I have never been sure whether it is an element of conservatism in behaviour , or a pride of ownership , or merely an obsession on my part , but I never left Dondingalong without making a complete round of the property. I suppose the act would correspond with the old English parish custom of beating the bounds , but though I often picked up a stick , ( always making sure that it was indeed a stick that could be used to beat a snake , and not a snake to be used to beat a stick -- old Australian joke ) I never actually rapped on corner posts nor chanted any mantras of possession.

Nor am I absolutely sure why I always walked first to the south , parallel with the ridge road , then west , north east and finally east . As the house was set about a third of the way along the eastern boundary , the last few metres walked were again in the southerly direction .

Good fences make good neighbours Robert Frost 's neighbour repeats in the poem Mending Wall , but Frost himself twice delivers the line Something there is that doesn't love a wall . Not that I lived behind a wall at the block , and it was doubtful that any destructive intruders like cows would get in , even though one neighbour owned some beef cattle. Moreover , there was nothing that would have kept out the wallabies and 'roos anyway, even if the fences had been in perfect repair . What those creatures could not wriggle through or under they could easily leap , and anyway , as long as they stayed grazing on the mown grass below and around the house , they were welcome visitors .

The fences were traditionally Australian rural . Originally the ridge road fence appeared to have been the old standard post and rail , but the years had condemned that to terminal termite - chewed oblivion and it had been resuscitated , to a degree , with heavy gauge fencing wire and a couple of strands of barbed wire , strung between remaining rickety posts . The wire by now had become rusty , but it mattered little , as a dense growth of lantana around it served two purposes , that of support and as a screen from the dust of the road . A few vines like kennedia , wongawonga vine (pandorea ) and clematis were a valuable assistance in this.

That road fence was two hundred and forty metres long . Not far to the south of the house a small gully began , running west , and then the land flattened out till one reached the corner of Leo and Irene's block , about one hundred and eighty metres away . The parallel path to there was , in season , almost completely blocked with waist to shoulder high bladey grass . Mowing that was a dusty task , but it provided a lot of orchard mulch.

From that corner it was a trifle over four hundred metres due west , along a fence that , if anything , was more dilapidated than the road fence . It was down hill all the way , running parallel with the track down to the dam , which was about a hundred metres to the right , over that previously mentioned gully , by now quite deep with steep sides .

Almost three quarters of the way down the fence there was another gully leading in from Leo and Irene's block , through which ran an intermittent stream . That same stream was the source of water for their dam , but there was always sufficient run off to keep feeding the near rainforest vegetation down there on my block . I could keep going west till I struck the next boundary post , and then it was northwards across the stream , which always had a couple of pools of clear clean water , then along for one hundred and forty metres slightly uphill past the huge redgum that I was so pleased to have on our land. About here , where the fence crossed the stream , there was a huge gap under it , partly filled in with a couple of fallen tree trunks , but hardly a barrier for keeping out intruders .

At the next corner post a wider than ninety degree angle to the left took one north east . It was this angle that contributed to the key shape of the block.

This was the hot dry part of the block. The fence was completely new here , as I had provided the material cost , and the brother of the vendor of our block put in a new three strand barb fence using metal star posts and felled gum for strainer posts . The only problem was that during one big storm , a tree fell across it , but the same person took to it as a gift of firewood , chain sawed it and tractored it away , repairing the gap as he did so . In this he was partly assisted by the presence of an old timber-getter's track that led towards his own house.

The final turn on the boundary led directly east again , taking the fence to the ridge road , once again through a steep gully and a lot of lantana . The orchard lay directly ahead from here , but I usually cut across the gully to the right , and up to the house via a slope through casuarinas. Their needles made it very slippery , and it was often very damp.

The variety of country to be passed through on the walk was really quite considerable , and there was always something new to be seen , no matter how many times the walk was taken.

I shall return to write about a couple of my favourite spots , or those more memorable to me , in a later posting .