It's 8pm, and I'm sitting in Helen's living room trying to work out what I'm going to say, because I have a mountain of words and images building up in my head. I have actually made up a playlist to help me write about my day.
Here are the tracks:
Reflections in Suspension - Steve Roach
Paddy Fahy's Jig/Sean Ryan's Jig - Martin Hayes
Lament for Frankie - Solas
The Lark Ascending - Ralph Vaughn Williams
Dear Irish Boy - Eileen Ivers
The Green Place - Steve Roach
Today a friend of Helen's and Sunas, Alan, invited me to go hiking in the Tasmanian rainforest. I immediately accepted, and my trusty boots made an appearance once again. Helen dropped me off at his place, and off we went. I asked where we were going. A place called Timb's Tracks, he replied, and then proceeded to tell me about the logging in Tasmania and the impact it will make on the state.
Now anyone who knows me knows I detest politics. I hate voting and couldn't give a shit about politicians. They're a bunch of whinging girls bitching and backstabbing and making big promises they never keep. Why would I want to support that?? No thanks.
But when we arrived at Timb's Track located an hour west of New Norfolk, politics came up and slapped me in the face. Big signs about Howard and Lennon in each other's pockets. Tree sits and lookouts and protestors's hangouts. I'd heard about the logging problems, but being a political ignorami and a Queenslander this was very confronting. The section of forest Alan was taking me into is officially public land which is declared to be clearfelled come January next year (clearfelling means to clear forests of trees by use of chainsaws and other machinery for woodchipping, then burn the remainder by helicopter dropping napalm, leaving no useable soil to grow anything for years). To add insult to this, the old-growth forest which is to be clearfelled will end up being paper in Japan because Japan have protected their own forests against clearfelling!
Well if that lovely description wasn't already an eye-opener, then what happened next was. We entered Timb's Track, and Alan chose that moment to tell me we were illegally tresspassing an exclusion zone and could be arrested if caught. I hadn't seen a soul, even the protesters were away for the day. I kept that in mind as we began making our way into the forest.
I have *never* seen anything so beautiful in all my life. I was instantly and humbly reminded how insignificant I am on this planet, and that I'm a part of something so much bigger. Eucalyptus, sassafras and myrtle trees towered above us. The trippiest part of this was seeing all the snow there. I've only ever been in humid tropical rainforests, so wearing two pairs of woollen socks and a weatherproof jacket in a cold snowing environment certainly changed my perceptions somewhat! There are ancient ferns which live there. Ferns which only grow one centimetre per year. There were some enormous ones which were quite possibly 800 years old. And *everywhere* I saw strange red markings on the trees. I asked Alan what these were for, and my heart broke when he replied that the logging companies had marked them for destruction to build a road through the forest to begin the clearfelling (see my Tassie photo album, I only took a few of the many red markers). 
The wind was blowing, but it was so calm and luscious down on the forest floor. There was so much room to walk around. Apparently this is the problem. The undergrowth of the Styx Valley is home to many species of endangered moth and fungi. Once this is napalmed, they're gone forever. The forests will eventually grow back in an estimated 80 years, but the results will be that the new undergrowth will be so dense that no-one could possibly even *walk* there, letalone organisms living there!
We eventually came across a tree-sit *50* feet up in the treetop. The protesters were away today, so it was empty. Alan affectionately refers to them as the ferals, but these people are anything but. They aren't dole-bludgine spliff-smoking tree-hugging hippies. These people come from around the world to protect forests. They take holidays from their jobs to come and support something they believe in. I was dumbfounded as to how they got that thing up there, and my respect for these
people deepened.
The part which people misunderstand the most is that the protesters and Green politicians aren't protesting to stop all forest logging, only the old growth forest, which has never been logged. Nothing can be salvaged from this. Instead they ask for the logging companies to undertake sustainable logging of dense forests which were cleared by settlers 100 years ago.
Alan being a photographer, decided to take some pics while the wind had died down. The silence was indescribable, the closest word that comes to it is heavy. I know many people say this, but I felt like I was being watched. To quote Legolas from The Two Towers while he was in Fanghorn Forest, 'This forest is old; full of memory'. Alan took a 360 degree shot of me in the forest, in my daggy jeans and boots looking up into the light. My soul *felt* beautiful being in there. It truly lends itself.
There are some things that you can't put in a picture. One is the smell. It was like I was breathing fresh air for the first time, so crisp and clean and pure. The sounds were soothing. Rustling of the trees, small birds chattering away, but an odd silence, as thought the forest knows of its fate and is waiting with baited breath. And the temperature. Not freezing, but cold. Cold enough to retain the snow in the undergrowth, and the forest floor was cold enough to numb my feet through thick rubber soles and two pairs of woollen socks!
At that point in time it clouded over and started to rain, so we put the cameras away and off we went again. It's not all glamorous and romantic in there - it was wet and cold and very muddy. I was covered in mud and water, and my boots took a total beating! The funny thing was, numb feet aside, I didn't care. My eyes hurt from so much to take in. And the *colours*. So many muted greens and browns mixed with the unblemished patches of white snow. I instantly fell in love with the place, but it will most likely be gone by the time I go back down to Tassie in March next year.
The protesters won a small victory in that the logging has been delayed due to their efforts of tree-sitting, blocking the roads and the upcoming federal election. However, it's a hollow victory, because they logging companies can't do anything as the forest is too wet, so they were happy to agree to their demands and wait - it's what they want. As soon as the election is over it will be business as usual.
I feel like I want to cry from what I witnessed today. The forest isn't hurting anybody, yet the amount of legalities and money being poured into a campaign to clear it is utterly *staggering*. The most disgusting factor in this situation is if the government run into a legal problem which may take them to court over this matter, they simply change the law to overcome the problem. I am someone who cannot stay silent from seeing such greed with my own eyes. I am not an instantly converted greenie, but I don't want to be a political ignorami, either.
What a powerful day. I'm looking forward to the music that will pour out of me once I clear my head of the images and thoughts. I feel like I've watched a movie backwards.
What a wonderful wake-up call!
