Walking in Harewood

When we first walked this trail eight years ago it was a one hundred year forest. 

This hillside was part of a much larger logging holding that was taken up by the Millar brothers in 1895. The Millars opened their first mill in Denmark in 1893 and by 1905 all three of their mills were closed. By then the loggers had clear-felled all the ancient karri trees, and left a bare and ravaged landscape.

Timber cutters working on karri tree (Denmark Historical Society)

The demand for timber had been so high that the millers worked night shifts as well. Can you imagine working on a cold wet winters night with sharp steel blades, noisy machinery and massive timbers - by the light of kerosene lamps? 

Old timber mill  (Denmark Historical Society)

It is quite different now. The steepest parts were abandoned and the bush re-covered the hillsides. Over time the gentler muddy red curves were coaxed into grassy green mounds by new settlers. Pretty but challenging. Today the patchwork of forest, pasture and vines is as varied as the people that now live there.

Last weekend we walked in this forest as summer gave way to autumn. As we arrived a deep indigo cloud dumped its load and a couple with a young child sheltered in their car. 

The rain had coloured up the mosses and lichens and frogs sang in their freshly moistened skins.

A fantail peeped close by as it flicked and fanned its tail

Old bark turned back

Shadows played

Strands of discarded summer trailed high overhead.

Cream karri trunks ready for the new season

The allocasuarina's deep corky bark flaunted the past, hid the present

  

Red winged wrens danced a duet  through the undergrowth

Tannin dark water rippled over black slippery rocks

In a pile of fallen bark at the base of a one hundred and eight year old tree, the child told us he was making a special spot for the forest fairies.

Did you have secret fairy spaces in your childhood? I did. I remember a special place at the top of our bush block in Parkerville. It was nestled in an ancient burnt out tree stump. The floor was mossy green sheltered by the jagged charcoal edges of the stump. In the hollowed middle green snail orchids grew as high as a fairy's waist. Outside in spring bright yellow cowslip orchids bloomed. In grade one we had a spot in the bush above the school. This place was encircled by grass trees and it too had orchids; from memory they were tiny pink fairy orchids.

I nearly missed the beauty of the reflections in the creek. It was only when I sat down on the rocks in the creek - slowed down to watch the wrens - that I saw them. Special places - it doesn't take much really - slowing down, seeing, imagining.