Story Info
Story Info
Andy Carnahan
Echo Point/Viewpoint Lookout, Morton National Park, New South Wales Australia
2022
Type of Wounded Place
Story & Experience
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.
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.
Why this Place?
Echo Point/Viewpoint Lookout, Morton National Park, New South Wales Australia
Morton National Park is a large protected area, its north-western tip bordering our home town of Bundanoon. It was burnt through (both wildfire and hot/emergency controlled burn) in the 2019/2020 bushfire disaster that burned over 20% the Australian east coast. There is a large and well developed tourist route to Echo Point and a smaller lesser known access point to Viewpoint lookout. Echo Point has all the expected tourist facilities, toilets, BBQ, safety rails etc. Viewpoint lookout is a lookout point where you keep yourself safe. Recently access to Viewpoint has been lost and we wanted to mourn that loss.
Act of Beauty
Say more about your actions and activity
I don’t think I created beauty, instead I created sadness in myself. But feeling the wound is not a bad thing – paradoxically it is healing. I suspect many others already know that.
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