4WD Touring Australia – June 2018

030 | 4WDTouringAustralia

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here is less air between you and the

peaks, but more solar radiation up here.

It’s a different kind of atmosphere. This is

where clouds appear, rolling, on the windward

face of peaks, and disappear as quickly. At dusk

the sun burns through the last fingertips of distant

gums and the air temperature drops precipitously.

You roll down the windows and push on to camp.

Around the fire, the 4WD is ticking like
a clock, cooling down fast, and the smell
of wood smoke gets into your clothes, a
woodsy elixir, a kind of camping perfume.
If I’m alone, this is time spent looking into
the seeing stones of the flames, letting your
mind roll through nothingness. Good med-
icine, as best I can tell, for most that ails.

And with other souls this is story time,

the structural framework of memory and

friendship, the way we become closer and

where meaning is shared, where meaning

becomes.

It’s hard to live in the high altitudes – but

there is something in man which has always

drawn him to the peaks, to the long view,

the rarified air, where men and gods can

converse on the same level.

This is what we do with the gift of free-

dom, the seekers and the travellers,

searching for something beyond the

horizon. Up here, the horizon grows wider.

Up here, we see the world from the seat of

the gods.