A Weekend in Forrest: Plus, Some Extraordinary News

A town called 'Forrest' feels like a bit of poetic humour to me. Name a town in a forest, Forrest? But it was named after State MP Charles Forrest, who pushed for the rail link to be made there, clearly to transport the timber, the main industry of the town next to dairy up until the 1960's, as well as other farming produce. The district still boasts produce - berries and beer fed cattle, purple potatoes, sheep.

There's evidence of the old saw mills everywhere - rusting machinery is the decor of the hour. Old sheds and houses topple in the wet soil. There's a kind of uniformity in the old town - everyone has camellias, it seems, and forget me nots, white flag irises, bluebells and snowbells tumble from front gardens onto nature strips. The forest is both backdrop and remnant - it's right there in people's gardens with huge old gums, and right on their doorstep, but kept at bay by residents who seem to favour birches and maples and more European style gardens, cottage like. It's gorgeous. They can too - it's much damper here than where we live an hour away.

The forest creeps, fingers decaying porches
They hold onto roots by planting camellias
Allow a few big trees to keep their claim in yards
whilst allowing forget me nots to prosper
A ironic planting - how can one forget?
the forest is why they came, once

We are here to gather for my brother in law's 50th, staying at a small accomodation that overlooks the hills and trees. In the distance ten woolly sheep perch precariously on the hillside. Kangaroos bound through at night and at midnight, a horse nudges our van where we are positioned in the driveway. It's a tourist town now - quiet, and small, but a place where cityfolk come down for the many cycling routes that wind through the bush and enjoy local brews at Forrest Brewery. There's an easy track along the old railway line, and harder ones with jumps - one in which my nephew comes a cropper, careening around the bend and into a tree and a blackberry bush.

There's rumours of black panthers in these here parts, but the most we saw was a huge black house cat. Still, there's a certain presence to the forest here, as if it is a character all of it's own, beckoning, or at least large and demanding. With occasional llamas in junkyards.

There's so much juxtaposition between native plants and European plants - arum lillies (or death lillies, as I know them) and holly bushes nestling next to stringybarks and banksia.

We loved walking down side streets, checking out old houses and sheds, and the remnants of history in red brick and decaying iron. Plus, random dragons. We remrmbered this one from a fire festival years ago.

We walk alomgside the old railway line, down to the bridge. We take our cameras - Dad's enthusiasm for photography has grown since his cancer, because one thing he can do in a hospital bed is figure out fancy settings for fancy cameras. I take photos of Dad and my sister taking photos of a scene I'll take a photo of too. Dad's photograph will turn out the best. One day it's this photograph I'll remember most of this day - of a flowering fruit tree with an old windmill picturesquely plonked. We walk down to the dam where there is trout to be caught. We walk alongside the river. We walk down to the vintage junkshop where I will regret not buying salt and pepper shakers with a bucolic scene of chickens.

Even Dad, with his bad hip from bone disease brought on by chemo, manages a walk or two with us. In the evening, we return to a campfire, marshmallows and the whiskey we bought my brother in law for his birthday, smokey and cockle warming. Dinner is at the brewery, where we drink 9 percent chocolate stout.

It is this stout that Dad jokingly refers to as his cure, as Tuesday's news will be extraordinary - his lymphona has disappeared. No tumours left, only the remnants of one. There will be many more weekends walking away, we hope. Life is grand.