Burke

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia.

Dear Del,

As you probably know when someone refers to you as a ‘Burke’ they are telling you that you are an idiot.

J. O’Hara Burke was an Australian explorer of the worst type. He knew nothing about the Australian bush, didn’t take anyone with him on his expedition who did, but still felt he had the ability to cross the unexplored and unknown continent from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

When he set off with William John Wills it became clear Wills would have been a far superior leader. Burke was in a tearing hurry to get away because he was afraid he would be beaten by another explorer John Stuart. So he decided to leave some of the most important members of the expeditionary force behind. (They must have been slow and careful packers making sure they had everything they needed.)
He was racing John Stuart a distance of 3,200 kilometres. Unbeknown to Burke, Stuart didn’t get very far and had turned back. (A mobile phone would have been so handy back then wouldn’t it?)

So Burke, the hot headed, argumentative bloke in his rush to win and encumbered by enormous ignorance led one of the most disastrous explorations in our country’s history despite having a very well supplied expedition financed by the committee in Melbourne. Only one man, John King survived to return to Melbourne.

This is a potted version of a heart rending story and if read from this distance of time, it is so easy to see the simple mistakes that could have been avoided if he had only taken a bushman or good aboriginal tracker with him to show him the indigenous plants they could eat or where water could be found etc.
I have been banging on about this subject because Teddy has joined a U.3.A walking group.

The group has about fifteen to twenty members and they take some very difficult and long walks some days and occasionally camp overnight.
The ages range from early sixties to middle eighties and the sexes are equally represented.

Teddy was already pretty well equipped for hiking but because the weather can turn from warm to wintry blizzard very quickly up in the ranges he needed some new wet weather pants. He shopped for these on his own and arrived home without having tried them on for size. When he did, the pants came up to just under his armpits. He looked like the bottom half of that old cartoon character the kids watched many years ago…Yogi Bear.

I suggested unless he wanted to get shot by the roaming hunters he would be more comfortable in a smaller size.

He is thoroughly enjoying the walking group. They have tramped across the high plains and admired wildflowers, wild herbs and various medicinal plants. A member who is a geologist has educated them about the rock formations. Some of the tracks they have taken are rough and steep and the longest so far has been the trek of about fifteen kilometres across the face of Mount Buffalo. Here they marvelled as they stood in bright sunlight looking down at the valleys and the towns shrouded in a soft comforting blanket of fog like the fabled town of Brigadoon.

I haven’t been able to take part in these walks because of some physical problems I have but his absence has given me time to think about why they must find it so exhilarating. His pleasure when he returns home after seeing our part of the world from hidden places few people venture into is so evident. He describes the wildlife living in its natural environment as the birds flit around them and the animal eye them curiously as they wonder who these interlopers are in their bushland domain.
His muscles do ache afterwards, the rocks are hard and the tracks can be steep and slippery, but the discomfort is worth the pleasure.

It is a mixed group. Some have spent their lives in offices and suburban life until they decided to enjoy a ‘tree change’ or as they say in England a ‘move to the country’. Some of the women have spent their decades moving the dust about in their homes as they looked after families and perhaps, for almost a lifetime swallowed the need for adventure behind their domestic façade. One man was a sailor, others were farmers. Each has their reason to escape to the pristine and natural world to perhaps experience something no one else has seen. Perhaps they can find an uncut gem glistening in a stream, or a speck of gold or a small relic from a settler’s hut. Perhaps it is to breathe the fresh air and leave their worries behind.
At our age we are often faced with the loss of friends and family through illness. We watch them fade away while we silently feel relief it is not us that has developed dementia, heart disease, cancer or whatever else is taking them from us. We know our time is coming and we never know when the time will come that we will recognize that peculiar expression of sympathy and relief as people look at us. All too often, we have seen how suddenly it can arrive.

Teddy and the motley group I have dubbed the ‘Burke and Wills mob’
(hence the bit of history at the beginning) are making use of their good health and doing things that some people think is risky and silly. Seeing things in their own environment that may, if a decision about global warming is not made soon, will fade away along with our generation.

As we watch friends we have loved for a lifetime pass through the final stage of life we sometimes see people who have led the sort of lives we read of in novels and expect the ending to be happy and complete the story satisfactorily. Often however, the novels have a badly constructed and poorly planned ending which leave the reader dissatisfied.

So I think it must be for some people as they look back through the years.
Old school friends and family we have passed through the decades with face the changes and difficulties of later decades lacking hobbies, without any meaningful interaction with their communities and feel discarded by families. Some seem to retire to become professional sick people. It is very easy to allow our physical ailments to become the focus of our lives and conversation.

We all need a reason to wake up in the morning and to face each day. It is the families, the friends, the volunteering, the gardens, the pets, the hobbies, the interest or participation in sports and the little pleasures which will make these final years worth while.

We recently lost someone who was a driven character rather like J. O’Hara Burke. He gave up all his interests and hobbies for his work. He was filled by a towering ambition to succeed.

This didn’t save him from being forcibly retired by redundancy when the company he worked for relocated overseas. He felt he had ‘been thrown on the rubbish heap of life’ as he said.

I wonder during his working life if he hadn’t driven himself with that overpowering ambition and had stopped to walk awhile in the bush and see the wonders it contains, or if he had volunteered his services to a worthy cause, or taken time to admire and grow a garden he may have lived much long, seen life a little differently, spent his days more quietly and trodden the earth more softly?

We’ll never know now but it is something for the younger generations to contemplate and those nearing retirement to think on deeply. Don’t be a ‘Burke’ with your life.
There is a poem I remember learning as a child which I still like to have on my wall.
May you read it and reflect.

Cheers, Cynthia.
W. H. Davies
Leisure
WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
( I always like to add)
No time to greet the friends we meet
When passing on the busy street.