One time I decided to go by myself, also to a remote location. It was many kilometers on the other side of a river that came out to the sea. Having crossed a wide expanse of Heath, I descended the cliff face, which was my usual way down to this series of beaches, which had many coves full of driftwood, which was stacked often 2 to 3 m high. On this particular day I decided to go further than my usual expedition, which often ended up finishing at one point where the rock face dropped dramatically into the ocean. It was a particularly dangerous spot and I often decided not to venture any further once I reached this point.

I had the whole day to myself, so I decided to keep going as it was a beautiful day even though the swell was being unpredictably high, in fact I think it was a day of King waves. I was on a bit of a mission because I had seen a certain type of driftwood stick that was washed up and down the coast around that area, which was really suitable for me to use as framing for some of my assemblages, so I really wanted to gather as many as possible.

So on I went and did come across many of those prized driftwood sticks that I was looking for as well as a pretty large jumbo garbage bag full of smaller sized rounded off pieces of driftwood, that I used in that particular series (the driftwood assemblage series). I also found a few very unusual buoys, which I also took along with me in my bag.

It was on the way back where I ran into trouble. This I think was probably partially foolish and partially adventurous and brave. There is a point on this rocky cliff face that I was mentioning, they are generally have to take a bit of a jump across to a ledge along the face. On most occasions you just needed a bit of guts to do it and everything was fine. At worst you would slip and possibly end up in the water.

It wasn’t a high cliff in fact allege a long this face was probably only 3 m above the waterline however on that particular day there were those king waves coming in quite unpredictably. So here was I move an armful lose to move along sticks over my shoulder and in the other hand I was carrying very heavy chamber garbage bag full of driftwood and some plastics. There was nowhere for me to really throw any of my gathered objects, so if I wanted to get across with everything, I had to take a risk.

That was precisely the time when I could see the King wave on its way and I knew that I had to make a decision then and there to just jump with a whole lot and trust that I was going to get a good foothold and move along out of danger or I was going to have to ditch my effort and quickly retreat with my supply to the last cove and leave it all for another day or as I was leaving the next day, maybe not at all.

So I jumped, and as Grace has it, I was fortunate enough to gain a good foothold in a relatively dry section of the rock ledge, which was enough for me to swing by garbage bag high enough and for me to also climbed high enough before the king wave hit the side of the cliff where I had been standing. If I had moved any slower, I would have ended up in the water possibly hitting my head against the rocks and I imagine that I could have ended up a casualty.

Apart from the few other misdemeanors I’ve had a pretty good run, when you consider the types of terrain that I have been exploring, I’ve probably been pretty lucky only to have these two notable episodes.

Exploring remote parts of Australia is often a treacherous endeavour, especially if you are climbing up and down cliff faces in remote areas carrying heavy pieces of wood.

I loved every second of this experience. I love the adventure and spending time with my loved ones, family and friends, trekking to far-flung locations to source these materials. I also love the tactile experience of working with wood. I celebrate the effect nature has had on these individual pieces by bashing them against rocks, fading them in the sun.

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