Around mid-afternoon I headed up the Mt Nebo track towards the dumped cars on the south side of the saddle leading up towards Mt Kembla. As I started up the initial steep slope towards the water tower, I became more aware of the specific character of the project. Not so much its conceptual identity as the kind of effort that would be required to complete it. Clearly, I was not simply going to magically appear amongst the cars, I had to walk there. The walking there and back would be harder than my normal walks and differently configured. I was carrying a heavy pack of stuff and the process of walking no longer appeared so neatly as an end in itself. My focus was on reaching a particular place rather than upon walking per se.
The pleasure of walking and running, for me, relates to the sense of constant motion. The two activities project an intimate and yet also ghostly and evanescent relation to space. Stopping for any length of time is always awkward and difficult, as though I am afraid that I may not be able to start back up again, that I may become fixed in the one spot (like all the relatively permanent things that I move past).
This partly explains my sense of trepidation when after 40 minutes or so I reached the dumping spot. I had looked down the steep slope at the tangle of wrecked cars many times before, but had always swiftly continued on. This time I knew that I had to stop and find some way down to these abject and abandoned things. Their tumbling slide had formed an open scar on the hill. Initially I tried to descend this way but quickly discovered that it was too strewn with rusted junk and too overgrown with lantana to provide a viable path. So I found a way down through the forest on one side. It was dark, densely canopied and very slippery underfoot, but surprisingly open at ground level. Balancing from one thin root, trunk and branch to another, I was able to slip and slide 100 metres down to where the bulk of the cars lay.
After taking some photographs of the overall scene, I selected a specific piece of car body to cut. I had expected to have to cut from a whole car, but instead found a loose bit of panel. It was covered in weeds, but I pulled them away to expose an expanse of white skin. It seemed like a good place to start. I unloaded my pack of tools, inserted the battery in the angle grinder and donned my various bits of safety gear. As soon as I put on the ear muffs I felt at ease. I was in a cocoon of deliberate action that nothing could interfere with. Far from the road, suburbs and other people, and with all the necessary equipment at hand, I had only to begin. I pressed the start button and cut a nice straight line in the panel. I cut out an overall square. The process of cutting all went smoothly.
I took a photo of the cut panel and the removed piece. Then I carefully packed up all my gear, picked up the square piece of illegally dumped car and made the difficult climb back up the hill. Upon reaching the track I discovered that I had a few small leeches on me. I flicked them off and began walking home. Light rain started to fall. A young boy appeared at the top of the hill on a bike, quickly followed by his sister and their mother. I said hello as we crossed paths, but they didn’t respond. I could hear dirt bikes close by. I turned off on to the smaller track that winds around the side of Mt Nebo. I could see the ocean, grey and still, in the distance.
Steep slope, dumped car
Loose bit of panel
Cut out
Square piece