THL#09 – Newcastle Coastal Geotrail, A haiku moment, and Merlin Sound ID

I spent the last couple of weeks in the Maitland / Newcastle / Central Coast region of NSW with my dad – visiting my brother and his family, and talking to potential van builders about a future campervan for me.

Guess what I’m thinking of doing 😀

Field Notes

On my first day in Newcastle, I hit up the local Tourist Information Centre and grabbed a bunch of self-guided walks. Given my fascination with geology, I was particularly interested in the Newcastle Coastal Geotrail, and spent a good portion of the day following its 14-stop route.

One of the reasons I love doing guided walks is that they often take you places you wouldn’t otherwise go. In this case, that meant walking the entire 10km from Nobby’s Beach to just past Merewether Baths, rather than just wandering along the bits of coastline that caught my eye. They also point out things you might otherwise completely miss.

For example, I like to think I’m a reasonably good noticer. But I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t have discovered the feature at Stop 2 on my own: a near-vertical injection of molten basaltic material, rich in magnesium and iron, that rose from deep within the Earth and cut through the rock platform the waves now break over.

The dyke is pretty obvious once you know to look for it. Straight lines in nature are a rarity. But given the expansive beach and ocean views, and the water covering it (at least at that tide), I doubt I would have noticed it without the geotrail pointing it out.

What have you discovered on a guided walk that you would otherwise have missed?

A Haiku Moment

When you first start reading haiku, it can be difficult to dive below the superficial layer of what’s written and get to the depth of the poem. This is something I’m still figuring out for myself, so I thought I’d share a little of what I’m discovering.

The above is a haiku by Yosa Buson, another of the Japanese masters. It’s included in a haibun I recently published on my website – Wayfinding – about leaving Greenland and what comes next for me.

When I first read this haiku, I imagined a small bird with a short, high-pitched call, flying across a scene with a tall mountain in the background.

So what?

When I went back to it and started looking more closely, I found there was a lot more going on:

• Contrast: a tiny bird set against an enormous mountain
• Contrast: the bush warbler is close by, while the mountain is distant.
• Contrast: the bird’s note lasts for just a moment, while the mountain has been there for thousands of years.
• Sound: we don’t see the bird, we only hear it
• Multiple meanings: “high and clear” could refer to the pitch or location of the bird’s note, the sky, the view of the mountain, or perhaps all of these.

Suddenly, there’s much more to the haiku than a simple word painting.

And this is one of the things I love most about haiku. Not only does it ask you to pay attention when you’re writing, it also asks you to pay attention when reading the work of others.

To look past the obvious description. To question your first impression. To notice the connections and implications between the different elements of the poem.

The more attention you give it, the more you find.

— — —

If this has made you curious about haiku, I’ve put together a 10-page Haiku Quickstart Guide based on a workshop I developed to help people get started. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter to download your free copy.

Attention Practices

I’ve mentioned the Merlin app in previous newsletters, but today I want to introduce you to one of its many features: Sound ID.

The idea is simple. You hit the microphone button and Merlin listens to the sounds around you, telling you which birds it thinks it can hear. It adds each bird to a list, and whenever it hears that bird again, it highlights the entry.

It’s not perfect. As you can see, it’s incomplete, at least in my part of Australia, and it sometimes mishears things. The other day, it insisted on telling me there were Mallards along the river, despite the fact that I couldn’t see any. I’ve also found that it can have trouble distinguishing between some of the different parrot screeches around here.

That said, I’ve started leaving it running during my morning walk. On some mornings, I purposely leave the binoculars at home so I can focus on the sounds I’m hearing.

I’m now starting to recognise the calls of many of the common birds around my hometown, and I’ve even reached the point where I test myself by identifying the bird call before looking down at the app to see if I’m right. Yesterday morning, it alerted me to the presence of yellow-tailed black cockatoos flying overhead, something I probably would have missed had it not been for the app.

So, while Merlin Sound ID isn’t perfect, it encourages me to listen. And the more I listen, the more I start to hear.

Something to Try

Try listening.

Not in any special way. Just pick an ordinary moment when you’d normally be doing something else. Hanging out the washing. Going for a walk. Sitting outside with a cup of tea.

Instead of plugging into your headphones or scrolling, spend a few minutes paying attention to what you can hear. You don’t need Merlin (though I recommend it). You don’t need to name or identify anything. You could just try counting the different sounds, including birdsong, that you hear.

You might be surprised at how much is going on around you when you stop and listen.