Thought Iād share this recent recording I made a month ago when my partner and I did the five-stage wilderness hike across the south-western fringe of Kanagroo Island. It was a frequently stunning experience and Iām steadily going through some field recordings I made along the way. Since I was restricted with what I could take for visual/audio documentation, my Olympus LS-100 handheld recorder had to suffice. Which is fine in instances where wind isnāt too dominant (even the windjammers donāt do much to attenuate.)
Anyway, this recording was made on the first day as we followed a trail along the beautiful Rocky River; which, I believe is the only protected waterway in Australia. As a result, itās absolutely pristine and teeming with life. There are two sections where the river meets a cascade over stunning glacier rocks. The impression of timelessness was overwhelming. Itās one of the most breathtaking places Iāve ever visited. Iām not religious, but thereās something deeply spiritual about these sites* which brought to mind the animistic Shinto notions of kami and tama.
This recording captures the cascade of the river, which is regularly punctuated by the sound of banjo frogs. Said frogs get a bit of an onomatopoeic bad rap since they frankly sound nothing like a banjo; rather more like a detuned ukulele or the underside of a plastic tub being tapped.
[*] Though Iāve alluded to Japanese connotations to Shinto (a current interest of mine), it would be disrespectful of me not to make mention of the Indigenous connection to Kangaroo Island. Whilst the Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri are associated with the Fleurieu Peninsula, very little is known about the indigenous inhabitants of Kangaroo Island, who are believe to have abandoned the island ~3000-4000 years ago when sea levels rose, separating the island from the mainland (i.e. Fleurieu Peninsula.) In the intervening years prior to European settlement (invasion) in the 18th Century, the island was not visited by the Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri. The reasoning was two-fold: firstly the treacherous waters of Backstairs Passage would have made the trip by canoe or boat incredibly perilous; secondly, the Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri would refer to the island as Karta, meaning āisland of the deadā. In this respect, and within the context of the Rocky River cascades that I mentioned before, this absence of any human presence for probably ~2000-3000 years struck me as - at once - fascinating and deeply strange. I couldnāt think of anywhere Iād visited before where it could be presumed that no humans had been in a location for such a long time. The frequent absence of anthropogenic sound on our hike was a constant, but especially in-situ with the Rocky River cascades it was fascinating to contemplate that what we were hearing on our visit might possibly be the same as a soundscape from two to three millennia ago!
