Always looking out for rocky outcrops to stop and have a look around and fathom your next move. I was upon one of those outcrops on the edge of a steep when looking further up through the scrub I could see another big outcrop where it appeared a ridge climbed from higher again. Which on my map would seem to be probably where I was guessing was the ridge cleft I was calling X.
On I went and at the next rocky outcrop, for all intents and purposes I guessed I was actually there. As good as I could tell from what I had followed and what I could see I was in the general area of my X. The out crop had a reasonable clearness, though under tree cover and not necessarily an outcrop that would be visible upon my google map.
I was tired and glad I had planned to camp the night. There were plentiful trees to tie my hammock, and a general feeling of welcome in the harsh landscape. The beauty of this particular forest there are no real predators, there are snakes and pigs, both of whom I expected would be aware of my presence and would avoid me. There were no ticks or leeches as I had expected from the position in the season.
I put my hammock up high enough so I didn't need to worry about pig visitors, and my tarp above me in case of leaf or stick fall, and for snakes, well, keep hid in the sleeping bag. I settled in to rest, I had enough of looking through the day, and I was content to simply listen to the bush till sleep had found me.
Like other hunches I had followed in my life I knew of the feeling of anti-climax. That feeling that all of the mind work of thinking limitless possibilities was just an indulgence in dreaming. Reality had it that here I was far from home, in the bush, hanging in a tree wondering what to think about now I had just about dissolved my silly google map phantasmagoria. It was fun thinking it all, and it was motivation to do a strong bush walk and get some exercise. What if I had not followed my what if, would I be still pondering the same thoughts? Are “what ifs” something we create so to make reality a bit more interesting? What if you don't follow all your hunches ?, will the one that will actually present cosmic consequences be the one you ignore ? How much life force should one invest into wild fancies ?
Chapter Too
Falling to sleep as the sun goes down makes a long night, a long night of sleep in a new and somewhat challenging comfort creates dreams, and the longer you lay there the more lucid the dreams. Continually readjusting from side to side in the hammock has you come back to the surface of near wakefulness and back again into dreaming. The closer it comes to the dawn the more vivid the dreams as you have had enough sleep to your normal quota, but there is no practical reason to get up, so in the hypnogogic state you swim.
They say dreams are the fathomings of your collective ponders and wonders of your life adventure, the stresses, the dramas, the excitements and anticipations all combine into a soup of symbolic oddities. In the history of mankind there has been many an allegation that certain scientific break through s, the solutions to certain perplexing problems arrive to the dreamer so to be utilized in reality. Certain mystical notions may emerge from the mysterious realms of the unconscious.
My mind was loaded with the allurement of bringing myself on this bush walk adventure. My mind was loaded in its tiredness with the feeling of hunch anti-climax, my mind was loaded with questioning the good sense of my allowing myself to be seduced by my own vivid imagination, my mind was loaded with the practicalities of just walking home and returning to the day to day of life. My mind was loaded with the deeper hunch that seems always to be underneath all the hunches that come and go. And that hunch is that there is something more to life that I can not see, something more that I sense is there but I know not what it is. I have always observed that hunch and figured that it was probably a hunch every human being wears as a part of our basic response to the mystery of life and creation. A hunch so general and obscure it probably may be as anti-climatic as many of the other hunches that lure one along.
The hypnogogic oddity smorgasbord had got to the point where I just got up in the very first light of the day and sat and watched the day arrive. I had a good sense of accomplishment for the simple fact of having just had the walk, I felt a certain satisfaction for having just dissolved my google phantasmagoria. But there was something else in me from that hypnogogic soup I had had for breakfast, a rousing titillation from that particular hunch I mentioned that underlies all the hunches of life. Was it in fact the parent hunch responsible for all the hunches I have come to know in my life, and all those hunches are but the little fragment of a monster hunch that underpins the whole universe.
Crikey what am I saying, I have come all this way into the bush, so I can just go home again not cured from my what if, but a chronic sense that although my google phantasmagoria had led to nothing I was going home more hunched up than I had ever been before. Taking a more activated hunch back home.
I was starting to spin out a bit, wild imaginings were still emerging from my dream states. We humans are funny things, we do strange things in strange ways, we entertain strange ideas for equally strange reasons. I packed up my camp, the day was begun the sun was up out side the canopy and shafts of gentle light were illuminating the forest enough to do some exploring.
I walked further up the ridge to where I knew for sure I would be beyond where my area X was on the map. Then as best as I could calculate I chose a path down through what I determined to be the middle ish of my X area. That last 'by the way' so to have my mission seem more like I had done all that I could to satisfy my curiosity.
Down the steep slope I gently went, holding on to trees so to not slide in the loose gravelly surface, luckily there was no big 'wait-a-while' and my little knife was enough to cut offending tendrils before they would become a nuisance.
Then a ledge led to a more flat area to walk upon and a suitable place to stop and have a look around. Below me were big boulders and although it was steep to get around them I found that underneath them was a large natural shelter. A overhang that had had a wash out below it revealing a cave like cavity large enough to make a relatively comfortable camp if you were to be stuck there.
In fact it appeared that at some time somebody had been camping there as there was the remains of a small fire in the middle of the flat covered area. It was about eight meters deep back under the boulders above with a good standing height of at least two meters. It had been a long time since any body had been there but there was evidence of some stuff having been left behind. There was a 2 liter plastic juice bottle that had most likely been for water, there was some fabric at the back behind a few rocks covered in leaves and dust. There was small scats on the floor of probably a small wallaby or maybe a quoll. I don't know my creature poos well enough to tell.
It was a nice place to just sit and take my time into the day, I was not needing to rush home and the trip back was mostly down hill so going back will be easier than yesterdays journey. Time to eat some more of my fruit and nuts and dream about having a coffee when I get back. A relaxing half an hour listening to the bush, having a tobacco and then curiosity had me dig the bit of material out from behind the rocks to find it was an old work shirt. In its pocket was a piece of paper and roughly written in ink was the words –
Find it All in the Shadows.
Chapter Thr33
Oh no what had I done, now my mind was going into overdrive. Here I was sitting in an overhang, that as far as I could tell was in my designated area X. I was still being effected by the feelings of my morning dreams, and now my “what ifs” were became larger than life. Had I come all this way to find these few words roughly written on a scrap of paper in the pocket of a dirty shirt abandoned by somebody a long time ago.
Minds play games with us, and now my mind was seizing upon the