Liz, Steiner School Teacher, Muckleford, Dja Dja Wurrung Country

Liz has always lived in the country - her parents lived a nomadic life where they moved every six years when she was a child. She’s a Steiner school teacher now, which has seen her travel a lot in her adult life, first living in Tasmania in the 90s. She tells me that Tassie in this time was very different, and alternative communities there still hunted and wore furs and lived in the trees. To decide where to live next she dropped an atlas on the floor; whichever page it opened to is where she would go. So she moved to Mathoura, and from there to Moira outside of town, where she lived on the banks of what used to be the Murray river, before an earthquake changed the flow, leaving it an empty riverbed. Her kids were young and she recalls never having to use a clock - their days were spent on bush adventures, gardening and painting.

Liz moved to Castlemaine so her kids could attend Steiner school. When her kids were young they’d spend their time riding bikes and making jumps in the bush, and they’d ride to school themselves; sometimes stopping to have picnics on the way, and arriving late. Often a little staffy would run alongside them as they rode. One day Liz was driving past the local RSPCA, and for some reason felt called to go in. She saw a dog in there she immediately fell in love with, and decided to bring her kids back to meet it. Shocked, they told her that was the very dog that ran with them to school. They of course had to adopt her.

I asked Liz after all her travelling what made her want to stay in this place most of all, and she tells me that there’s something about the land here - and especially the rocks. She says the indigenous people have stories of the serpent resting it’s head up on the Rock of Ages, and its body rests across the land here. There’s a belief that beings from the Lemurian race live in energy form below the rocks there too. It’s ancient land steeped in mysticism, and despite it not being her own ancestry, it’s a very spiritual place that she’s deeply tied to.