Falling Water

Natural Arch waterfall, QLD

The road less travelled is not always appealing, especially if you know beforehand it will be a winding, circuitous route to your eventual destination. Yet it has an allure, the idea of adventure, danger even, that can entice you to travel it.

There are many national parks nearby that I could go to but haven’t. Plenty of excuses as to why, one of them being I never felt I had the inclination or time to explore them. I’ve been to many far flung places in the world, but so much of Australia I haven’t see, even when it is so close by.

This week I was travelling back from Queensland after picking up my unsold artworks from a Christmas gifts group exhibition I was part of. There was the sign to the freeway five kilometres away to the left but to the right I could journey home via Springbrook National Park.

I had no pressing jobs to do at home and felt in need of some nature, so I turned right. The road wound through the trees with a sign indicating that the Natural Arch landmark was up ahead. I had never visited this fabled place but thought now was the time. I can treat it as an artist date, something to ‘fill my cup’.

I wasn’t disappointed. There was a track leading down to a fabled waterfall, which I could hear gurgling in the distance. Many, many stone steps descended to a well worn path wrapped around old tree roots and winding under canopies of twisting vines. Looking up I become aware how old these trees were, their branches all but blocking out the sky.

I finally reached the natural arch which was formed over a creek which now plunged down into a pool at its base. Apparently you used to be able to swim there, but now the path has rails and boardings with no swimming signs. Being midweek there was hardly any tourists so it was quiet. Not a lot of birdsong midday in the semi tropical humidity, but enough to know they were around.

I felt at peace, glad to have taken the right hand turn instead of the left. Glad to be walking a path of peace immersed in nature as a calming balm. I think of peace everyday and am following the nineteen monks on social media who are walking 2,300 miles across America in the name of peace. It seems a radical act, yet it is a way of making peace visible and touching the lives of all those they encounter on their journey.

I think too of architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) who built the Fallingwater house over a waterfall at Mill Run, Pennsylvania. It’s now classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its revolutionary ‘organic architecture’ design which harmonises with nature. It must have been amazing to live in such a house.

As I finish my seven year Sunday Post project started in January 2019 and ending 28th December 2025, I think of peace, of roads worth travelling, of the need to regularly be in nature and protect it. My archives remind me that journeys both literal and artistic are mostly circular, a way to dive ever deeper into what drives your passion. It is a good note to finish on.

Light falls on falling water, Natural Arch, Springbrook, QLD