15/1/24 - Dabee Country Trip
This will probably be a long one. It’s been a few days since I got back from a 5 day trip out to Dabee Country. About an hour north and a bit west of Lithgow, the area is the northeast corner of the Wiradjuri Nation, the biggest Indigenous Country in NSW. This was my 5th visit to the area - my first was a week-long creative residency in Jan 2021, the second was a similar residency in Jan 2022, and I had 2 brief trips there last year including a performance of the works written there in 2022, with Underwards (plus a piece with Dabee elder Uncle Peter Swain). So, it was a continuation of, an expansion upon, an existing relationship with the area. I also realised that each trip (bar the performance with Underwards last year… although maybe that resulted in other beginnings) resulted in at least one new piece about the area. Even the first trip, when I hadn’t planned on making music about the area, I wrote a solo guitar piece for my friend Tom Hogan, who had commissioned me to write him a few pieces. It’s called “Open Skies” and now I realise there’s a different character to the sky out there than here in Wangal Country. There are days where gorgeous small and fluffy cumulus clouds march across the sky and fill it to all horizons. I first noticed that on my first visit to Ganguddy.
This trip was my first time camping at Ganguddy. I’ve done a fair bit of camping this year so I feel like my “camping chops” are better than they were. It’s also an extra degree of immersion, I feel. It still makes me feel a little anxious if there aren’t other humans close by (it’s a large campground - there were plenty of others around, just not very close by) and there are lots of noises in the night. But I knew what the noises were, mostly.
On the Saturday I got there, I went on a cultural Kayak Tour hosted by Wirimbili and Southern Cross Kayaking. Dabee woman and cultural educator Emma Syme, who I knew from earlier trips and conversations which fed into some of the works I’ve written for Underwards, started with a Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony, and shared cultural knowledge on things like plant usages, food sources, local songlines and traditional tools, and also sang two songs in the Wiradjuri language. Cindy from Southern Cross Kayaking also shared some environmental knowledge. It was a really beautiful and informative little tour.
On Sunday I reacquainted myself with the Pagoda Lookout. It’s a really stunning spot with interesting pagoda-like, or even sort of beehive-like rock formations, but you are also looking out at the bends of the Cudgegong river as it twists towards Kandos Weir, which makes the river a lot higher at Ganguddy than it would once have been. If all of that wasn’t enough, probably my favourite thing about the view, and the area in general, is the skyline. Not too far away are hills and mountains on all sides, bumpy and craggy with unusual shapes to them, and they fascinate me. While I was up at the lookout I also heard an extremely loud cicada. I’m very familiar with cicadas and the volume of their drones, particularly in numbers, but this one was something else, and seemed only to be one, maybe two, cicadas only. I recorded the sound on my phone (forgot to bring the Zoom recorder) and it really does cut through. After this I went and met with Gab, whose house I had stayed at for the previous residencies, and her friend, for a swim in a corner of the Capertee Valley, and after they had left I sat in a rock pool in Coorongooba Creek for a while. Pretty blissful. Part of the immersion process - let thoughts come and go, see what I notice, maybe some ideas pop up, maybe some questions or reminders of things I’ve learnt.
On Monday, as expected, the rain settled in. After doing very little for most of the morning I decided going for a drive was my best option. I went north up dirt roads past farmland surrounded by rocky hills. The area is picturesque, especially in misty and rainy weather, and I made many stops to take photos. When the dirt road started to look unsafe for my car, I got out and walked instead, between green paddocks with more hills and mountains surrounding. I took more photos and set up my Zoom recorder on a little troll bridge to record the ambience, including frogs in the creek, various birds and insects, and I sat on the bridge listening and watching. I even did a little vocal improvising too. I walked further, down to the Cudgegong River, at this point just a creek. This part of the river, Emma Syme told us on Saturday, is close to its source. I saw erosion at the creek, and a few trees on the banks in various stages of slow collapse. It made me a bit sad, but then thinking about fallen trees as habitat for various animals, and decaying into soil, is all a continuation of a tree’s story and its life as part of a connected system. Then again, that sort of erosion, which is so very common on farmland, wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for the changes in the land and biodiversity which were brought with colonisation.
The rain got heavier and I decided to drive to Rylstone, one of the nearby towns (about 40 mins drive from where I was) for a hot chocolate. Then I kept on following the Cudgegong to Lake Windamere. Big contrast from the creek earlier in the day. This is one of those dams that are all too common - a strange out-of-place lake in the countryside, with the tops of dead trees sticking out of the water. I find them awful. I went to the dam wall and saw the vast stretch of water amongst the more barren hills on one side, and the deep, lush valley with a spurt of water in a canal passing for the Cudgegong on the other side. A staggering contrast that left me feeling depressed and disgusted. The arrogance of this misguided manhandling of nature. In a world where humans respected, understood and cared for nature, did not use it and control it selfishly but used it in ways informed by knowledge of the land tens of thousands of years strong, sustainably and with all other species and natural processes in mind, this water flowed. Now it has drowned the valley, and several more upriver, and stands still, to be let through at a comparative trickle.
I drove back to Rylstone for a pub meal before heading back to camp, stopping for some stunning pics as sun peeked through dissipating storm clouds, and got into my tent which had fortunately stayed dry inside.
Tuesday’s weather was sunny and hot. My last full day of the trip, I went for a longer walk at Ganguddy, with many stops to sit and watch and listen, make recordings and take pictures and think and observe. All of the places were familiar but of course each visit is different, and if you’re paying attention you notice and learn new things. Sometimes you learn things when you’re not paying attention too. It’s pretty interesting to compare the types of experiences you have when you go somewhere entirely new, as opposed to places that you’ve been to a few times before. But this familiarity is important as I get to know the character of the living Country, with the purpose of it becoming my teacher and friend. I have a feeling it is already both of those things, as long as I’m respectful of course. I finished off my walk with a relaxing dip in the river, sitting on submerged rocks, and thought of what was hidden underwater - what was the depth of the water before the weir was added? What did it look like here? These thoughts led to a few little ideas for a piece of music which I’m going to write for Underwards. Very fitting. That evening I went Gab’s place in Kandos, for dinner with another friend of hers, and Uncle Peter Swain who I mentioned earlier and is her neighbour. As I think I said in an earlier post, the conversations you have about your research and art and the people involved in these conversations are so important to developing and clarifying what you’re doing, and the conversations of that evening gave particularly good food for thought.
Wednesday was home-time, but not before a few more adventures. Between Ganguddy, itself a small dam, and Lake Windamere to the west of Rylstone, there’s another dam - Rylstone Dam. This means, within a distance (as the crow flies) of about 50km, the Cudgegong River has 3 dams in it, each one bigger than the last. Driving up a road which was unexpectedly more of an eroded firetrail (my car is a small 4WD so I didn’t wreck it, I think) I visited Rylstone Dam which was a lot less shocking than Lake Windamere. The cascade of water down the dam wall was even a bit pretty. Still, I sat near the creek at the bottom wondering how high the water would’ve been, looking around at the shape of the gully and noticing the relative ages of the trees. A few looked like they’d remember what it used to be. My last destination was a rock painting site Peter Swain had told me about on my 2022 trip - the subject of the piece I wrote for Underwards called Hands and Feet.
There’s a fair bit still to process about the trip I think, but my knowledge and understanding, as well as questions and angles that fascinate me, are always shifting. I had several ideas for pieces of music during the trip, and I can see at least 2 coming to fruition. So, over and out for now.