Underbool salt lakes

Lake Crosbie.

The next morning we were up fairly early and decided to take a drive around the lake to survey the general area. We didn’t get very far before coming across some old salt mining equipment and salt mounds, which we decided to mine for sonic purposes. The mounds were curiously resonant when walked upon or struck, with plenty of subtle sonic varia-tion. The rusted machinery was also a sonic delight keeping us absorbed.

After an hour or so I sought some shade and began to think that the others might be suffering from sunstroke. The flies were relentless and we found it hard to imagine how, in the beginning, men with shovels, picks and wheelbarrows survived the summers here, scrap-ing salt out in the middle and wheeling it back to the shore, truly back-breaking and stressful labour. After a few hours only we were just about spent, deciding to sit out the rest of the afternoon heat at the Ouyen pub.

I set up some objects in a small circle, Clinton had moved some distance away and I had the feeling he too was circling on a much wider arc. There was sounding, intoning and movement generating an energy, or was it that we were tapping in to what was already in existence. Some time passed. I felt as if we were mapping the place somehow and in doing so finding our relation with each other with the place and with the task at hand.