Wanderings

Here began the Long trail. Here began our little worries and troubles, our joys and the Living Life, a host of impressions, a Great Experience, and the marvellous scenery of the Southern Blue Mountains. It appeared such a short space of time since we started.

The coach ride saved us about two days of walking and dumped us right at the gate of the wilderness. Rather strange for me, for always have I religously traversed the semi-inhabited outer zones which surround these delectable paradises, just as some zealous neophyte advances in successive stages through outer duties and distances and spans of time to his Ultima Thule.

Also quite inspiring was the sense of freedom experienced as the last shackle that bound us to our Ordinary Existence — the coach — rolled away. I could not resist the impulse to walk apart and gaze down through the mystery-laden green and blue and sunflecked obscurity beyond the boles of the nearest trees. Freedom! Heigh ho! Ever it is, for toil and sweat, for perseverance and faithful service long sustained, will be given in long gasps and in precious periods of time for just such freedom. The compensation is very elusive. A thing of the mind it is, only that. A healthier environment for the soul, let us put it that way. A changed condition wherein ones ideas and idcals are enlarged upon free of the routine that galls us. A ploughing of the soil of the mind and a sowing of the seed therein, from which later will arise a crop of ideas and power-thoughts, expanding in conjunction with the homogeneous results of the siftings of retrospection and shaping our lives. Ever it seems to me our existence is ruled by two main forces: What we like to do, and the necessary things we do for the demanding present.

Myles J. Dunphy – Journal Vol. 7