drying out after making camp

This is an audio collage I submitted to the excellent ABC Pool project in 2011.   The idea came from some audio journal entries I recorded during a solo kayak trip on the far south coast of NSW, paddling down the coast on the Tasman sea. I  would often find signs when I camped that I was not the first person to find such a campsite appealing; generations kooris or indigenous people had also camped there, because good campsites are hard to find…

I have great respect and curiosity for the traditional ways of life that existed where I live tens of thousands of years before the European invasion.  I mourn that the first occupants, living sustainably in this fragile country with their accumulated wealth of knowledge and brilliant technology were treated with such contempt and hostility by my ancestors.

I love to wander, paddle, camp in this beautiful part of Australia, my home for the last 40 years, and I decided that before I traveled extensively in other parts of the world, I would really get to know my own country that has become a deep nourishment and inspiration.