North and the Norsemen

 

This is facing north from the firetower. 360 degrees is just to the left of that granite queen of awesomeness called Burubunnup or Mount Roe. Back to her later. Out past Smythe Hill, it's really hard to judge distances because there are few landmarks and the country flattens out. Tricky country. I've come unstuck a few times seeing a plume of dark smoke go up, only to find it's someone working a tractor sixty or eighty kilometres away. Dust, smoke, sea mist and steam are all elemental particles and behave the same way in the air. It's easy to make a mistake and these days I forgive myself for calling in cloud and gravel road 'smokes', or I give the caveat in my report as 'it may be dust, but'.

 A lot of old maps had the original Noongar place names on them. We live in a country where place names, highways, roads and histories, even the seasons of the year have been supplanted, superimposed ... where one culture colonised another. I've read that one of the reasons the colonisers kept Noongar names, before extensive mapping of certain areas, was to ensure that they could find their way back to water holes or other spots using Noongar guides. The vestiges of old maps reflect this, whereas the more recent cartographers did away with the practice. Google maps ... well ... it works when in the city but pity the city tourist relying on it.

Recently we had lots of climbers come up the mountain. They freak me out a bit because I'll hear voices after hours of being alone (no not like that) and then suddenly some people will pop up from the western edge of the granite.

 'You guys are freaks,' I'll say as they walk towards me, all swinging crampons, grins, endorphins and ropes. 'Who even does that shit?' and then 'How do you deal with the march flies?'

I give them the binoculars and tell them to look at Burubunnup. There's no road there, or trail and they know it, but I can always see them slaver at the chance to climb that beautiful granite. I look at her every day.

Finally, my tower day today was pretty quiet and so I spent it listening to Seamus Heaney reading his own translation of Beowulf. Oh. My. God. This is probably the best version I've heard. My one problem, as with most Beowulf translations, is that Grendel's mother still doesn't get nearly enough air time.