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12-20-2006 03:32 PM
I rarely write in any of these blog things. Today however, I need to put words out there, in an attempt to release some anger.
My soul resides in a tiny town in Victoria, Australia, called Walhalla. Though I only lived there for about 12 months, way back in 1961, it left an indelible imprint on me. When I grew up, I returned to live nearby. In times of stress, depression or any other emotional overload, I would get in my car and drive up the narrow windy road....to a place left over from the past. A town that had remained virtually untouched by the march of "progress".
Nestled at the bottom of a narrow valley, surrounded by towering regenerated Eucalypts and English imports............a town with land so steep that in the cemetery people were buried horizontally INTO the side of the hill. Walhalla epitomises, to me, just how incredible Nature really is. It was a Gold Rush town.........filled with brawling miners, Pubs galore, and the deafening thumps of the crushers of the Long Tunnel Gold Mine. To provide the steam power for this mine, EVERY tree for 10 miles radius of the town, was cut down...to feed the voracious hunger for GOLD! In the tiny museum there you can see the photos......of naked mountains, of towering mullock heaps and clusters of tiny houses, clinging to the steep sides of the hills.
When the gold ran out.....so did the town.........with most of the buildings being dismantled, labeled, and trained to other places. ( To this day, the original railroad station is in Moe...a "nearby" town.) And so the town appeared to die...as do most Gold Rush things. Quietly, unobtrusively, the bush grew back. The people who felt the magic of this tiny haven stayed.......or became one of the 1000's of weekend visitors, who came to just feel the magic once more. It was never an advertised "tourist" town, I believe it attracted people by word of mouth, by its magic.
The last time I visited Walhalla was about 4 or so years ago...before I came to Texas. They had built a new bridge, and had started to get the old "Puffing Billy" railroad going again..........then the death Knell..........electricity was connected! In a way, I'm glad I never saw this destruction.....in my mind Walhalla is a pristine as it always was.
At this very moment though, Walhalla is under threat...........a threat of a Natural kind. Cowering less than 100 metres, it awaits the decision of the out-of-control bushfire that has destroyed over 1 and a half MILLION acres..........a bushfire of such enormous dimensions that firefighters have already acknowledged defeat, and can only try to protect "assets"....knowing full well that a monster blaze of this proprtion cannot be tamed by even 30,000 firefighters. In fact, there is only ONE saviour..............Mother Nature.
But I fear She will not come to Walhalla's rescue, I fear She is demonstrating just how pissed off She is. She has suffered all the destruction, the pollution, the careless extinction of plants and animals..................but when we stupid humans started destroying the one thing that kept Her safe, She decided Enough IS Enough! To destroy the Ozone layer is to rip the soul out of this planet. She can survive the destruction of plants and animals, She can survive the pollution of air and water, She can survive the ripping out of Her precious resources. But She CANNOT survive without that thin layer protecting Her from the full wrath of the Sun.
I shall grieve deeply if Walhalla is consumed by those angry flames, but I understand the anger that caused them.....I feel the same anger.
I rarely write in any of these blog things. Today however, I need to put words out there, in an attempt to release some anger.
My soul resides in a tiny town in Victoria, Australia, called Walhalla. Though I only lived there for about 12 months, way back in 1961, it left an indelible imprint on me. When I grew up, I returned to live nearby. In times of stress, depression or any other emotional overload, I would get in my car and drive up the narrow windy road....to a place left over from the past. A town that had remained virtually untouched by the march of "progress".
Nestled at the bottom of a narrow valley, surrounded by towering regenerated Eucalypts and English imports............a town with land so steep that in the cemetery people were buried horizontally INTO the side of the hill. Walhalla epitomises, to me, just how incredible Nature really is. It was a Gold Rush town.........filled with brawling miners, Pubs galore, and the deafening thumps of the crushers of the Long Tunnel Gold Mine. To provide the steam power for this mine, EVERY tree for 10 miles radius of the town, was cut down...to feed the voracious hunger for GOLD! In the tiny museum there you can see the photos......of naked mountains, of towering mullock heaps and clusters of tiny houses, clinging to the steep sides of the hills.
When the gold ran out.....so did the town.........with most of the buildings being dismantled, labeled, and trained to other places. ( To this day, the original railroad station is in Moe...a "nearby" town.) And so the town appeared to die...as do most Gold Rush things. Quietly, unobtrusively, the bush grew back. The people who felt the magic of this tiny haven stayed.......or became one of the 1000's of weekend visitors, who came to just feel the magic once more. It was never an advertised "tourist" town, I believe it attracted people by word of mouth, by its magic.
The last time I visited Walhalla was about 4 or so years ago...before I came to Texas. They had built a new bridge, and had started to get the old "Puffing Billy" railroad going again..........then the death Knell..........electricity was connected! In a way, I'm glad I never saw this destruction.....in my mind Walhalla is a pristine as it always was.
At this very moment though, Walhalla is under threat...........a threat of a Natural kind. Cowering less than 100 metres, it awaits the decision of the out-of-control bushfire that has destroyed over 1 and a half MILLION acres..........a bushfire of such enormous dimensions that firefighters have already acknowledged defeat, and can only try to protect "assets"....knowing full well that a monster blaze of this proprtion cannot be tamed by even 30,000 firefighters. In fact, there is only ONE saviour..............Mother Nature.
But I fear She will not come to Walhalla's rescue, I fear She is demonstrating just how pissed off She is. She has suffered all the destruction, the pollution, the careless extinction of plants and animals..................but when we stupid humans started destroying the one thing that kept Her safe, She decided Enough IS Enough! To destroy the Ozone layer is to rip the soul out of this planet. She can survive the destruction of plants and animals, She can survive the pollution of air and water, She can survive the ripping out of Her precious resources. But She CANNOT survive without that thin layer protecting Her from the full wrath of the Sun.
I shall grieve deeply if Walhalla is consumed by those angry flames, but I understand the anger that caused them.....I feel the same anger.
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