Loch Gary Wildlife Reserve
Most weeknights, I spend a bit of time poking around on Google Maps. I’ll find a quiet road that Street View hasn’t made it down, an old barn or a town I’ve never been to, and think, I wonder what’s there.
Photography has given me a good excuse to follow my wandering cursor. Over the years, it’s taken me down plenty of side roads and led me to abandoned graves, crumbling churches and all sorts of things I’d have driven straight past if I’d stayed on the main road.
This evening’s destination was a patch of green I’d spotted on the map about half an hour from home. It was marked as a wildlife reserve. I found one or two grainy photos online, but nothing about what lived there and no reviews from anyone who’d been.
So, after work, I grabbed my camera and some film and went for a drive.
The patch of green turned out to be a wetland, the water still high from recent rain. The trees were old and gnarled, their trunks and branches full of hollows. The hollows were full of birds.
Cockatoos screeched overhead. Ducks and cranes wandered along the water’s edge. Choughs chased each other through the leaf litter, and dragonflies touched down on the water, sending out tiny, circular ripples.
I’d lived half an hour from this place without knowing it was there. I’m glad I picked that particular patch of green and went to have a look.
If I ever stop taking photos (unlikely), I hope I never lose the sense or curiosity that leads me to turn down the occasional side road just to see where it goes – even if it’s the one at the end of my street.