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| A glimpse of the wild Southern tip of Tasmania, as far as I've been before |
I got a nasty fright a few weeks ago. I couldn’t walk. The onset coincided with some medication I was taking, but it continued even after I stopped taking it. I was not only in agony but in despair. I was going to have to sell my house because it’s full of stairs and I lamented to my offspring, that now I would never be able climb those mountains or do some of the walks I hadn't done yet. It seemed that my my life was over.
My children put their heads together and their money and funded a flight to the South West National Park, one of the places I had regretted never having walked. On Mother’s Day I finally took them up on it. In the meantime, I have regained some ability to walk, if not quite to my former mountain goat status.
I had been trying for quite some time to get someone to take me there by boat, but the few that go there, only do so a few times a year, it's very expensive and sometimes involves flying as well. See for example, “The Windeward Bound” or "Onboard Expeditions."
Thinking this might be my last chance to go anywhere at all, I couldn't resist the opportunity to fly. This not only filled me with environmental guilt, but also felt like cheating. Why do I
feel that there should be a certain amount of misery attached to enjoying the
wonders of nature? No pleasure
without guilt and hard work. Even our school motto said so – ‘Nil Sine Labore’
– Nothing without Labour. You should at least have to suffer the odd leech bite
or wet boots, if not a blizzard or near-death experience or it isn’t so much an
adventure, but a nice day in the park. It was. You can read all about it in the next post.
You will be pleased to know that I have planted lots of native shrubs to make up for my sins. I'm hoping that while this may not work as a Carbon Offset, it may nevertheless help some of our wildlife.
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