THE STRAIGHT ROAD INLAND
By Coral Hull
[Above] Binda and Watertank, Stuart Highway, Northern Territory, Australia (Photo by Coral Hull, 1998)
"Coral Hull believes in a landscape in which it is possible to visualise a total absence of humanity. She's attempting to connect with the chthonic as a moment of pure meditation. While highly sensitive to indigenous concerns, she struggles with the divination of body and historical reality. Hull's text is not a solution, it is a complex map of self and place - a diary of interaction." John Kinsella
Over the years I have become fascinated by all aspects of Australian landscape. The land is where I find myself, particularly the arid interior and outback environments. The possibilities of the arid inland of Australia are as mysterious and limitless as space, and I wonder whether or not we should resort to mathematics to describe it, such as in physics. During landscape interpretation, it becomes important for me to create an identity for myself, by naming things apart from myself. This identification process, whether it is wandering around with the local Field Naturalist Club or defining emotions in relation to objects, gives me a starting point. It is similar to a reliance on a vehicle on a desert track. Without that point of physical focus or somewhere to retreat to for sustenance, I'd run the risk of becoming indistinguishable from that which I am attempting to interpret. Yet in order for me to interpret and document a landscape, a process of personal annihilation is necessary. Self-consciousness must take a backseat, so that it is the landscape itself that drives the vehicle of creativity.
 
[Above Left] Gypsum and petrified wood, The Breakaways, Coober Pedy, South Australia, Australia. (Photo by Coral Hull, 1998) [Above Right] Rock Collection, The Breakaways, Coober Pedy, South Australia, Australia. (Photo by Coral Hull, 1998)
In order to write about a landscape I must want nothing from it but what it is prepared to give. Initially I felt a need to take from the land in order to define myself. For example, when I was in The Breakaways in Coober Pedy, South Australia I went crazy collecting rocks from dry creek beds. I also chased the dry husks of paper daisies down the sides of fragile sandy cliffs. I ended up taking photos of the rocks on my car bonnet and returned them to the creek later. I was concerned about removing them from the environment. They appeared to be energised from it in some way. We all know what happens to the colour of river stones when we lift them from the river. Later in Alice Springs, I was content to sit on the polluted banks of the Todd River and play my didgeridoo to the rocks of the MacDonnell Ranges. Further north while driving along the Arnhem Highway through Kakadu National Park, I saw the landscapes where the wood from the didgeridoos is collected after trees had been eaten through by tree piping termites. The tropical woodland trees started to look like forests of didgeridoos. After my initial object collection, nothing, aside from the sensation, became as relevant. I now reject all notions of object collection unless for purposes of survival, creative art or spiritual significance.
During this same trip, I was fortunate enough not only to experience a sunset at Pirmiridi/ Karlu Karlu* (The Devils Marbles), located south of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, but also a huge afternoon thunderstorm. The rocks were photographed as bright orange structures against a deep purple sky backdrop. After the rain I jumped from rock to rock drinking water from the warm granite pools, just as the local aboriginal people had done for thousands of years. This undisturbed activity gave me immense satisfaction.
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Later I swam in the smooth dark body of water known as Annaburroo billabong, on the outskirts of Kakadu National Park. I smelt water lilies without touching them and was told that a fresh water crocodile lived at each end of the lagoon. It was a real privilege to swim alone there at sunset. The abundance and activity of life in The Top End during the wet season from October to March is intense with its changeable weather and proliferation of flora and fauna. The air is sweet and pungent, the smell of gigantic growth. On one 3km walk at Norlangie Rock I finally shed my makeshift raincoat and drinking water and just began to run. After the experience I followed these trails back to my original starting point.
Any landscape is a kaleidoscope of physical and emotional sensations. This is all defined by my own perception. Entering the landscape whether external or otherwise is an experience of intense observation and discovery. It is ironic that we access these landscapes by road and car, but to truly be present in them is to leave the car and begin to walk, until you are settled enough by the surrounding environment to be still. It's almost as if the landscape stops while you move and then when you stop, the first movement of birds from the overhead trees, a snake, wind, dingo, and so on. |
[Above] Dingo Fence, Coober Pedy, South Australia, Australia (Photo by Coral Hull, 1998)
For many years I have had an interest in documentation, the in-the-bush-and-on-the-road landscape culture and how they combine. In a sense the most significant journeys are within the self. My book The Straight Road Inland is a metaphorical quest for the inner landscape. When attempting to define the external environment I usually go on an initial hunch or an emotional response. With any creative project there is the element of risk that I will find nothing, in a similar way that the car might break down or the actual trip will be a disaster.
During a recent trip from Melbourne to Darwin there was a heat wave and my travelling companions Rob, and Binda and Kindi, ended up in a river for a number of hours on the borders of The Little Desert National Park at Dimboola. The serenity of this green blue river silently easing its way through the outback Victorian sand dunes was unbreakable. There is always a degree of anxiety in leaving the city to start out on such a trip, and the outback travel books I have read talk about easing oneself into the experience of travel. Once I had entered the water, beyond the refills at petrol stations and caravan park stops, I felt the landscape begin to enter me. It was as if it was slowing down my blood. Landscape documentation is about exploration and retreat, movement and rest, identification and association. The longer I stay out in the landscape, the more incidents present themselves to me. Obviously there were certain ideas I wanted to express, and I was finding these coming through the physical environment. As I become accustomed to the landscape more ideas will come into existence that don't necessarily fit the thematic structure of the initial project, hence multiple projects.
 
[Above Left] Kindi and Binda, The Breakaways, Coober Pedy, South Australia, Australia. (Photo by Coral Hull, 1998) [Above Right] Emus, Stuart Hwy, Northern Territory, Australia. (Photo by Coral Hull, 1998)
The Adelaide to Darwin drive was spent collating, collecting and identifying. I also took photographs and identified birds with binoculars. When there hasn't been much rain birds are easily spotted around water sources such as rivers, creeks and water tanks. The research behind my books is often an exhaustive process. I spent a lot of time working on articles, photo essays and ideas for potential future projects. I also collected plant specimens and pressed them into a book, with the intention to take them in to be identified by the Top End Native Plant Society or The NT Field Naturalists. During a period of intense research for any series of projects I may easily take 600-800 colour sides. On this trip I spent a good deal of time practicing the didgeridoo. I also collected free information on local history, including identification booklets and tourist industry pamphlets. I was literally absorbing the details of dozens of plant and animal varieties daily.
The way I coped with this influx of new information was to keep a journal of the experience, that included significant landmarks such as towns, creeks and rivers. At any given time there was a EH Holden Station Wagon glove box full of plant specimens going dry, maps, binoculars, bird identification book, camera and slide film. The laptop was used each night to type up any notes taken and also to add to them. By listing various flora, fauna, geological formations, weather patterns and my own activity observed in the present, I was then free to go on and research their various characteristics in more depth later on.
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On the road work is certainly challenging. On this trip we had to stop regularly for food, to water down the dogs, give them drinking water and to refuel. There was also the constant checking of the radiator and cooling system. The car was an old 1964 model with the average speed between 80-100kms per hour. But beyond the creative aspect and the road travel there was also simply a need to be present in landscapes and do nothing.
Even without any form of creative expression there is the immense and powerful presence of the Australian landscape itself. There is also an element of repetition involved in landscape documentation. It takes time for me to uncover the various layers of an environment. When I walked on Casuarina Beach in Darwin with the dogs during the wet season it was a repetitive action. Each day another layer of this environment was uncovered. The tides were different, which affected the debris washed up onto the shore, the skyscapes, my own mood and sensitivities. The weather was variable. |
[Above] Yellow-throated Miner, Stuart Hwy, Northern Territory, Australia (Photo by Coral Hull, 1998)
Every moment offers some new insight to this environment, therefore it is important for me to be present in a series of moments. There were relative features such as the same trees and a flock of white cockatoos that visited them in the afternoon during this period of observation. But quite suddenly there were a pair of black cockatoos flying before the opaline shimmer of the build-up of clouds early one evening.
On another day a flock of black cockatoos were feeding in a stand of Casuarina trees on Nightcliff Beach about ten feet away from where I stood. The sight of large birds gliding through the needles, that feel like gentle green rain, and their long harsh cries, took me by surprise. I felt captured. The sensation was similar to falling in love. Everything else including my own awareness of myself and my two dog companions became vague and out of focus. The situation was mystical.
Often it's as though the land speaks inside me, in a kind of internal dictation. Short lines and phrases come into my head. This is how I begin to write in a landscape where words are absent. This interpretation is very individualistic and subjective, unlike playing the didgeridoo where I am led, and believe that the land and myself meet somewhere in the interior of the instrument. In this instance the land comes up through the wood to speak to me, and I appear to become drunk on a mixture of two breaths. The interpretation remains largely through sound and vision. After the black cockatoos, I returned home to type the lines into my laptop. Here the work becomes a mixture of memory and interpretation, the lines leading me into a greater understanding. This is where I begin the reconstruction process, finally becoming aware of an audience. During the experience itself awareness is largely absent. A little further down the beach I looked back at the black specks sitting in the Casuarina trees and recognised myself as a speck. I felt stunned as if the effects of a drug had worn off.
 
[Above Left] Darter, Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia. (Photo by Coral Hull, 1999) [Above Right] Pandanus Palm, Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia. (Photo by Coral Hull, 1999)
I may also deliberately place myself in a situation for an effect. I stayed out in a monsoon to see the effects of that upon the landscape. I noticed the colour of Rapid Creek changing and the way the surf crashes more loudly before rain, as if it delivers the message of weather that is occurring further out to sea. The anticipation of a landscape about to receive rain, and the way the leaves of various palms, tropical vines and mangroves hold the water afterwards, were all part of my landscape interpretation during this particular walk. I ended up trudging for hours along the sand and I admit to twirling around and acting stupid out there on my own with the dogs.
The storms swept through, the beach remained deserted and all of us were saturated. The rain was so hard and thick that it was difficult to see any landscape and it was salty in my eyes. It is not the most comfortable thing to do. Yet there are times when the comfort is needed to work and to enable one to look after equipment.
Finally I believe in being present in a landscape without human culture and ownership. This, in the end, also includes the absence of an aboriginal culture. The landscape must speak to us all as it does to an animal. Yet I continue to respect and be in awe of aboriginal customs in a lot of areas, simply because I feel like their living is close to a 'land truth'. My first experience of this was when I climbed Uluru (Ayres Rock) at twenty-one years of age. It was an awful experience. At first I thought it was my fear of heights combined with the tourist industry which I have always found unacceptable. But as I climbed higher and higher hanging onto the chains that were hammered into the rock, I started to feel an acute sense of violation and internal pain as if I was harming someone. I thought, since a rock doesn't have awareness or an interest in a future existence, it is not a sentient being. Therefore my emotions were not making ethical sense to me. It was some time later when I realised that it was aboriginal culture and land consciousness that I was violating. The Mutitjula community amongst others do not want Uluru climbed, and I felt this despite my initial ignorance. Visiting the Northern Territory was my first significant introduction to the immense sweep and complexity of aboriginal Australia.
At the same time I have to forget racial politics in order to enter the land. I am a white Australian having no traditional totem, aboriginal heritage or blood lineage. Therefore I must enter the land alone and create a relationship to it. This is not as easy as it sounds. While doing this, I cannot perpetually define myself as white or as coming from a race of white murderers. I am a vegan. No culture is free from guilt and violence towards other life. In order to be accepted by my spiritual country, I must also go beyond all cultural constraints and the politics of human beings and enter the land itself.
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I do believe in truths apart from human beings and Australia is all I have in my heart. It is my one true spiritual home and I belong to its physicality. Yet the closer I come to a land-based knowledge, the more mysterious it all becomes. While I can never claim to be aboriginal and I doubt if I will ever fully know this country, I can still appreciate and learn from the many interpretations of the landscape, from the immigrant writers through to the traditional inhabitants. |
[Above] Pirmiridi/ Karlu Karlu (The Devil's Marbles), Northern Territory, Australia (Photo by Coral Hull 1998)
It is true that a majority of Australia's human population lives along the coastlines. But Australia's general population that includes plants, animals and people exists beyond this area in a kind of inner universe, refered to as The Red Centre or The Outback. The further we travel into the heart of Australia the further we seem to be able to travel. All interior landscapes are endless places of discovery. My focus inland has caused me to arrive at unexpected points of location. I was recently at a Crocodylus Park in Darwin, a crocodile farming research facility. A young mother crocodile had mated with one of the males in the cage and was defending her eggs against the other fifty or so crocodiles present. The owners of the facility spent the next forty-five minutes beating her with an iron bar in order to take her eggs away and place them in an incubator. Her role and the role of her babies was for the testing of growth promotants for the crocodile industry, in order to see how large a crocodile could be grown without damage to the skin on the underbelly. She was a ferocious mother. The staff almost bashed her unconscious. In the end she was left panting in and out of her sides in a corner, watching them taking her eggs away with a trickle of blood running along her snout.
 
[Above Left] Crocodile, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. (Photo by Coral Hull, 1999) [Above Right] Water Buffalo, Bachelor, Northern Territory, Australia. (Photo by Coral Hull, 1992)
My many observations of the farming industries over the years has taught me where this society and humanity fails, and also of its great potential to change in every moment. I was grateful and sad to be present at this horrific incident. In some small way I was allowing myself to be the crocodile's voice, the vehicle or the power by which the crocodile could have her story told. The individual life is reflective of the whole, which is landscape. All landscape observation and interpretation is an awesome and humbling experience. By living beyond what we know, we see a different side to things. No matter how well disguised, writing is in many ways a very personal thing. If a writer is stuck in their own lack of internal development and growth as human being, this will show in their work. As writers accountable to an audience, we almost have an obligation to let internal and external environments mingle, where they will move through each other to consume and affect. Perhaps this can be achieved by entering the Australian landscape and by following our own straight roads inland.
Note: The aboriginal name for The Devil's Marbles is Pimiridi from the Warpri people, and Karlu Karlu is from the Warrumungu people. The landscape in this area holds cultural and spiritual significance for both cultures.
An earlier version of "The Straight Road Inland" was Published in Prism International, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. It was rejected by Meanjin (Australia) on the basis that people such as myself could not hope to understand and therefore write about the Australian landscape in the way that an indigenous Australian could. In the meanwhile, my dogs and I will continue our developing relationship with the land, in our own way, and unhindered by racial politics that seem to actuate from, and be restriced to, university campuses.
About the Writer Coral Hull
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Coral Hull was born in Paddington, New South Wales, Australia in 1965. She spent her childhood in Liverpool, on the outer western suburbs of Sydney. Coral is a full-time writer specialising in poetry, experimental prose fiction, scripts and literary articles. Her work has been published extensively in literary magazines in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. She is also the Editor of The Book of Modern Australian Animal Poems, an anthology of Australian poets writing about animals from 1900-1999. Her published books are: In The Dog Box Of Summer in Hot Collation, Penguin Books Australia, 1995, William's Mongrels in The Wild Life, Penguin Books Australia, 1996, Broken Land, Five Islands Press, 1997 and How Do Detectives Make Love?, Penguin Books Australia, 1998. Coral is an animal rights advocate and the Editor of Thylazine, an online literary magazine featuring articles, interviews, photographs and the recent work of Australian artists and writers working in the areas of landscape and animals. She completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts Degree (Creative Writing Major) at the University of Wollongong in 1987, a Master of Arts Degree at Deakin University in 1994, and a Doctor of Creative Arts Degree (Creative Writing Major) at the University of Wollongong in 1998. |
[Above] Photo of Coral Hull by Cliff Hull, 1999.
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Thylazine No.2 (September, 2000) |
