‘PROTESTERS BURNS’ MELANI DU JARDIN OIL ON BOARD FRAMED 70 x 70 CM

PROTESTERS BURNS

I turn to see a distinct plume of rich dark smoke billowing into the great emptiness of the blue sky. It feels incredibly ominous. Our mood sobers. It has been so hot and dry. All of the creeks had become mere trickles choked with algae and slime from the heat. The air was oppressive. My chest tightened. This was the moment of the ensuing five months of sheer chaos, stress and struggle for our region and for what turned out to be much of the East coast of the nation. The Black Summer was upon us. 

We made our way to our regular apartment and checked in, watching the skies fill with smoke with each passing hour as evening came. By the time it was dark, there was a glow on the horizon and thick smoke covering the entire region. Ash blew to the coast on the wind and coated everything. Everybody was in a state of shock and then panic began to set in for those near the massive fire fronts.

We heard that our local village had been evacuated as had many in the region. All women and children had left. Most of the men remained to help fight the fires, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Rural Fire Service volunteer firefighters and First Nations custodians of the Bundjalung Nation. 

The next update was that the sacred place that I so loved and had visited and painted again and again, Protesters Falls, inside the Nightcap National Park, was expected to suffer incineration from the blazes.  This was completely unheard of in living memory, as the mighty waterfall plunging over the escarpment always kept the area damp. The flora in the Protesters gorge is some of the oldest remaining Gondwana remnant forest and had survived there for thousands of years. And now it could all go. I was extremely saddened by this. Even from that moment I longed to go back to Protesters Falls and see what had happened there for myself.I had no idea then, but it would be almost a year before I would be able to return.