Developments

I've refrained from mentioning the 'McMansion on the gouge' recently. It pains me walking past every morning. No longer do I count the galahs and cockies feeding on the grass there as I did for most of the first two years of my walk, nor pause to look into the serenity of the valley, at the head of which the Shepherds Creek West Branch is born, miraculously, by the rising of three springs a couple of stone throws from the main road.

Construction of the imposing house has ceased. Cars are there on weekends and some weekdays, presumably the work now being done is indoors and by the owners, such as painting and fine tuning to prepare it for habitation by the new tribe. Since the excavator first dug deep into the chocolate soil last November, I've watched bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers do their stuff, nine months in the building. I shudder at the accumulated cost of all the tradesmen. Those blokes all want $400-$500per day. After the concrete slab for the shed was poured, it sat bare and bold for a month or so, then a team of six blokes turned up with a truck and put up the large slate grey steel shed, in one day. Tip trucks delivered huge loads of gravel, and a bobcat levelled the surrounding earth and spread the stones to make the driveway.

Looking from the road, the house, shed and garage stretch almost all the way across the block, leaving only a sliver of view into the valley, between the shed and the house. I'm glad that, when I started walking, the block and the one next door were still part of the farm on the north side of the valley. The second block is still vacant, not for long I would say, but from the road where it fronts you don't get the magic view into he valley. One of the first changes that I noticed on my daily passings was the subdivision, sale, and fencing off of the two blocks. The landscape is now changed irrevocably, at least for my time.

There's not yet a tree or shrub on the site. I'll watch with interest to see, hopefully, a garden evolve around the buildings, that will eventually soften the visual impact of this development. A single devopment, but one of so many occuring all over good old Gembrook.

Walking every day, you see the roadkill; kangaroos, wombats, galahs, spinebills, and after rain, earthworms and even frogs. You see the sick tree and watch it slowly die. You see, hear and feel the increasing traffic, and smell the exhaust. You become aware of the jumbo's flightpath, litter, birdcalls, wind direction, the colour of the sky, the shape of clouds, the beehive in the tree trunk. You notice changes.