A long walk

When I was young my friends and I used to go bushwalking. It was fun, a few days here, a few days there, just one of those things you do for recreation, until 1982 when I began an extreme walk through the south-eastern coastal ranges. Sometimes I passed many weeks without seeing anyone. The aim was to find how an extended period in wilderness would influence me, and I tried to show this in my book Back Country. But the experience went deep. My eyes began to open. And some of what happened back then is only now beginning to make sense to me.

I couldn't stop there. One year stretched to two. Then another. My journey has continued through the wild countryside of the region and I still can't see it coming to an end. Step by step the walk becomes a meditation, at times more like a pilgrimage. It develops its own rhythms, it sings to me, takes me where I have to go and, for reasons that might become clearer as this walk continues, I feel obliged to follow. But, I must confess, most times I prefer not to take an unnecessary step, even in the course of walking hundreds of kilometres. Maybe I need to feel that each step is special, it's another part of the exploration.

Even when I'm exhausted the excitement of each new pace carries me forward; that keeps me going from day-to-day. I'm never afraid of being lost. I can happily let my feet find their own way through difficult terrain rather than following the line you might draw on a map. This is often what leads me into the Aboriginal connections that have been an essential part of the walking and my journey of discovery. They are everywhere.

Once I had begun searching out the walking route that goes by way of the old Bundian lands, it took some time to realise what was happening to me. Something strange must have been there during my earliest walks. I could call it something of a thrill. A tingle. A special buzz of excitement. Maybe a touch of magic. With time it is more and more recognisable. Then comes an occasion when, in the wild dingo country of Kosciuszko National Park, I realise what it is. My Koori friends figure it is the Bundian Way singing to us. Each of us feel the sensation, whatever it is. It continues, especially in the wilder, most remote country, and, even later, it stays with us through some very difficult times as we work towards official recognition of the route.

I go back to see BJ Cruse in Eden a few days before I start walking, as I have more questions. We sit overlooking the surf of Twofold Bay while I tell him I've read about a place called the Bundian Pass and wonder whether he knows anything about it. Its location? But he just shakes a mop of curly hair that is beginning to whiten round the sides. He listens patiently as I describe my intentions in walking through the national parks of the region while looking for signs of old pathways.

He knows exactly where I am talking about. 'Hmm!' he mutters, squinting at me to check whether I am some kind of crazy man. 'Tough country up there alright.' Emotions play across his face, as I mention the newly declared national park, then comes his wild smile. 'Those national parks don't have anything special to do with us. They run north and south along where nobody else wanted the land. Our people used to go east and west. The way those parks run has got no connection with the old people.' He laughs at the thought of those steep mountainsides, shaking his head. 'Most places there you can't walk. No way.'

'But I reckon there's stuff from the old days still there in the wild country,' I say. 'I've been checking the history, there are places all through, signs, complete pathways even. It's not wasteland. There's a lot more to all that back country than meets the eye, I can tell you that for sure.'

'Yeh, that's right,' he says, a glint in his eyes. 'Old Kooris from Twofold Bay used to walk all the way from here up to the high country. After moths. Them bogongs ...' he pauses. 'They used to feast on 'em. The people came from everywhere, gathered together for the ceremonies and trade. They even played football ... Before the whitefellas caught up with it.' He gestures, showing some AFL moves, before he narrows in on me again. 'No one else'd believe you can still find those routes the old Kooris went, but we know about them. I'll tell you what, you find somewhere like that, I'll come up and walk it with you.'

When I speak with Elders about searching out and mapping one of the old routes and what should be done if its location can be found, we consider the possibility of establishing a public walking route, perhaps even seeking heritage recognition. Ossie Cruse says, 'It's there. It's always been there. We know that, so we don't need recognition.' He pauses, searching the far distance before turning to directly engage me. 'But it could help others understand. What means the most to us is the kinship. It's what connects us Kooris. The way's a symbol. And for the whitefellas, we should do our best to get it recognised.'

When I ask Ossie who owns the pathways, he responds, 'We all do. Or nobody does, unlike the way Europeans own their land, we're custodians of it. We have a responsibility to look after our part for future generations ... You see, we're all one family round here, we're all related. We're proud of what we've got. Sometimes we fight, but we all get on together again afterwards. That's the way things are.'

Then there is the difficult point, how the media focus on the most heart-wrenchingly difficult issues of the Aboriginal Australia – especially from northern parts of the country – and it is as if the Aboriginal people living in south-eastern Australia don't count. In fact, they outnumber those of the north many times over. And while the situation of the local Aboriginal people is downplayed, they are time and again dealt out of the equation, as if invisibility is to be their fate. National Parks have been declared without taking account of Aboriginal interests. Customary work – most recently in the bean-picking, fishing and timber industries – has gone and they seem to have no place in the coming, more high-tech workplaces where, for example, machines clear-fell the forests. It's only too easy to sit back and paint the nation's first people out of the picture....