Returning to Old Friends 🌿
Field Notes — Mundarlo, Marrambidya (Murrumbidgee River)
There are some places in the landscape that like a reunion.
Returning to Nick’s property at Mundarlo and spending time again beside the Marrambidya (Murrumbidgee River), I found myself recognising individual River Red Gums — familiar bends in their trunks, scars, hollows, gestures and forms. Like old friends, they quietly invited me to slow down, sit awhile and listen.
Returning to the River
I was first introduced to this stretch of river during our Earth Canvas artist residency in 2024 with Hopeful Disruptions artist collective. Returning almost two years later allowed me to spend time with these trees again and continue building a deeper relationship with this place.
Some of these trees have stood along the riverbank for hundreds of years, witnessing cycles of flood, drought, change and renewal.
Grasses, Cattle & a Living Breathing Floodplain
For almost a week I wandered, sketched, listened and observed along the riverbank. Conversations with Nick opened up more layers of understanding about the grasses and ecological relationships that shape this living floodplain.
He pointed out Paspalidium, or Warrego Summer Grass, explaining how sweet and succulent it is for the cattle. Alongside this, native Red Grass provides important roughage, and the cattle select different plants as they need them.
Through these conversations I began to understand more about how grazing animals, grasses and soils interact. The rumination process, manure, movement of cattle across the landscape, and lighter farming approaches all play a role in supporting soil life.
These relationships between plants, animals, microbes and land continue to shape my understanding of a flourishing, living, breathing floodplain.
Moments That Reveal Themselves
One quiet moment that has stayed with me was seeing a White-throated Treecreeper moving along the bark of one of the old gums. I wasn’t quick enough to take a photograph — only to stop and watch.
Later, when speaking with Wiradjuri Elder Aunty Cheryl, she shared that perhaps the important thing is noticing when these moments reveal themselves to you.
So much of this project has become about slowing down enough to notice — the movement of grasses in the wind, the shapes and colours of rocks, birdlife moving through the trees, the confronting low winter levels of the river, and the traces held within these ancient landscapes.
Rain, Chooks & Unexpected Moments
The last few days brought steady rain, and I moved from my riverside camp into a small cottage closer to the homestead (with a very appreciated hot shower!). The observations continued in a different way — watching chooks wander past and two enormous pigs enjoying their own rhythm of life.
These encounters, conversations and quiet moments continue to find their way into the drawings, moving image and installation works developing for Tracing the Living Floodplain.
A reminder that landscapes are not still; they are living, breathing places that we are always in relationship with.
