Walking to remember the delights of a view, a day, a friend, an unusual natural phenomenon, I am glad to photograph snippets of any walk. Those photographs have given me a storehouse of memories, moments that bring a smile when I don’t have the strength or energy to join a friend for a walk today. It’s seven months since surgery, five months since radiotherapy treatment finished, yet I nod off to sleep on the train returning home after a coffee catch-up. Admittedly I’d walked ten kilometres the previous day to scout a walk, but it was all flat and only ten kilometres. Such is the healing process. Patience required!
I look through old photographs and find joy in each one. A friend posts her delight in autumnal colours reminding me that Australian trees shed their bark rather than their leaves. Every year when the trees shed their old bark, new markings are revealed on white naked trunks of scribbly gum, Eucalyptus haemastoma. The ‘scribbles’ are the zig-zag tracks made by a moth grub, Ogmograptis scribula, tunnelling between old and new bark. I saw this tree butt on Butchulla country, the ninety-kilometre Great Walk on K’gari (formerly Fraser Island).
How lovely to remember that pack walk. I may not return to K’gari but other Great Walks in Queensland inspire me to be patient with my body as I exercise towards regaining my physical fitness. Thank you scribbly gum.