We intended to go to Viewpoint Lookout for our Earth Exchange on a road that will soon be closed. Circumstances overtook us and we completely forgot to go. Then heavy rain set in (over 400mm in three days) and we could not go. The Lookout will be lost to easy access and it is a long walk in rather than a convenient drive or cycle. It is a hidden community treasure where native flannel flowers and native boronia grow. Perhaps it will be better, however in over five years we never saw rubbish or carelessness there. So instead, and helped by Trebbe’s gentle reminders  we went to Echo Point to look across to Viewpoint to the ridge we could no longer take for granted.

We arrived as a lyrebird scurried away to continue his repertoire of native bird calls at volume 11. We disturbed two Glossy Black Cockatoos low in a casuarina tree. The “Glossies” rely on casuarina and are vulnerable to large fires that destroy their sole food source. The Glossies were not too disturbed and moved a safe distance away. At the lookout we watched the mist and Viewpoint ridge and then saw far down in the distance waterfalls where waterfalls have never flowed for many years. Literally. And when they drain they may not flow for many more.

Walking back thinking of the wounded place, I realised it was me not the place that was wounded. We have watched our Park burn, then flood and now flood again. But the place is remarkable. The scars of the fire have gone and are replaced by rich flora. The ecologically niched slow breeding fauna are returning. It is adaptable and resilient. I’m not so sure of myself.