Never-never land
With the school holidays just over I couldn’t help reflect on what it is we can offer our grandchildren when they come to visit us.
Many of us have grandkids living in cities or urban areas where, naturally, their activities are restricted for all manner of very compelling reasons.
But when they come to areas like Kangaroo Valley a whole new life suddenly opens up.
It is as though they have just stepped into Never-never land and they are suddenly free to spread their wings and fly.
They are confronted with paddocks spreading for what, to them, must seem to be for miles, thick bush and rainforest hiding all sorts of wondrous and magical creatures, sparkling rivers and creeks that bounce and rush over rocks and disappear to goodness knows where around the next bend.
There are trees to be climbed,
vines to swing on, rocks to clamber on
and cling to, gullies to be explored.
In their eyes it is safe, but it also has that exciting element of being, maybe, just a tiny bit: dangerous!
We watch them when they are younger undertaking their first venture into independence, wandering a little further each time, but never losing sight of the house, a symbol of safety in those very first years, when even a walk back across our lawn must have been adventurous for a toddler on his own.
A year or so later they are taking a picnic rug up on to the hill and having a very grown up morning tea all by themselves, until suddenly a cow moos loudly just over the fence and they come running back screaming.
We used to go on bear hunts and the dog next door was a ferocious wolf; but then they decided that bears and wolves were something that only babies worried about.
Now they are leading us along disappearing bush tracks as we scramble behind them in search of mystical waterfalls or other floodways of the imagination.
I watch them here as they help build billy carts and then take them up the hill and race down through the paddock towards the dam at the bottom.
Chris has set up an archery range and they spend hours sending arrows whizzing through the air. At first they were homemade, sticks bent by string and arrows made with twigs, but they have become much more sophisticated now.
Child-made slingshots are popular too; how well would they go down in the city?
The older ones saddle up their horses, put drink bottles and fruit in their saddlebags and take off for two or three hours across country, maybe up over the mountain behind, or along the road to Flat Rock, or down to a friend’s paddock beside the river where they can let the horses go and jump in for a swim.
What bliss; and where else
could they do this but in the country?
Being active in organizations like the Pony Club, going to the Show and taking part in it, these allow them to feel a sense of belonging and being part of a community that may be quite different from those they belong to at home.
‘There’s a lot of work to do, Bop” they say, as they survey the pile of wood, soil, branches or whatever is needed for the latest project their grandfather has devised.
But the uncertainty about the work is tempered by the thrill of riding on the back of the quad bike or ute or tractor as they roar to the latest broken water pipe or pump that needs to be fixed and realize that things they take for granted, like water, or even power, are not necessarily so.
Strawberries don’t arrive in the kitchen in punnets; they are much more delicious after half an hour spent scrabbling in the veggie garden and swallowing them whole straight from the plant.
Eggs for breakfast need to be collected from the chook pen and there’s no egg that tastes as good as the one that you have collected and has your initial on it.
There are risks.
There are hoons on the road and snakes in the grass, but what better place to learn a bit of risk-taking, and life is all about risk-taking.
It’s all too easy for them, sitting at home in front of a computer or television, where the only risks taken are vicarious ones.
They quickly learn they have to deal with situations themselves, whether they are simply things to avoid such as electric fences, stinging nettle, cows on the path, or more dangerous hazards such as snakes.
Our children have been taught from a very early age about snakes, about what they do if they see one. That doesn’t negate the danger, but at least we trust that they take care and don’t act stupidly. We’ve already had an incident, in the village streets of Thredbo of all places, where our five year old grandson was walking with friends when they saw a snake.
He immediately took control and put into effect the exercise his grandfather
had previously taught him.
These kids aren’t country kids, who can have these experiences all the time.
But at least we have been able to provide opportunities for them to play in a world where imagination can be given full reign and to experience the adventures that life should be able to offer them; adventures played out in an environment that gives them freedom and independence but where they know they are still relatively safe.
And, let’s face it. There are plenty of big boys here who love the opportunity of being back in Never-never land.