Walking In The Mallee

Mark Twain traveled in this country, and found it somewhat weird. He amused many with his writings about his travels here, but I'll bet he never walked in the mallee.

Isaac Duff did, and his younger sister Jane, and their little half-brother, Frank, not quite four year old. Their walk made them famous. Not as famous as Mark Twain, of course; but famous in their small way. Their fame spread, though not as far as his. They never wrote any books, but books were written about their walk. Jane has a monument commemorating her walk in the mallee.

The Mallee these days is the name of a region in the north west of the state of Victoria. These days actual mallee forest is pretty much limited to national Parks and nature reserves. There is plenty in those reserves, though, to provide a modern walker with some inkling of the Duff children's experience. In their day the forest surrounding the rough farm shack in which they lived stretched for a hundred miles in almost every direction. Most of it has been cleared now, and turned into wheat fields.

Anyone who has walked in a mallee forest knows how weird a walk can be. If ever you do it, keep your wits about you, and hold onto your sense of direction. Be sure you are leaving visible tracks in the sand. If you cross an area of hard or stony ground, or one covered in leaf litter, scuff your feet. You may need to follow those tracks to find your way back out of there. Best of all, have a well-trained dog to lead you back to where you left your vehicle. Good dogs have a talent for that.

In the mallee the trees have no trunks; limbs sprout upward from a bole of root buried under the sand. Branches fork and fork again to form a high canopy of hard, dry leaves. Branches, branches everywhere, and nary a trunk to be seen. Of landmarks there are none. Everything looks the same, viewed from whatever angle; and everything but the sky is olive-drab and brown. Here and there between clumps of hardwood branches stoic-looking scrubby plants grow, some knee-high, some as tall as a man. Here, though leaves outlive their usefulness and fall, the trees recognize no winter, and never lose their leaf cover. They shed their bark instead, like lizards shed their skins, leaving smooth clean baby skin exposed. Dry, crisp ribbons of dead bark hang from the branches. When a breeze blows up, the strips of bark clatter like a horde of rattlesnakes. No, there are no rattlesnakes here, but plenty just as deadly.

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