Back from the bush

Excerpted from the private diary of Scottley:

Mar 3, 2006 ~7:00PM
Jaxut Campground, Cathu National Forest

Jaxut - Cathu

Even the names are bizarre in this alien place. The wallabys are always watching me, they move with the thump sound of logs falling in succession like velvet covered bone dominoes. Starting a fire was a welcome chore, from gathering the fuel to getting it going on 1 match. It helped to take my mind off the bouts of sweat and heat that come quite often. I was feeling cooled off during and after dinner, but now I am dripping again, almost as if the humid air moves through the forest like a silent, stagnant wind- rolling waves of moisture thrown off by a deeper, damper section of forest. Most of the bugs have left me alone, is it all the garlic I've been eating?

The inchworms liked my food box, the blue Dairy Farmer's crate that I nicked in that town south of Mission Beach. Can't tell if the ants avoided the chilli flakes I put down; they seemed to but one was spotted carrying off a flake.

Footsteps. A shuffle just behind me. I think. I can feel it watching me but in the near dark gloom, I can't see it. Time to tend the fire.

* * *

Back, and no further sound from my visitor. In general, I'm pretty comfortable besides the sweat and stick on my skin, which along with my second complaint: the fact that the underside of my car is plastered in cow shit and smells the part, has me wondering about the quality of sleep I'll get. I feel like a wus [unintelligible] I'm also concerned about flies and spiders and mozzies and such in my sleep. Tending to the fire just now and two have already buzzed my ears.

* * *

(100 words omitted) I wonder if the temperature will drop much tonight. The fire has reached that wonderful point of silent glow burning that can last for hours. Remembering camping our with Dan & Tom at Indian Creek. I miss that. . . (18 words omitted)

* * *

More nearby footsteps. Going to try spotlighting it.

* * *

Possums! Not scared of me much, and don't seem to be threatening, either. Spotlighting worked perfectly. Quiet fuckers. I'm a bit afraid that they'll go for my trash bag-- one made it on top of the table before I shooed it away. Big hopping frogs, too.

Like living in a zoo, my wallabys, my ants, my spider, my possums, my frogs, my dingo, my grub, my fire, my bat who visits now and again. I make my rounds and check on them all.

The fire, the stars. The simple satisfying beauty, yet I can't drink it deep. The breath stops a bit too shallow. My mind starts to slip away into it, but just like that moment before you fall asleep, you look too close, think about it for just a second, and it's gone. It is possible to fall into the beauty or peace or happiness of a moment [like one falls into sleep]? Am I a ?spiritual? insomniac? (1 word omitted)

The almost certain feeling that there is more to this moment, close by, or visibly ghostly, tangible and yet there is no way to know how to grab it, to breathe deeply enough to fill yourself with it. (rest of entry omitted)