Introduction by Croakey: Walking artist Molly Wagner recently reported on the two-day #CroakeyGO on Dabee Wiradjuri Country in rural New South Wales, as “an outstanding example of the many ways walking as a social and creative process brings people together to build a sense of community”.
Below, Croakey editor Dr Ruth Armstrong, explains why she drove home from the #CroakeyGO at Kandos “filled with gratitude”.
“My understanding of a place I love had been strengthened, the people I had been with had filled my cup, and I had had a glimpse of what could happen if we all remembered what it was to connect with Country – and each other,” she writes.
Beneath her article you can link into interviews and other reflections from two days of walking journalism, where participants discussed what sustains them, as well as highlighting healthcare gaps.
Ruth Armstrong writes:
A few days before the Kandos #CroakeyGo event, I attended the Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL) Network conference as an editor for the Croakey Conference News Service.
The conference was a thought provoking and at times conceptually challenging event, and, if I came away with one overarching understanding, it was that the current climate crisis has come about because humanity has lost, discarded, destroyed, ignored or had stolen our connection to Country.
As Danielle Manton wrote in her report on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led sessions, loss of connection to Country is also linked with loss of connection to each other. Restoring these connections is a pathway to restoring health.
Familiar roads
I pondered this as I drove alone through the tangle of Sydney motorways, over the blue mountains, into the scarred but still beautiful Lithgow valley, up the Castlereagh Highway via quaintly named rural villages like Cullen Bullen, Capertee, Ilford and Running Stream, past the huge Windamere dam and through the sprawling patchwork of vineyards, to Mudgee.
I was born in Mudgee and spent the first two years of my life living in nearby Rylstone. Our house was an imposing dark brick rectory on the road that links Rylstone with Kandos, just 7km away. It was apparently freezing in winter, but the people of the two towns and surrounding areas live on in the Armstrong family lore for their warmth and hospitality. So too does the countryside. We traversed every inch of it in a Volkswagen Beetle as my father attempted to keep up with his far-flung parishioners.
I have no memory of my time in Rylstone, but something must have been imprinted on me because it’s a place that calls me back. A favoured drive is to go from Mudgee to Rylstone via the Lue road, following the path of Lawson’s Creek through undulating farmland and the semi-abandoned town of Lue.
That’s the way I approached Kandos on the eve of the recent #CroakeyGo, passing my childhood home with barely a glance and savouring the sight of the mist and low cloud cloaking the former “cement town” at the end of the valley.
Walking with weather
As the first #CroakeyGo since the onset of the COVID pandemic it was always going to be a reunion of sorts, and indeed, a huge benefit for the Croakeys who were able to attend was that we caught up in person.
In some cases, this was for the first time in years. One of us, Associate Professor Summer May Finlay, had created two whole new people in the time since I last saw her!
We lucked in with mild temperatures for the weekend but no-so-much with the rain, which was a persistent feature of the event. On our first walk, along the footpath from Kandos to Rylstone, the rain helped us pick up speed and hastened the intimacy of our conversations as we peered at each other around the hoods of our waterproof jackets and huddled together in groups of two and three to share our experiences and ideas.
One conversation I had on the walk was with Meg Benson, who joined with her dog Axel. Meg told me about moving to Kandos to replenish and restore her depleted reserves, and some of the ways in which the region and its community have helped her do this.
I was struck again by how connection to place is inextricably linked with connection to people. She also had some tips on how to make the most of the healthcare that is available to residents.
On the second day, the rolling storms that passed through Ganguddy were a demonstration of the powerful forces of nature – splitting the sky, rumbling and crashing like falling rocks and transforming the paths into streaming waterways.
It was disruptive but it was awesome – and it had pretty good timing, arriving at the end of our amazing Welcome to Country, Smoking Ceremony and cultural walk-and-talk with Emma Syme, a Dabee Wiradjuri woman from the North East Wiradjuri Company and Wirimbili Cultural Tours.
Walking and learning on Country
Central to the #CroakeyGo weekend were the insights about Indigenous connection to the Country we were walking through.
The weekend was hosted by Professor Megan Williams, who is Wiradjuri through her father’s family and whose many Kandos connections enabled us to touch base with local Dabee Wiradjuri stories and history.
At Rylstone and again at Ganguddy we learned some of the significance of possum skin cloaks, knives, vessels and other useful objects, even as we examined and touched them. The shameful acts committed by the colonisers on Aboriginal people, and stories of resilience and cultural resurgence are all the more impactful when you are standing in the very place on which they occurred.
Emma Syme brought Ganguddy to life for us, pointing out bush foods, rock art and the use of the different spaces in the area. In a moving smoking ceremony, we were invited to set our pre-conceived ideas and biases aside and open ourselves to what the Dabee Wiradjuri Country had to offer, and to each other.
These learnings had been sadly lacking in my connection to the area, and left me grateful and humbled, and ready for more.
Recharged!
On the way home from Kandos I convinced myself that I needed to detour to Mudgee again to charge my car. Of course I took the Lue Road! The rain had stopped, and you could almost see the steam rising from the countryside as the sun did its brutal best to heat the place up again.
It struck me that this road was likely the first one I ever took – the trip in reverse was probably the way my parents took as they drove their newborn home from Mudgee Hospital to the big cold house Rylstone.
I drove down that road filled with gratitude. My understanding of a place I love had been strengthened, the people I had been with had filled my cup, and I had had a glimpse of what could happen if we all remembered what it was to connect with Country – and each other.
Watch this play list from the #CroakeyGO
Shared moments
Laurell Grubb, a member of Croakey Health Media who travelled from lutruwita/Tasmania to participate, said the #CroakeyGO was “an amazing and invigorating experience”.
“We were all so very privileged to visit truly amazing Country and to have the opportunity to learn, listen and reflect. So much gratitude for everything, the hospitality, the company of like minded folk and especially the knowledge sharing. Thank you Kandos and surrounds!”
Acknowledgement
The Croakey team acknowledges and thanks the Technical Audio Group (TAG) for supporting this #CroakeyGO, held on Dabee Wiradjuri Country, Kandos and Ganguddy, NSW, 30 November – 1 December 2024. We also acknowledge their wider generosity in supporting communities’ health and wellbeing.
See Croakey’s archive of #CroakeyGO articles; we welcome applications for #CroakeyGO events in 2025.
