I often walk beside my past as I move around my part of the world. I drive down the dusty ribbed road through the bush to Aragannu in Mimosa Rocks National Park and memories swarm. Here, I saw my first grove of blueberry ash. Here, we were once the rowdiest campers, behaving as we’d hate anyone else to behave. Here I sat by a campfire with a friend who had just lost her son. Here I stumbled along a faint track in search of rainforest, under a prostrate figtree and past modern middens. Memories expand at the rocky beach and I remember my aunt spraining her ankle on such a beach when she was my age.
Things have changed since my last visit, quite a while ago now. There’s a well marked track and even a boardwalk. Join me as I walk in the momentary present. Next time I go there this visit too will be part of my memory.
Let’s park the car in one of the many empty parking bays, under entwined trunks and twisting branches.
The ramp leading up to the loo offers many vantage places for capturing rocks in symbiosis with trees …
… and more twisting branches
Then it’s time to head off along a leaf-surfaced and root obstructed track, past more contorted trees.
Occasionally, a tree stands straight and tall …
… but more often they have a lean on them.
The track turns and begins to climb, up rocksteps and over ankle-turning loose rocks, over a ridge and down to a camping area (only one tent). The track continues on and becomes a boardwalk leading out to the sea and passing a mound, grass growing over an Aboriginal shell-midden.
The beaches and coves are rocky – large round rocks or ovaloid rocks or curved-corner rectangular rocks …
… becoming larger as you head further north …
… where land artists have made good use of material at hand.
In the background are Mimosa Rocks, so named because PS Mimosa was wrecked on them in 1863 with the loss of two lives. The wreck is still there, protected from marauders by the 1976 Commonwealth Historic Shiprecks Act.
snippetsandsnaps 
Pingback: Jo’s Monday walk : Todos a Caminhar! | restlessjo
I remember Mimosa National Park. I camped there with my kids many years ago. It was wonderfully peaceful where we were but I don’t remember rocky beaches. We were near a big lagoon. It’s a beautiful part of the world that’s for sure.
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It’s one of those long parks interspersed with settlement. There are probably 3 or 4 different roads in. The rocky beach is the characteristic of this particular section – a devil to walk on. I was thinking of you as I walked through the bush, and the way you manage to capture an essence of place.
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Thanks. I think your photos of the rock sculptures people have built there go a long way towards capturing the essence of that particular place.
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I’m conflicted! Leave nature alone v celebrate it?
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Interesting take. But then people have always made art. I remember years ago there was a show on TV that traced the movement of people out of Africa and around the coast of what is now the Middle East. Rock paintings etc. suggest that art making was one of the first skills people developed. It seems a natural human instinct to decorate and to embellish.
I was thinking about you this morning when I was writing in my journal. I think one way to express a sense of place is to think about how that environment makes you feel and to bring that into your writings about place. Those feelings influence the type of photos of one takes also. People rarely take the same photos of a place – unless, of course, it’s the 12 Apostles where people all stand in their thousands at the same lookout and look the same way – but then are they people or sheeples? 🙂
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You know it’s odd. I didn’t think of rock paintings as the same thing as rock-piles! I’ll have to think about that!
My one experience of “queue for the view” was at Plitvice in Croatia. A long crocodile of people, belly to bum, on a narrow track beside the lake, who stopped as one. I usually manage to avoid crowds. I tend to sharpen my photos – Scorpio behaviour? – whereas yours always have a kind of liminal feel.
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Good to know you are a Scorpio. I am Pisces with a Scorpio Ascendant. 🙂 – now there’s an interesting thought – astrological signs as indications of photographic style. Hmmm … you could be on to something. 🙂
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Your Scorpio can’t be very ascendant because your style is so different despite similar subject matter!
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In the astrological wheel (my natal chart) I have a Scorpio Ascendant. That means the Scorpio archetype expresses itself in a different way to those who have a Scorpio Sun. We have an affinity though. The penetrating eye of the Scorpio – looking beneath the surface – exploring the depths. As to why you and I have a different style when exploring the same subject photographically – that would probably be indicated by other factors in our astrology charts – the position of Mercury and Venus for example. Way to difficult to go into a rave about astrology here – it’s a favourite subject of mine but I rarely talk about on my blog. Maybe I will at some point in the future. 🙂
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It must be nice to live in a place long enough for memories to build up like this. My memories are scattered all over the country and even other countries, my roots are shallow. And I believe this is the first rocky beach I have seen in Australia.
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There have been a few rocky coves in the Eurobodalla beaches series, but not quite this extensive or this complete. As for rooted memories, my life has been spent in 5 places, counting Warsaw. Plenty of time to palimpsest experience! But not wide-ranging experience.
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Ah, walking beside memories…. Can be a strange mix of emotions. Thanks for the virtual wander!
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It can indeed. I’m happy to provide a virtual wander.
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Thank you for leading me by the hand, Meg. This walk is beautiful, just like you. 🙂 🙂 You would have loved the wonderfully knobbly and gnarled cork trees on our walk yesterday, but not the climbs around them. Valentine’s Day hugs to you!
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I would indeed have loved the cork trees: the cork forest is top of the list for my next Canberra visit. I’ve lost a bit of the knack for climbing, and I was a bit startled the other day when I was filling out a survey for a study I’m taking part in on health 45+. One question was how many times have you fallen over in the last year? 5 is too many, even if I subtract the two on Warsaw ice!
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It certainly is! I hardly dare say it because we know what pride comes before but it’s a while since I’ve had a tumble. I won’t dare go out today now 🙂 🙂 (but it’s a nice flat walk this morning, with a bit of beach). SO happy for your news!
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So many memories wrapped around these rocks and roots Meg. I love the rock art, I though the first one was huge, but I guess not after all. I wonder what made so many of the tree trunks curl.
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Maybe trees were shaped by prevailing winds in their infancy? The rock art was probably waist high? Your phrasing is beautiful: “memories wrapped around rocks and roots.”
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Great pictorial tour again. Loved the “ovaloid” rocks. Another new word for me. And the ankle twisting walks…how many times have I done that??! Sigh!
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I avoided any twisting by taking extreme care. No-one else around to rescue me!
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