The Woman on the Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page A

extremes. Our little family had moved here permanently in January 1979, having spent the previous six months visiting, checking out the best sites, noting sun angles and prevailing winds, testing soil. We’d arrived in our overladen Kombi, towing an overladen trailer. Unbeknownst to us the mountains had received about 100 millimetres of rain in a deluge the night before.
    We slipped and fishtailed on the dirt road, just made it over the last flooded creek crossing, got bogged and were towed out twice, then were finally trounced by the last steep rise before our gate. Abandoning the trailer, we slid the Kombi back down the hill, took a mighty run-up, and managed to get up the hill and inside the gate. There we left it, since our own track was newly bulldozed, and of soft and treacherous clay
    In the drizzle and near dark we stumbled down the track carrying a few essentials. Although we kept telling the kids that this was an adventure, we felt plain miserable. The tent had been erected on a previous trip, so we made a cold dinner and crawled into our beds. At least the tent didn’t leak, but it was not an auspicious start to our new life.
    We had to wait two days for the rain to ease enough for us to ferry our gear down, a laborious operation that took another two days. The wheelbarrow, laden to three times its height, was very handy for this. However, to get it over the uneven track and up the inclines, my husband had to run at them, so care of the contents was not his priority. On one load, when we took off the plastic covering, the entire barrowful appeared to be coated in peanut butter, until we worked out that my big glass jar of flour had broken, as had a large bottle of soy sauce above it.
    Later that year it became drier than we could have imagined, although the spring in the gully near our camp kept up its small flow from somewhere deep underground, unaffected by surface drought. Yet despite the extremes dealt by the elements, that first year here, living mainly outdoors, remains the happiest of my life.
    About seven years ago I found my diary from that year—the only year I have not either stumbled to a halt by March or missed many days. As I’d used a blank page book, I wasn’t restricted in how much I wrote each day, although the entries got shorter and the handwriting more illegible as the year went on.
    Re-reading it, I am astonished at our pioneering energy—digging trenches for the house and for laying water pipes, carting rocks for foundations, making mudbricks, erecting fences, digging around and under and burning out huge old stumps, turning a tussocky paddock into a garden, planting vegetables and herbs, fruit and nut trees—and still I was enjoying cooking and teaching the kids, and getting to know my new world.
    We may have had our feet in the dust but we remained civilised; we ate and drank well, and never missed reading to the kids at night. Here’s a diary sample, from my 31st birthday evening:

    Made dough for bread tomorrow. Had ratatouille ( after Dr Dolittle). Clouds over far mountains amazing while heavy mist in valley below like a river. Now (9.30) in dense cloud here. Played Respighi cassette tonight as birthday treat—and Mildara Chardonnay Champagne (quite a strong taste).
    Playing the tape was a treat because it used up the batteries far more quickly than the radio did—and we needed our daily dose of ABC radio. Later we would get smarter, and clip a lead onto the car battery.
    For dining, under the spreading arms of a white mahogany tree we had set up a card table and canvas director’s chairs, with holes dug in the ground for the uphill chair legs so diners didn’t roll down the slope when eating, as several unwary visitors had done. As they were a little tipsy at the time, they rolled easily and didn’t hurt themselves, although the sight was so funny that the sides of the callous and equally tipsy spectators ached for some time.
    Our chosen clearing had appeared to be a gentle