The Secret of the Apple Tree
The apple tree stood in the bush, pink-white blossoms alien in the grey-green livery of the eucalypt forest. How long it had stood there no-one knew, its secret life recognised by only a handful of intrepid explorers.
In 1840, cattlemen and miners from New South Wales, seeking pasturelands and silvery riches, followed the Snowy River as it tumbled more than 2,000metres from its heartlands in the Australian Alps, its raging Spring torrents carving narrow ravines and rocky gorges, like a rasp wears through raw metal. At New Guinea Ridge, a huge catchment basin devoid of surface water, underground aqueducts privately add their watery load to the river.
During that early European exploration, someone had made a home in the bottom of the valley, planting familiar crops for sustenance, and perhaps normality, in a hostile land. Fruit trees and flowers bloom still each season, hinting at the nostalgia and isolation those long-gone settlers must have felt, with only exotic remnants left to mark their passage.
Bushwalkers and cavers come now, as did we, to enjoy the remoteness of the river valley, finding inner strength and spiritual peace in Nature’s hands. The bush demands you stand proud in your skin, letting you be true to your own inner nature without censure.
Near our camp lived a family of goannas, large gentle lizards of the water monitor family. The patriarch, about two metres long, led his kin through the camp at dawn, alertly pretending to ignore our presence, to spend the day hunting by the river. One hot afternoon I startled an adult goanna sunbaking on a rocky ledge at the river’s edge. It dived into the clear water and lay at the bottom of a deep pool. Hoping to see it close-up when it resurfaced, I lay motionless on the ledge, watching it watching me. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. I was sweating and at risk of sunburn. The rock was like an electric blanket beneath me; no breeze swept the valley. After thirty minutes I declared the lizard victor, slipping into the river myself.
Hidden in this ancient landscape are caves, and we had come for caving. Striking north up the valley, we headed for a limestone ridge, then turning inland along a scrubby gully to follow an overgrown trail through blackberry bushes and stinging nettles. The sweet, sickly scent of summer-ripe blackberries crushed underfoot was punctuated by curses at the nettles’ assault on bare legs. It was there we found the old orchard clinging to the edge of a sinkhole, the collapsed land a clear indication of water activity below.
We clambered down through hostile vegetation to the bottom of the depression, our progress watched by the aged fruit trees looking more out of place than we ourselves. As we entered a small fissure, the shade and cool breeze rising from the cave below were a welcome relief. Damp, dank odours of mud and moss roiled as, little by little, we slithered and squeezed between limestone blocks until we dropped into a wide stream passage. As we crawled along the gravelled streambed, our bodies cooled in chilly waters untouched by summer sun.
Rounding a bend, I was astonished to see a huge tangle of roots protruding from overhead, dangling down and spreading along the stream in all directions. Here was the source of nourishment for the giant apple tree, fed by the secret waters of the mountainside. Crawling through the tree’s entrails, its blood vessels, its essence felt abhorrent, like a parasite wriggling through the body of a living organism, an interloper into its very being. I wondered how the tree was feeling, sensing my presence, responding to my intrusion. I feared that at any moment the perhaps frightened tree would respond, strangling and pinning me in its roots. Not wishing to upset it further, I lay still, my heart pounding. Rational me was unnerved as primordial superstitions fought to take control of my body and drive me from the place.
As I lay breathless, my body caressed by the tree’s soft tendrils, a peace came over me, an epiphany of realisation. Emotional neediness was strangling me, destroying self-respect, reducing me to a parasitic shell with no self-control. I finally understood I had to stand alone, within myself, grow up! Retreating alone to the sunlight, I left the apple tree to its solitude.
Did those early settlers know of the forces flowing beneath the land and plant the apple tree there, in the spot that would provide it lifeblood in times of drought, or was it a fortunate accident?
I hope life is kind to the apple tree, that it dodges bushfire and disease and continues to grow long into the future. I wish it well, but I will never return to its heart.
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