Bylong Valley Way

We came home via this beautiful valley that links the Golden Highway at Sandy Hollow and Castlereagh Highway at Ilford.

Govett's Leap, dawn — Govett’s Leap, dawn, the rounded mountain on the right is Mt Hay

Govett's Leap, sunrise — Govett’s Leap, sunrise

Pantoneys Crown, Capertee Valley, Wiradjuri country

Widest Canyon in the world — Widest canyon in the world

I have just excavated this unfinished poem (I have thousands) from a trip to Capertee looking for the Regent Honeyeater back in 96.

we arrive at 1 am under a full moon, rabbits scattering
from the headlights, late, lost, looking for a stone house
in the middle of the biggest walled valley in the Southern hemisphere

. . . the only shop closed years ago
This farm for sale, 3,000 acres being subdivided
key regent honeyeater habitat
suitable for weekenders for Sydney workers

all the work and what remains? A glass bottle
circa the war, heavy fence posts, rotten to their core
wire coiled into the grasses, heaps of sheep bones
wombat tracks and sandy burrows

misshapen squat kurragongs, another list of birds
with two new ones, white-winged triller
and rufous songlark shrieking outside . . .

Jacky Lizard, Treefern Gully. One of the first Australian reptiles to be named in White’s Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, published, London 1790. Will run away fast on its hind legs when threatened.

wombats, Byalong Way, mother and young — Wombats, Byalong Way, mother and young

We haven’t seen wombats for a few years. We don’t get them on the coast here.
Some human acts are hard to impossible to understand, Take my namesake, my age:
Wombat killer fined $4000, August 2 2003. John Bennett, 47, was convicted of cruelty to animals at Lithgow Local Court and placed on a two-year behaviour bond. A volunteer firefighter has been fined $4000 for deliberately and repeatedly running over 12 wombats on his way home from bushfire patrol.

John Bennett08/10/2013

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