Categories: australia, bushwalking-hiking
Date: 12 August 2006 06:42:34
A wonderful and sunny day today [though we do desperately need rain]: I made the most of it, and it being my last weekend down here before I move, and went out for a short bushwalk after lunch. Soon after I moved down here I bought two locally-produced books on bushwalks in the area. There are a number of scenic walks both around here in the Shire of Wollondilly, and up in the Southern Highlands [a little farther south]. I have only done a few of them, but I will drive down, perhaps once or twice a month, and continue to work my way through the walks in the books in the future.
The book says of the Tahmoor Canyon walk that its unique environment "challenges each intruder to often pause and meditate": and that was spot on. The walk was following the Bargo River, sometimes right alongside the river, other times high above on the cliffs of the canyon. One place in particular, marked as Jumbucks Lookout, took my breath away and recalled to mind the words of Psalm 148: perched high on the edge of the cliff you looked down, a cluster of trees in the foreground, a small pool in the middle and a small waterfall in the background.
The track wound its way up and down, the ground changing from sand to dirt to rock and back again regularly. Birds twittered high above, the leaves rustled, and the occasional frog croaked. One moment you could hear the rush of a waterfall or the water splashing over rocks: the next moment, after turning a corner, there was silence.
I could not help but ponder how, while I am in my cycle of sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, eat, another, grander, cycle is taking place in nature: as Psalm 104 says, God causes the water to continue to run in creeks; he causes the trees to grow; and the birds and animals have their cycle of life too. And all is sustained by God.
When we chant Psalm 104 tonight at Vespers, I will, I believe, see those verses in a new way: being able to identify, and praise, that little bit more as I ponder this afternoon's walk.