Tonight’s instalment of ABC TV’s Back to Nature mini-series will feature the Macedon Ranges.
When we’re in nature, it sometimes feels like time slows, and becomes elastic.
This episode begins at Organ Pipes National Park, on the eastern edge of an ancient lava flow.
Hosts Aaron and Holly meet Indi Clarke, who has a strong connection to this place, strengthened by his relationship with Wurundjeri elder Aunty Di Kerr, whom the hosts join for a yarn. Aunty Di shares how people are traditionally welcomed onto Wurundjeri country by a Wirrigirri, or Messenger.
Aaron and Holly then venture into the Macedon Ranges, where bushrangers used to ambush travellers in the mid-19th Century.
In the forest, Aaron and Holly discuss the incredible ‘Wood Wide Web’, the mycorrhizal network of mycelium fungi that allow trees to exchange resources with one another. This cooperation shows how living things are interconnected.
At Ngannelong – Hanging Rock, Aaron and Holly reflect upon its significance to Wurundjeri, Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung people. The story of Picnic at Hanging Rock came to its author, Joan Lindsay, in vivid and mysterious dreams.
Joan Lindsay explored non-linear notions of time, and resonated with Einstein’s belief that ‘The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion’.
Nearby, Aaron and Holly visit a 26,000-year-old greenstone quarry called Wil-im-ee Moor-ring, with Uncle Dave Wandin as their guide. With Uncle Dave, Aaron and Holly connect with a sacred rock, before learning about the quarry site.
The rare greenstone deposits here were made into axe heads that were traded along an extraordinary and far-reaching trading network.
Timeless Macedon airs at 8pm tonight on ABCTV and iview.
