Passenger Seat Snacks #1

Hey, mate. Jord and I are on the road, again, heading towards some inspiring regen projects that well deserve documentation. As we drive, I’ve been jotting down notes on what I’m seeing, thinking, wondering and raging at! Oh, and the music, podcasts, books, and travelways we’re loving, that you might too.

The gorse is flowering.

The wattle is about to.

Drive through fog so thick you could chew on it.

Fresh lambs in the fields.

Sun is round and flat and cold, pinned to the sky behind clouds.

Our best butternut pumpkin is on the dash, persimmons laze in macrame fruit hammocks and a bunch of rosemary swings from a hook. Van life, locavore style.

Coffees in Lancefield. I order almond. He orders oat. An inter-mylk couple.

(Here are the ingredients of a common barista-brand almond milk just in case you, like me, need a reminder of why goat reigns supreme: Filtered water, Australian almonds (3.5%), sugar, vegetable oil (canola or sunflower), maltodextrin (from corn), mineral salts (potassium citrate, dipotassium phosphate), mineral (calcium), vegetable gums (gellan gum, xanthan gum, locust bean gum), emulsifier (sunflower lecithin), salt. We also ran the numbers on buying coffees each day of this trip and it would be close to 700 bucks! Yowch.)

Admire the boulders and soft folds of the hills in Pyalong.

Run two laps of a park in Euroa and spin around on the fitness swiveller.

CONUNDRUM » Did you know that a plant raised in a pot will never have the root system of a seed that has been direct sown? Can’t remember where I read that. When we travel I feel both at home and at sea. I am the person who constantly skips town and wants to start the generations-long process of putting roots down. But perhaps I don’t have the anatomy for it.

Arrive at Lake Hume with its mars-red banks and black trees reaching out from their watery grave. I skip about in barefoot shoes (a gift from Meg) avoiding the perimeter of the campsite which bears the brunt of hurled dishwater and toothpaste spit and wee wees. The water is a deep, mysterious blue and the sunset splashes bronze on the opposite shore.

We eat leftover corned beef (thanks, Tessa), runty spuds from our garden and a salad of bolting rocket and mizuna and calendula flowers I pinched before we left. I read Joanna Macy’s Active Hope and look at old photos in my camera roll.

My phone dies overnight but I wake at the right time to watch sunrise. Wander down the long gravelly boat ramp towards the water, sun mustering behind the hill. Noisy miners tell all their friends I’m here. Two silver gulls lope past. A pelican prepares for landing.

MIRACLE THING » I make us detox lattes with broccoli sprout powder, matcha, moringa and mushrooms, a splosh of goats milk from the girls and a big spoonful of Enbom honey. It’s the closest thing I’ve experienced to a miracle superfood, this green drink that has opened up my liver’s detoxification pathways like stagnant sections of the Murray suddenly regaining flow. Gratitude to the broccoli people and their child sacrifices 🙏 (This is the stuff if you’re curious.)

We eat banana pancakes with marmalade my mum and our neighbour made from backyard oranges and lemons, and a drizzle of foraged elderberry syrup.

Work for an hour, finalising a copy job.

Take a running walk along the shoreline with Jord. We wonder what it is that feels so different here, climate wise. Just a few degrees warmer than our place, but the sun is gentler and the air is softer and the birds twitter in a higher key.

Peel off a layer and clamber into the passenger seat, heading for the outskirts of Sydney. Will attempt some shotgun darning and see if I spew. (It worked! Here’s my review.)

Gundagai, willy wagtail country.

Red rumped parrots perch in a poplar tree. Their green heads and golden breasts perfectly mirror the autumn leaves losing their chlorophyll.

Flying fox colony along the river! I hear them before I see them, smell them too. Monkey chatter and fruity poo. Grey-headed foxes are a MEGABAT, and a threatened species.

PODCAST REC » Listen to an episode of The Great Simplification with guest Brett KenCairn. I really rate it. Brett makes the case that humans are more important now than ever, as land stewards, living system regenerators in our little local spheres. His organisation offers a stipend for folks doing this work — for example, caretaking school grounds or waterways or commons, planting and tending, increasing beauty and biodiversity, swapping time-strapped management with poisons for human-powered, hands-on and hugely meaningful participation. Getting paid opens up possibilities for more people to take part in the regen movement, not just those who are amply resourced and can afford to volunteer.

MUSIC REC » Jord says “let’s play Lemon Myrtle” and the sweet sounds of permaculture pop fill the cab. I’m starting to know the songs well enough to sing them loud, so wholesome with their compost themes, their seed-planting, flower-growing, gratitude-happy lyrics. (“If you want to see, if you want to see, flowers on your street, flowers on your street, you will see them! They’ll be everywhere.”) It used to be daggy to care so much, now I can’t get enough of the sincerity. Thanks to Charlie Magee for the tip.

We leave our free roost in Sutton Forest, next to the inn.

On the highway, we spot a lyrebird scratching up the litter in the gutter while cars crash past at 110km/ph.

Approaching the metropolis the road widens into four lanes, boxy suburbs spring up behind grubby partitions, trucks carrying concrete and onions and smaller trucks crawl along beside us, traffic slows.

I feel a long way from home! From the grove of hawthorn trees that hugs our women’s circle and the dirt roads and the wallabies.

RANT » I have realised what bugs me about the sculptures along (or in the middle of) multi-lane highways! You know, the painted pipes or abstract murals or colourful cubes partially pushed over. Sometimes they’re a nod towards reconciliation, other times a commemoration of war. Always irksome! The highway is pure hell, plowed up and paved over what once was. Strewn with litter and blown out tyres. Stinking of exhaust fumes and reeking of the restless beast who drives us and on and on. But here’s a dumb sculpture to divert your attention! “Lipstick on the pig”, Jord comments. Yes, that!

At Dad’s place. We visit the local organic shop, share a roast dinner, dig our food scraps into the veggie patch, snack on lilly pillies and stare at the peregrine falcons who have made an elevated abattoir of the phone tower next door. Butcherbirds sing a moody little tune. Lorikeets tear up the sky. Parents drop their smalls at the daycare next door. Thursday rolls on.

ONLINE COURSE » I share a text with Meg about our travels, and their upcoming travels, and work stuff (because we are buddies at Holmgren Design) and I am reminded to register for Artist as Family’s upcoming online courses — covering ceremonies, forest education, community sufficiency and joyful resistance — and considering the head-to-toe fizzies I felt upon seeing these donation-based sessions, so exquisitely relevant, it’s only right to share the news… but please don’t snaffle my spot. Have a looksee.