Day 38 | Baladjie Rock: Rule 3 applied, Don't Rush

rest day 2

What a difference a day makes.

Well, to be truthful, I did meet a Danish couple with their 12 year old son up on the rock yesterday, we spoke for an hour about a rushed life, opportunity racing by, and somehow achieving a more balanced, participatory existence, that still maintained intensity.

By the time they left this morning another group had arrived, a couple from near Perth with 3 exuberant preteen boys, it’s school holidays, 1000km round trip for the joy of a weekend camping, the full fold-out off-road camping trailer, chainsaw work to fuel a bonfire, and, now the monotonous choof of the generator labouring to supply the electrical requirements, ie the full heavy footprint indulgence.

Another convoy of 4WDs, 5 in fact, drives up to the rock, the occupants clamber up to the easy to reach cave before packing up and heading off, unaware, perhaps, that there is even a lake nearby, or maybe that pre-arranged schedule to keep to, and certainly not that a pair of huge wedge-tailed eagles have been catching the updraft for the last hour just a few hundred metres away.

I know I sound smug but that was me 10 years ago. You can tell I enjoyed the quiet, thoughtful company of the Danes.

I’ve climbed the rock for each sunset and sunrise but my big walk today is along a track leading over to the adjacent lake, the water depth measured in centimetres.

It’s a big country and there’s plenty enough for everyone.