History isn't in your books, its out there

 Every opportunity I get, I make my way out to Country to see what I can find. Today's adventure took me out to Birdlands Reserve, where I explored the wetland habitat of platypuses and birds, and then took a less travelled route to Bunjil's lookout. 

The lookout is one of those views you can see coming, but nothing prepares you for the majestic sweeping view you get as you round the bend and turn around. There are deep rolling hills carpeted in trees as far as the eye can see. In the distance, there is what you believe to be the far side of the Dandenongs, but it's so far away from you it's just the outline of a mountain. There are rolling hills with undisturbed trees that gently sway in the breeze to your right. Nestled in the view is Melbourne City. It looks so tiny, surrounded by trees, standing in the middle of the wilderness. You find it hard to believe that Melbourne is just a 30 min drive when you feel so far away.

The view speak over an ancient landscape. It's the sort of view you expect when you travel to rural regions like the Blue Mountains or Townsville but not the sort of view I've ever seen across Melbourne although I am always searching for it. Today was my lucky day and I found it!

I'm always looking for that view. The kind that transports you back in time to how the landscape appeared for millennia before a city grew and cleared the land within 200 yrs. Its not your typical sweeping views of suburbs, sky scrappers, and cleared land. Its a view that shows endless trees sweeping over mountains and valleys. It's vast beyond recognition. There's something about it that shows the shadows of echidnas, wallabies, kangaroos and countless other animal who called this place home for millions of years.

Most clear to me is the voices of people past. The custodians of the land who lived their lives in this wilderness. Side by side with the animals. Hunting, singing, walking, living and loving all through these lands. Their songlines of connections are clear in this view, often so hard to feel when the lands are changed beyond recognition. 

I feel the thousands of eyes that have looked out from this lookout to see the camps far away and their distant flickering firelight. It would be so easy to stand here in the evening and see camp fires light up the evening sky, sending messages about who was staying where and what their purpose might have been. Smoke signals rising in the sky to be seen far into the distance. For thousands of years the hills swayed in constant motion as trees and grasses carpeted their slopes, animals were everywhere and the people lived all around and through the space. Their songs and corrobees swelling jubilantly thorough the air. Even now I can feel the rhythms and beats of music echoing through the vallies drawing people to dance, gather and celebrate.

My eyes are drawn to the city, and I feel my thoughts turn to the city's development. It feels far away here, and I am sure it felt far away to the Wurundjeri people when they first spotted buildings rising out from the landscape 180 years ago.

 "Surely it can't get that big?" "What need do people have to take up so much space?" "Surely it can't get so big our entire way of life is disrupted?" Are all questions, amongst many more, that I am sure were pondered over this look out.

 I can feel the restless disquiet as this foreign thing grows where it hasn't been invited to develop. I feel the whispers of the troubled conversations of Elders who wonder what to do about it as word has reached them of what happens when these structures grow. First, the animals disappear, then the plants swiftly follow. Trees are toppled, boulders blown up and creeks barreled.  Kangaroos make way for sheep and cows. Then the people are rounded up and moved off their lands. Given food and shelter to compensate with one hand and disease, segregation and total disuprtion to a way of life with the other. 

 In this case, some of the Wurundjeri people were taken to Police Paddocks, an easily accessible site in Narre Warren which, prior to being a police protecorate, was a place of tribal meeting and celebration. The wetlands there teemed with life, food and nourishment and served as a place to gather and discuss important matters for local tribes.

Today, Police Paddocks is a sad place, empty of so much. There are weeds, a small lake with not much to it and a monument that describes the significance of this place.  The suburbs hug in close and highways flank 3/4 sides. The cars whiz by, mostly unaware of where they are passing. Yet, it was here that tribes met for 1,000s of years and there that settlers and the people of the Kulin nation meet. It is real land beneath your feet and you can visit it anytime you like. 

Back at Bunjil's look out, the land is still whole. Malbourne is barely a dream on the breeze. Wetlands are still whole, teeming with life beyond imagining. Places highly valued for their ability to sustain people as they met to sing, dance and yarn. At Bunjil's lookout, all the animals still have their homes and ancient old growth forest reigns supreme. Songlines stream out connecting all the people, animals, land, and lore together. Life continues as it has for millions of years into the past and will do for millions of years into the future. The only thing that has changed is a shadow of a city but that doesn't have much meaning from this view. That city is a mere blip in the long history of the wildness of Australia.  

Views like that are important to me and I actively search them out. When I feel like humans are swallowing the Earth's paradise in one gulp and leaving nothing for the future, these places give me a glimpse into a past that always was and always will be. They help me focus my visions for the future but most importantly they are a reminder that the world isn't in history books, or libraries or on websites. It is outside. You walk on it every day and you can travel, even short distances to go and see it. History is a lived experience and you can experience it by walking the places where it happened. When you need more information, books and people can fill in the blanks but the experience is all the richer for having witnessed the places events happened. It makes history real and grounds it deeply into life. History isn't in books, its out there, starting where your feet touch the earth. 

It is on that final note that I wish to pay my respects to the Wurrundjeri people of the Kulin nation, who make this place home, both in the past, now, and into the future. I want to thank them for the care they take of the land and to express my deep admiration at the beauty that is here. Their lands are beautiful and it is my heart felt pledge to participate in restoring Bunjil's vision of the land to its former glory with sweeping grass plains, endless forest and teeming wetlands. It always was and always will be Aboriginal land. 

(P.s. The photo isn't even close to how amazing the real deal is)