the cupboard is nearly bare and I need inspiration, I turn to a battered old folder stashed in the corner of my overflowing bookcase, bursting with nearly 30 years of dog-eared pages— mostly about food—torn from newspapers and magazines.

One of the most memorable clippings it contains is a column from The Sydney Morning Herald, circa 1995, written by Jill Dupleix. Despite the passage of time, the recipe titles are ones that I easily recall—I don’t have to drag out the folder to recite them. The article is about living in a house during a renovation, suggesting meals to cook with a limited kitchen— maybe just an electric plug-in cooktop, or a camping gas stove. Today, even with a full battery of kitchen appliances at my fingertips, I’m drawn to recipes such as ‘All I’ve Got is a Pot Chicken with Potatoes, Leeks and Thyme’, ‘All I’ve Got is a Wok Hokkien Noodles with Roast Duck and Choy Sum’ and ‘All I’ve Got is a Pan Broken Pasta with Spicy Tomato Sauce’. What I find memorable about this article is not only the catchy titles, the clever recipes, but how comforting and delicious everything sounds. Flicking through these recipes today, (I did end up dragging out the folder) I’m desperate to head into the kitchen and whip up the one-pan quick pasta dish for lunch.

So I do, and it’s perfect.

My bookshelves are filled with tales of restricted culinary endeavours: authors who cook in the most basic of kitchens or with limited access to ingredients—they are my most treasured books.

Tales of tiny kitchens such as Laurie Colwin’s witty Home Cooking, a culinary companion that sits just as well on your beside table as it does in your kitchen.

It’s a classic book on staying home and cooking, and the early chapters tell of meals cooked during Colwin’s university days and in her one-room apartment in Greenwich Village. Colwin delightfully describes the limits of her tiny kitchens and the meals she cooks with a two-burner stove, washing rocket in the bathtub and serving meals on a card table, which she’d slotted between the wardrobe and a two-foot kitchen cabinet.

A little further along the bookshelf sits the brilliant part-memoir part-cookbook Honey from A Weed by Patience Gray. The book, subtitled Feasting and Fasting in Tuscany, Catalonia, the Cyclades and Apulia, recalls her life in remote locations around the Mediterranean with her sculptor husband, on his

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quest for marble and stone. Remarkably ahead of its time, Honey From a Weed is detailed in its knowledge of local and seasonal cooking, and foraging as part of daily life. They had no fridge, electricity or running water, in often barren locations where eating with the seasons, foraging for weeds and catching a fish for dinner wasn’t fashionable but born of necessity.

It was in these places that Gray learned that the very best cooking, and therefore eating, ‘is the result of a balance struck between frugality and liberality’.

While she celebrates the joy of feasting, it is the limits of the lean times which inspire her most. This is a book about good food and our connection to it; not complicated but appetising, it can be simple and thrifty, using few ingredients and basic equipment.

It seems counterintuitive, but it’s the limits these writers overcome that I find so memorable. Their ability to create something special, not despite the restrictions, but because of them, to nourish loved ones with meals of elegant resourcefulness.

In a sense, there’s something liberating about not having to make decisions, not being overwhelmed with choices, and there’s a certain level of creativity required when cooking with restricted ingredients or equipment. Swapping one ingredient for another, leaving something out altogether, hand chopping instead of processing, using a whisk instead of an electric mixer. Culinary inspiration often strikes with limitations, creating a joyful pleasure in bringing something new triumphantly to the table.

In the spirit of limitations, I’m sharing a favourite recipe for chocolate cake that has its origins in America during the 1930s Depression, when eggs and butter were a rarity. It’s my go-to cake made from pantry staples. An old-fashioned chocolatey cake that’s quick to make; by virtue of its limited ingredients, it’s essentially vegan and perfect for those suffering pesky allergies, and you could easily swap the flour for your favourite gluten-free version.

I suppose I should also share my take on Jill’s onepan pasta, not because you’re renovating a kitchen, but because it’s quick and delicious, and you’ll enjoy cooking with a limited amount of washing up. n

ONE-POT TOMATO AND ANCHOVY SPAGHETTI WITH FRIED BREADCRUMBS

You could serve this with grated parmesan cheese, but if you’re in lockdown and you’ve a made a batch of average sourdough (like me), turn a few slices into breadcrumbs, fry them in olive oil until golden and sprinkle those on top instead.

3 tablespoons olive oil 2 French shallots, peeled and sliced 2 garlic cloves, chopped 6 anchovies a pinch of dried chilli flakes a good handful of chopped parsley 350 g dried spaghetti 400 g tin of cherry tomatoes

In a large frying pan with a lid, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the shallots, garlic, anchovies, chilli and half the parsley. Cook until shallots soften. Break the spaghetti in half, toss it in, then add the tomatoes.

Carefully fill the empty can with boiling water and add that too. Stir well, cover and cook for 2 minutes.

Remove the lid and give it a good stir to make sure the pasta isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan. Cover again for a couple of minutes and continue to check and stir every few minutes, adding extra water as the sauce dries out. Continue to cook for about 15 minutes or until the pasta is cooked to your liking. Season to taste. Toss the remaining parsley on top and sprinkle with your preferred topping.

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OLD-FASHIONED CHOCOLATE CAKE

No doubt invented by a resourceful Depression-era housewife, this is sometimes known as a Crazy Cake, as it’s made without eggs or butter.

You can simply dust it with icing sugar, but I find a thick layer of your favourite chocolate icing makes it extra special.

3 cups plain flour 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup cocoa powder 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons bicarb soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 2 tablespoons white vinegar 1/4 cup (60 ml) espresso coffee 3/4 cup (185 ml) vegetable oil 400 ml boiling water

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 20 cm round cake tin.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt and bicarb soda.

In a separate bowl, combine vanilla, vinegar, coffee and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, then add the boiling water: the mixture will foam up and bubble. Stir until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin.

Bake for 30–35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Turn onto a wire rack to cool completely before dusting or icing. n

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restaurant

HIGH HOPES ROADHOUSE Words Julie Gibbs Photographs Luke Burgess

It’s a Thursday morning and you are driving up the Bells Line of Road from Sydney after wrestling with a traffic snarl in the harbour tunnel.

You are dreaming of a toasted sandwich made from local sourdough bread, sweet hand-carved leg ham and melting Gruyere cheese, accompanied by coffee that tastes as good as it smells. You come across a cute sign that says ‘High Hopes Roadhouse’, walk in, and a Mick Jagger look-alike gives you the most welcoming smile. You sit down near a pine dresser piled with books, kitchen treasure, a vase of fragrant daphne and a cockatoo lamp. Around the wood stove is a circle of women working at their spinning wheels.

In the back, a sign leads to the ‘High Hopes Sweet Shop’. Can it possibly be true?

You have entered the happy and nurturing roadside café run by Manoo Robertson and his husband Sean Moran (of the famous Sean’s restaurant in Bondi), named ‘High

Hopes’ as an antidote to the devastating bushfires last summer that were followed

by COVID-19. Manoo and Sean felt a calling to give their community a refuge where locals—and visitors—could have some hope of old-fashioned happiness and comfort. A café where travellers and truck drivers can eat a home-style meal on their way up the mountain and where locals heading to Bilpin Post Office (located in a seventiesstyle ‘servo’ next door) can drop in for mushrooms on toast with a cuppa, or something stronger.

The building has a history as a stopping place. It was originally called Midways, being halfway between Sydney and Lithgow, and in recent years was known as the Apple Bar. Sean and Manoo’s farm is a stone’s throw from here. Sean says he had a funny

feeling the cafe would be his, the first time he went there. Now that it is, he and Manoo are having the best time. Sean wants it to feel ‘like home; nothing fancy pants’. He has been scouring Gumtree for old furniture and the standard issue café tables and chairs have been replaced with pieces we might feel belonged to our grandparents.

Sean loves to wield a paintbrush, so you’ll notice the joyful stripes along the counter and the charming handmade signs.

The aim is to employ locals and train them so that they can have hospitality experience on their CV; word has gone around and they come calling to seek a job.

Savanna Jurevics, a young woman from a hotel management school—who has a passion for cooking—is now the head chef, shown the ropes by Sean and trusted to put love into dishes that include beef chipolatas

with onion, gravy and peas and a side of roesti; free-range chicken nuggets with mayo; and cauliflower macaroni cheese with Willowbrae goat’s feta. Salad comes from the farm. Ben’s apple pie is strictly not to be missed—made by Ben Porteous from The Hive Berambing, up the road.

As well as the sweet shop in the back (a nod to Manoo’s nostalgia for his childhood in England), you will find local vinegars, honey, jam and Sam’s outstanding sauerkraut, made by Manoo’s nephew who is a chef at Sean’s restaurant in Bondi.

You don’t have to be on the way anywhere.

Just make High Hopes a lunch destination— it’s a perfect day trip. n The High Hopes Roadhouse is open for dropin guests 7 days from 8 am–4 pm, and now for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights.

2488 Bells Line of Road, Bilpin NSW.

Above A kitsch cockatoo lamp makes a quirky, homely display; the Roadhouse kitchen.

Opposite page The Sweet Shop is Manoo’s childhood dream; old-fashioned happiness on a plate.

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stay

LETTES BAY TASMANIA Words Annabelle Hickson Photographs Claire Lloyd

Author and photographer Claire Lloyd found a ceramic bowl, in a Sydney shop, that was so beautiful she tracked down its maker and crossed Bass Strait for the first time to meet him in person.

Claire immediately resolved to return to Tasmania with her partner Matthew Usmar Lauder, an artist and printmaker, for a holiday as soon as they were able.

And so it happened that a year later they unlocked the door of a waterfront cabin called Captain’s Rest on the west coast of Tasmania, their home for a few nights.

‘We were stunned by the beauty of the area; Lettes Bay in particular,’ says Claire.

‘Standing at the water’s edge, I asked Matthew, “What do we have to do to have a place around here?” He disappeared for a while and when he returned announced he had the answer.’

On his walk, Matthew had met a man who had a shack he wanted to sell, and so the next day they met him outside the cabin in question, to talk.

‘He didn’t have the keys; no idea why,’ says Claire. ‘We tried peeping through the windows, but not terribly successfully. We talked money, exchanged numbers and bought the cabin without stepping inside.’

Claire and Matthew weren’t strangers to impromptu real estate purchases. In 2005 they left the London arts scene and bought a whitewashed house with turquoise shutters in a small village on the Greek island of Lesbos, where they now live most of the year.

After buying the shack on their Tasmanian holiday, something they had not anticipated, they had to return to commitments in Greece. And so the shack sat untouched until last year, when Claire and Matthew arrived with an old caravan in tow and went

about fixing up the cabin over six months, stripping it back internally, insulating walls, cladding it with wood and aluminium sheeting, replacing windows, rewiring and putting in new plumbing.

‘Staying in the caravan was sometimes a rocky experience,’ says Claire. ‘There were mornings when we woke to the most amazing sunrises right over the bay. But some nights I would lie awake, petrified, as the caravan swayed uncontrollably and the wind howled outside.’

They met a local builder, Trevor, who was patient and generous and happy to teach Matthew new skills.

‘Because the cabin itself is small I was keen to make the most from the limited space we had. For me the essentials are light, simplicity and creating a feeling of space, no matter what the size,’ says Claire.

‘We could see there were several ways of achieving a feeling of space within the limitations of the cabin. The first and most obvious one was to replace the existing windows, which were in a terrible state. We kept the same style but found slightly larger, reconditioned ones. We also decided to include an internal window between the sitting room and the bedroom. Now the bedroom has lots more light and you can look through the house and across the bay from bed.

‘The joy in creating Bushy Summers together has been enormous. We have made many new friends along the way: another bonus. We look forward to spending more time at Bushy, exploring the stunning west coast and also sharing our little lovingly restored gem with people who will love it as much as we do.’ n Bushy Summers sleeps two and is available for booking through Airbnb. @bushysummers

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stay

SAPPHIRE COAST Words Phoebe Tully Photographs Luisa Brimble

Halfway between Melbourne and Sydney is a little slice of paradise within a little slice of paradise. Lotte’s Hjem is a 150-year-old weatherboard cottage nestled in the arts hub of New South Wales’s untouched Sapphire Coast.

Hjem (pronounced ‘him’) is the Norwegian word for home, and to Miranda O’Rourke and Harrison Balodis, that’s certainly what it’s become.

‘We found Lotte’s by sheer luck,’” says Miranda. ‘Harrison house-sat for Lotte, and fell in love with the place. He said if she ever wanted to sell, he would buy it. We all nearly died of joy the day she decided to sell!’

But the love affair does not end with the cottage. ‘The Sapphire Coast has always been and will always be home,’ says Miranda. ‘We both feel so connected to it because we have the best childhood memories there.’

The couple has filled Lotte’s with French antiques, restored the fireplace and added a kitchen garden. Comfortably sleeping seven guests, it’s a place for adventurers as well as homebodies. The well-provisioned kitchen and covered courtyard are tempting for those staying in, while the short walk into town is perfect for those wanting to explore the area.

Miranda previously worked for Parterre Australia, an interior and landscape design company that imported European antiques.

‘I learned a lot about design in that job.

Both Harrison and I love antiques, a passion which was passed down from our mothers.’

Harrison worked as a gardener on the set of River Cottage Australia, which fuelled both his career in film and television, as well as his love of garden design and cooking.

‘Growing up in the country was a decision made for us by our mothers,’ says Miranda.

She speaks fondly of getting off the school bus, saddling her horse and riding to a friend’s house. ‘We had walkie-talkies and

Mum would buzz me when I had to come home for dinner. It was complete freedom. I always knew I wanted to have children and I wanted them to have a life like that.’

Harrison and Miranda went to the same high school, but didn’t ‘officially’ meet until they both lived in Sydney. ‘We have a shared love of interior design and collecting. We both struggled with city life after a great childhood filled with outdoor activities. I had a beat-up uni-student car and on our days off we would explore Berry, Kiama, Orange or Newcastle just to get our “hit” of country air!’

Lotte’s Hjem is in the coastal town of Pambula. ‘I think Pambula was the forgotten town on the coast. It didn’t have many shops, only a little supermarket. But recently it’s really taken off. The local bakery helped drive change for Pambula and slowly little shops have popped up, which really add to the village charm.’

Miranda and Harrison start their ideal Pambula weekend in the national parks.

‘Ben Boyd National Park is huge and there is endless adventure,’ says Harrison. ‘A bit further south is The Pinnacles, a unique rock formation, and lots of rock pools. The area is unique, the water is clear and there is so much untouched raw beauty around.’

Miranda adds, ‘I would go for a morning swim, then on my way back, I’d stop by the local café, Toast, and do a spot of shopping at Goldfinch Store or Switchfoot Boardstore.

I’d come home with some bread from Wild Rye’s Baking Co as well as some local oysters, and laze around with a book or take a bath. Harrison would be in the garden or planning what to cook next.

‘I think the world is moving so fast and we all need to slow down and enjoy our own company. The Sapphire Coast is the perfect place for this.’ n Lotte’s Hjem is available for booking through Airbnb. @lotteshjem

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perspectives

MR GORBACHEV Words Ryan Butta There were only the two of us at Mr Gorbachev’s funeral.

Through tear-blurred eyes I watched the shovel blade cut through the sods of earth, the hole in the ground growing deeper, rounder, darker.

It was a beautiful day for a funeral. Not ominous or gloomy.

That’s not how death works. It was a bright clear day with nothing between us and that high blue sky. Mr Gorbachev would have loved that sky.

It was always Dad’s job to bury the pets. For the past year Dad had started waking in the middle of the night. Mum would find him in the bathroom, dressed and shaved, ready to go. Most times he couldn’t tell you where. Other times it was to the local library though none of us could ever recall seeing Dad read a book.

Last week it was Gorbachev.

‘I need to know how to spell Gorbachev,’ he told my mother.

‘We’ll look it up in the morning,’ she said. ‘It’s 3am.’

‘I need to know how to spell Gorbachev now,’ he insisted. So they had sat together, heads hunched over the telephone screen as they googled up Gorbachev.

The next night Dad was up again.

This time he went head first through the loungeroom wall.

The aged care facility was only a few houses away from where we lived, wedged in between the hospital and the train line. He would be safer there, but when he left we all felt that something in our family had been severed, a

shared history broken, separate futures to be lived.

Dad didn’t want to go. ‘Get me out of here,’ he would say as we waved goodbye. Visits were restricted to an hour. ‘The virus,’ the nurse explained. Some days we only saw him through the fence, long minutes of just staring at each other as a passing coal train obliterated any chance of communication.

Mr Gorbachev was supposed to be Dad’s companion. We didn’t expect to bury Gorbachev before Dad. I packed down the soil with the back of the shovel and rolled a stone over the grave. There was a hollow in the top of the stone that we filled with water in the hope of attracting other birds to keep Mr Gorbachev company.

We were about to say a few words when the builder arrived. I forgot that he was coming around to fix the hole in the wall. He found us standing over the grave.

‘The bird?’ he asked. I nodded, not trusting myself with words.

‘My sister breeds budgies. I could get you another.’

I wasn’t ready for that. I was wondering how I would break the news to Dad about Mr Gorbachev.

I sat down under the shade of Dad’s lemon tree to make the call.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi Dad.’ ‘How’s Mr Gorbachev?’

‘He died last night, Dad.’ I couldn’t make out Dad’s response.

‘Sorry, I didn’t get that,’ I said.

Dad’s words came down the line slurred and broken.

‘Lucky bastard,’ he said. n

OF WEET-BIX & WILDE Words Emily Harris

Today’s the day. I’m taking the plunge. I’m going to do something I’ve always secretly dreamed about. Yep. Today I’m putting what I want to do first and giving myself permission to sit at my desk and write a novel.

Before I start though, I’d better get a jump on the day and pop a load of washing on the line, and now I’m outside I may as well feed the chooks. Oh, and if I don’t water those white petunias I potted last week they’ll be dead by this afternoon. But I draw the line at cleaning the pool which looks like it’s been filled with dirty dam water, again. No, I will not be cleaning that. Today is for my literary pursuits.

So, with another load of washing going, chooks sorted, plants watered, I breathe in the excitement of really starting my work of fiction. Having read lots of self-help books on how to commit to a project, I ignore the kitchen bench covered in the remnants of six people’s breakfast and coffee. I ignore the unmade beds and walk straight into the room once known as ‘the office’ and now newly rechristened ‘my writing space’. Here I’ll churn out great literature. Jennifer Byrne will no doubt pore over my novel and want to discuss it on a book show. She might even want to Zoom me in live. In which case, the desk needs a dust, the thumbtacked school notices from

last year need to come down, the Post-it note reminders with my passwords to everything need to be hidden and the piles of mail need to be opened and filed.

Finally, it’s done, everything is tidyish and orderly and I’m ready to write. I open a beautiful new document page and imagine the possibilities it holds. I just have to let it flow through my fingertips and on to the page.

Nothing springs to mind. I decide I’ll apply the Pomodoro Technique. Twenty-five minutes of uninterrupted work followed by a five-minute break to recharge.

Reset then repeat. I’ll be done in no time. But first I’ll need a timer.

Back to the kitchen for a quick rummage through the bits ’n’ pieces drawer. No timer, but I do find the meat thermometer, which I searched for last Christmas. The dirty cereal bowls are still glaring at me from the kitchen bench, with leftover Weet-Bix dried solid on the sides. I throw them in the dishwasher, then—arguing with myself about time management— chuck in the rest of the mess too.

Hard-won experience tells me dinner will be so much easier if the dishwasher has already done a cycle and been emptied.

Right, back to my atelier. My head is buzzing with ideas.

Perhaps I’ll start with a murder? I sail past the bathroom and leave the towels lying on the ground, past the basket full of clean yet unfolded clothes. Not for me the chores of a mundane housewife.

In my head I am already having a literary affair with Oscar Wilde.

These daydreams are interrupted by an insistent beeping

coming from the laundry. The washing machine has stopped mid-cycle. Damn, I know what that means. Because of the drought we now have to pump bore water straight up into our overhead tank and then gravity feed it into the house, but the tank is so low it’s pumping dirty water and the filters of the washing machine are all blocked. Total pain in the neck.

Racing outside to start the pump I notice the kids haven’t let the corona-crisis Cavoodle puppies out of their cage yet. Bloody kids.

Who wanted these dogs anyway?

By the time I get the pump going

I OPEN A BEAUTIFUL NEW DOCUMENT PAGE AND IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES IT HOLDS. and open the cage door they’re like two over-excited preschoolers.

They throw themselves at me, full of delight in their unashamed love. They remind me of my kids when they were five years old— not these distant self-possessed teenagers who suck my internet dry with their online learning.

The puppies dance in front of me as I walk back to the laundry to begin unscrewing the washing machine hoses and cleaning out the gunk and filth that has clogged up the filter. Best not to think

too hard about this dirty water which washes our clothes and bodies, because it’s also our drinking water.

The cavoodles have gone quiet.

After tightening up the pipes and restarting the machine, I find them in my bedroom where they’ve innocently shat on my rug.

And it’s not just any rug, it’s my precious Turkish rug, which I’d lovingly carried home from the Aegean all those years ago. Back then I imagined it being lovingly placed under the bassinet of my first-born child, to inspire her to travel and follow her dreams.

Obviously, this was before I realised that baby vomit is almost impossible to get out of a silk kilim and that the Turkish rug was safer elsewhere.

I screech at the phone-bound teenagers to toilet train their dogs, but clean up the mess myself, because, as all mothers know, sometimes it’s just easier to do it yourself. Somewhat crumpled by the reality of my morning I once again gather my literary ambitions and settle into my chair.

The first line bubbles up and I type: ‘As she waited at the bar for her husband to buy her a drink, Ros Dunham reflected on how effortlessly she’d slipped into becoming a person she’d never expected to be…’

Ooh, mysterious: I like it. My fingers race to keep up as Ros sits, slowly sipping her shandy and relishing the heart-wrenching sounds of country music amid the low hum of conversation. It’s then that a familiar voice cuts straight through my scene: ‘Mum, what’s for lunch?’ n

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THE BETOOTA BRIEFING with ERROL PARKER, Editor-at-large The Betoota Advocate

FARMER AWARDED 11 CENTS IN DAMAGES AFTER TOURISTS TRAMPLE 37 CANOLA PLANTS TAKING PHOTOS FOR INSTAGRAM

A local canola grower has been awarded damages in the Betoota District Court this week after several tourists from the East trampled a number of plants as they took photos for Instagram.

Michael John Carlisle, of ‘Eurama Downs’ via Betoota, was also awarded costs by Judge Felicity Coleman, who said farmers in the area are doing it hard enough without yuppies from the city coming out to regional areas to destroy property.

‘Mr Carlisle has had over 450mm of rain this year,’ said Justice Coleman. ‘Things haven’t been easy. Just when Michael was having a win, these tourists cut him down.

‘In all my years in the criminal justice system, this is the worst case of tall canola syndrome I’ve ever seen.’

The court heard that on the 31st of September this year, Maya Stephens and Luke Dalrymple were travelling along the Jundah Road toward the Betoota City Limits when they came across Mr Carlisle’s canola blooming in the paddock next to the road.

Ms Stephens told the court she’d never seen anything like it, while Luke had only seen pictures of sprawling acres of the golden flowers online. However, it was Mr Dalrymple who suggested that this was a golden opportunity to capture some

‘Grade A’ content for Instagram, a wellknown social media platform that was once popular with young people until their parents learned how to use it.

After pulling over safely, the pair walked up to the fence and made sure they were between two fence posts before they climbed over.

Once in the crop, they spent nearly five minutes getting the perfect shot before Mr Carlisle came across the scene.

He phoned the police and, a short time later, Ms Stephens and Mr Dalrymple were arrested at a popular Betoota French Quarter café and taken away before they were able to pay.

They were charged with a litany of offences, including destruction of property, trespassing and domestic terrorism.

This week, they were both found guilty on the first two counts; however, the Crown dropped the charges of domestic terrorism shortly after the arrest.

The Court has ordered the convicted parties to pay 11 cents in damages to Mr Carlisle (the market value of the damaged plants) plus costs, which are estimated to be over $300,000.

More to come.n betootaadvocate.com Photographs Pip Farquharson

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