It’s kind of hard to explain what happens when I get among the native pine. At first I can smell it and then it feels like I snap to another place. I suddenly realise where I am, and I feel like I’m just supposed to be there. Everything seems to slow down. Nothing else matters apart from taking in the surrounds.

Dad started explaining for Caitlin’s benefit and also for mine, ‘Our family have lived in this place for tens of thousands of years and our bodies are part of this place, organisms within it. The plants hold medicine and they slow us down, centre us and let us know we’re home, hey Pheebs?’

I nodded and smirked as I could see that Caitlin was so into what Dad was telling us. As I walked along, I paid attention to my footfall so that I didn’t trip over a rock or a shrub. Occasionally I looked up to the hills, the peaks and all of the different types of rock formations. Dad slowed down and pointed up to a particular hill. ‘There she is, there’s your grandmother.’

‘What do you mean?’ Caitlin asked.

‘The hill, she’s the grandmother hill,’ I explained. ‘And not just grandmother for Nukunu, she’s the grandmother of all grandmothers, of all people everywhere. And when you come home to her, she’s as delighted as all grandmothers are when they see their grandchildren.’

‘That’s right,’ Dad said before we moved on.

On my seventh birthday, Dad and Mum had brought me to the grandmother hill and we did a ritual to mark the change in me. Nukunu people believe that when you turn seven you change from the spirit of Wapma to a human form. We’re still part Wapma, just not entirely anymore.

Along the creek bed we came along a cluster of native lemon grass. Dad pulled off a tuft, scrunched it between his palms and then held it out to Caitlin and me to smell. It held a rich smell that also took my mind away from all of the hard things.

We made our way out of the vicinity of the main campground into the big creek bed that was also full of river red gums and native pines. The reed rushes reminded me of a time when there’d been big, big rains and Dad and Mum had taken me to the creek to see it. Dad was glowing with joy, as he held Mum and me, watching Wapma run down the creek bed to replenish all life.

Now, Dad looked to an escarpment and nodded. ‘How about we go up that way?’

‘Whatever you want,’ I said, knowing that Dad would always take me to interesting places and show me new things that I found completely fascinating … although I wasn’t going to let him know that.