Kerry the caretaker? Kerry the trail maker? Kerry the bushwalker? Kerry the local legend? Kerry, the humble, quietly spoken and dedicated friend of woodland forests in the Pilliga?
I was first introduced to Kerry Lowe, 72, President of the Tamworth Bushwalking and Canoe Club, not in person but in story, the type of story that evokes senses of intrigue and of awe and of mythic out-of-this-world-ness. For some time, until I’d actually met the man, I forgot most of the events and contents of these stories. The feelings associated with them, however, remained, and Kerry seemed to me like a faraway mystical character, almost difficult to believe in, but heart-warming to hear of.
I could, at this point, write some fun facts about Kerry’s history, his life—and I will get to that. But the nub of the story, in short, is this: Over fourteen years, Kerry has created approximately 54km of trails through Barkala Farm, a nearly 5,000ha property, some of which is farmland, but most of it wild Pilliga woodland in the heart of Gomeroi/Kamilaroi Country in NSW’s North West Slopes region. These trails are home to the annual Pilliga Ultra, a festival of running and sports activism designed to support local people in their efforts to attract tourists and to protect this environmentally significant area.
Given the fact Kerry doesn’t live here—he divides his time between a camp on the farm and his home on the outskirts of Tamworth, which is roughly a 200km drive away—and given the rocky, chossy terrain and scattered escarpments of the Pilliga, this trail building is quite a feat.
On the map, the Pilliga lies where the green near the coast, the green of the hinterland, the green of rain, slowly fades out west and becomes scarcer. The land turns vaster, more desert-like. The Pilliga is not the thick bushland of the Wollemi, nor the boundless plains of the Strzelecki Desert. It’s the woodland in between, and has its own unique beauty. “Most of it’s wilderness,” says Kerry, which is what has driven him here, and what keeps him driving back.
Kerry describes the Pilliga as similar to the Blue Mountains but on a smaller scale. Small, however, doesn’t mean it’s insignificant; in fact, it can emphasise the microsystems at play, and the intricacies and the delicate in life. Kerry describes gorges, canyons, and cliffs, and estimates there are 1,000 caves on Barkala Farm.
But the Pilliga is under threat. Mining-exploration permits and underground disruption began here in the 1990s; ever since, the unheard voices of the Gomeroi people, and of others who oppose mining here, have been suffocated and drowned out by the broad reach of there sources giant Santos.
In fact, trying to understand the campaign to protect the Pilliga is like stepping inside Tara June Winch’s fictional-yet-realistic story The Yield, a story that almost uncannily mirrors what’s happening here, a story of the politics of black and green relations, of the blurry ethics of much-needed funding for the local footy field available only by the same companies destroying the local environment, of the history of colonised Aboriginal nations, of the narrative of creating local jobs.
After that introduction to Kerry that had more to do with storytelling and less to do with the actual man, I finally met him in person at Pilliga Pottery, a café and working ceramics studio on Barkala Farm. It was early May, 8AM sharp; the leaves had already turned, the fire was still smouldering, the rain was soft. We crammed into Kerry’s Landcruiser, and then travelled down a dirt track into the bush. Kerry had set up his camp for a few weeks on a transition between cleared farming land and dense bushland. We collected metal rakes and gloves and set off on foot for some trail maintenance. With Kerry in front, he showed us—rather than telling us—how to clear the paths. Kerry’s presence exudes modesty; I quickly learned that, as much as Kerry is a character, he is understated and unassuming.
As such, he creates a sense of ease, trust and confidence. We trailed the trails attempting to mimic his use of the tools, noting the attention to detail he takes, from the use of dead wood to line a particular side of the path, to the building of mounds for erosion prevention, to raking the looser rock to the side, and to the general clearing of overgrown plants from the singletrack.
As we moved, Kerry explained how feral goats damaged the land, how their movements, mass-reproduction rates, and migration have thinned out the bush of what once was—up until recently—dense scrub. I saw our role as humans here as being one that sits somewhere on the spectrum between enabling destruction (from goats, from mining, from tree clearing) and accessibility (of witnessing the wild, of breathing it in, of sitting in it). We are often destroying, or often well-meaning and good-intentioned, yet still somehow destroying.
Environmentally, culturally, recreationally and historically significant, the Pilliga sits in Gomeroi country and borders the Wayilwan nation. The word ‘Pilliga’ is thought to have derived from the word bilaar meaning spear, or balaar meaning she-oak (casuarina) in Gamilaraay language; both seem relevant given the woodland is scattered in she-oak—a dense wood with straight growth—which is ideal for spearmaking. Native white cypress and ironbark forests blanket the landscape, thickened with dense lower scrub covering the floor of the forest.
The Great Artesian Basin, one of the world’s largest underground freshwater resources, lies under the Pilliga; mining for fossil fuels here has the capacity to pollute it and jeopardise its health, thus threatening local ecosystems. Now I could at this point bang on about the Pilliga being home to many threatened bird species, like the barking owl, glossy back cockatoo, grey-crowned babbler, brown treecreeper, speckled warbler, varied sittella, little lorikeet and turquoise parrot. It’s home to threatened mammals, too: the koala, squirrel glider, black-striped wallaby, Corben’s long-eared bat and the Pilliga mouse. As I said, I could bang on about all these species, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll tell you what Kerry—a man of fewer words than me—said when I asked how he started creating trails at Barkala: “Walking around.”
I pried for further details, and he mentioned exploratory bushwalks, during which he wandered and pondered. He looked over topographic maps and created routes; the contour lines and his knowledge of high points and potential lookout locations meant he knew the cliffs, tabletops, caves and areas of special vegetation. In steeper parts, he chose routes that had less chance of erosion, using zig-zag techniques to slowly climb to higher peaks. Kerry is no amateur trail creator, having created trails for thirty years. After spending just a few hours with him on the trail with a metal rake, I realised how much manual labour building these trails must have entailed. Even Kerry acknowledged this himself, admitting he’s “starting to slow down these days.”
The bits about Kerry I said I’d get to are as follows: He first arrived at Barkala Farm fourteen years ago, when his girlfriend was captured by the potter’s studio. Since that time, Kerry hasn’t ever properly left and has been camping in the bush there nearly every second week. After my first meeting with him, we spoke again over the phone; he told me he’d set up camp at ‘Split Rock Valley’. His setup was clean and cosy. Kerry is a man you can still write a letter to; in any case, he doesn’t have an email. He spends most of his time out of range; we contacted each other on a landline graciously facilitated by the property’s owner.
Kerry has been bushwalking for fifty years. During that time, his paid work has differed across varying roles in conservation and consulting, computer business and tour guiding. Since retiring ten years ago, Kerry has kept himself busy; when not at home in Tamworth and president-ing the local bushwalking and canoe club, he is often touring; K’gari island, and Kangaroo Island have been recent destinations.
Santos’s fact sheet on the Narrabri Gas Project in the Pilliga makes no mention of the Gomeroi people in its ‘about’ section; instead, it offers a narrative of the area’s history as a ‘working forest,’ using language that suggests a pre-existing path of destruction, and it alludes to an idea that adding mining to the mix of farmland and forestry isn’t that far-fetched or controversial. It wouldn’t be that disruptive, it seems to say, because it’s disrupted already.
But the multi-layered significance of the Pilliga represents environmental and cultural aspects worthy of protection. That doesn’t mean, however, that environmental and cultural significance alone should be a prerequisite for protection. This idea speaks to the lens of a capitalistic, post-colonial world—prove to me it’s worth something, or I’ll damage it, take it, exploit it, sell it.
When I asked Kerry about the mining in the area, I could hear the distinguishable trait of disgust in his voice: “It’s not warranted,” he said. He’s written multiple letters to government departments voicing concerns about the ongoing mining and the attempts to expand it in the area. Noting that the mining will impact valuable resources, including sources of water, Kerry quoted from a document on the gas project, stating the impacts will continue to affect the Great Artesian Basin for 1,400 years. That takes a bit to sink in.
To me, Kerry reflects the essence of responsible exploring. He seems to acknowledge that this land is not completely untouched, that there are many years of connection with country here that is not ours. That we can use this privilege to campaign against the exploratory permits of the mining industry that propose to tear down the sense of wild that exists here. That the ‘wild’ isn’t necessarily our wild; that we can explore quietly and respectfully.
This article was written by Emily Scott for Wild Mag and appeared in the Spring 2024 edition