Birds, frogs and sunset walks: how a wetlands project transformed the NSW town of Goulburn

Halfway between the Big Merino, which stands like a sentinel on the Hume highway, and a supermax prison is a place known only by a few. Here, less than a kilometre to the east of Goulburn’s main street, is the music of birds twittering in trees, the splash of ducks diving, the ponk-ponk-ponk of frogs in conversation, and the heady smell of eucalyptus.

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If a healthy landscape is one where birdsong is often heard, then the Goulburn wetlands must be one healthy landscape indeed, which is remarkable considering it is only 10 years old – and not long ago this part of New South Wales was facing a water crisis. It was formed out of clay pits once used by brickworks that closed just after the second world war. For much of the most recent drought, the wetlands were just a hole in the ground. But heavy rain last year and again this spring and summer brought an abundance of water. The regeneration plantings are thriving to the point that banks of wattles and eucalyptus are up to eight metres high.

For local people in the know, this is the place to walk your dog in the evening, catch another glorious pink-and-orange sunset, and, of course, see birds paddling about in search of a meal. Friends and Residents of Goulburn Swamplands (Frogs) is a small, volunteer-run organisation that cares for and maintains the wetlands on a weekly basis. They have counted 130 different bird species.

Birdwatcher Frank Antram says the list of birds includes the blue-billed duck, which is noted as a vulnerable species, and the ruddy turnstone, which visits from the NSW south coast. It even includes the Latham’s snipe, which flies all the way from eastern Russia and the Japanese islands, and is protected by the Japan-Australia Migratory Bird Agreement. Human visitors can enjoy three timber-and-iron bird hides as kangaroos laze on the nearby grasslands and snakes lurk among the groundcover.

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Keep reading at The Guardian (Australia edition), which commissioned this story and published it on 30 December 2021.

Great, long, dreamy adventures

I can remember the exact moment.

I can remember exactly where I was: in the car, on the Hume, just outside Marulan, heading south. And what I told myself: You have to get your act together, take this seriously, make every effort. Get. A. Damn. Website.

The kick up the pants? I was coming home from a month-long residency at Bundanon, Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s gift to the Australian people – I’d worked my bum off, a productive time, but I’d also connected with a bunch of extremely committed artists, many of whom spoke about the need to have a digital platform. I didn’t even have the internet on at home. Within months I got connected to the internet, had a website built and got this blog going (which recently took over the role of being the actual website). Yes, my online adventures began on the Hume Highway that morning back in 2009. But the world has moved on, I’ve moved on, nothing’s the same.

Which means I can now make a declaration: this is my 300^th post for UTCOAFITD (which clearly is the most ridiculous acronym in the history of humankind). And this will be my final weekly post.

I really have been doing this on a weekly basis from the beginning, because I read some advice somewhere or other that blog posts should be regular and frequent. On a handful of occasions I’ve done a cheeky mid-week post, but on the whole I’ve kept to my commitment. And there’s been something about that commitment: spending days thinking about what I’ll post, whether it be something that had been published elsewhere (Canberra Times, BMA Magazine) or something written for the purpose. There have been times – many times – when I haven’t known what I’d write until the pen was being put to pad, which sometimes resulted in no words at all, so I resorted to shonky visual…things.

I doubt that I’ve ever known what I’ve been doing, other than, perhaps, writing a journal that other people might read – here’s a depository of writing, one amongst a gazillion other depositories of writing. Of course, the most rewarding part has been connecting with other writers, bloggers and thinkers, some of whom I now consider friends, despite living hundreds if not thousands of kilometres away and never having met in person. This must be the best part of the digital era, surely.

What happens now?

I’m not going to call it quits, but from now on posts will be on an ad hoc basis only – perhaps on average they’ll be every month, but no longer will there be any hard and fast rules. Why? Because I’m exhausted, I’m over-committed; in the larger scheme of things, my brain is really quite small, it can only take on so much, which really isn’t that much at all. I need to prioritise. I want to spend as much time as possible reading fiction and writing fiction. I want to go on great, long, dreamy adventures; I want to be moved, confronted, changed. I’m forty-five – it’s time to start learning about how this planet works, and, I think, the best way to do that is through immersing myself in fiction.

So, fond blog, happy 300^th post. Sincere thanks to everyone who’s read and commented – I’ve appreciated our conversations very much.

Here’s to new adventures.