Bushwalk / stroll

As the cicadas are finishing their month of noise and the Pink Bloodwood flowerings are petering off, the tall showy Hyacinth Orchids are shooting up.

We no longer classify ourselves as bushwalkers because we are too slow. We look and listen, stop frequently, use binoculars and cameras. There is so much to see and one is immersed in a world where you are just a small temporary visitor. Every walk is different, each finds different treasures.

I usually walk with Wyn. She has better eyes, we share discoveries, and might mention work or dinner, but generally keep to the matter at hand and still enjoy each other’s company. It is good to go alone occasionally, to keen the senses more and feel diminutive among the giant Blackbutts and Grey Gums in the gentle gullies.

“A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl.” Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘Walking Tours’, Cornhill Magazine, 1876.

Then there’s the Romantic walk, that looks at little outside:

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
from ‘A Walk’, Rilke, Trans. Robert Bly

We get home and there’s a ruccus, An adult and juvenile Eastern Rozella are upset with their reflections in the double glazed glass doors to our bedroom.