We arrive at the drop off point at about 6.20am. We leave the headlights of the cars on so we can see what’s ahead. After checking the direction we need to go and the stream we need to cross, we kneel beside the stream in the early morning darkness and begin to pray. I have already taken off my socks and shoes and rolled up my pants ready to cross the stream, so as we kneel in the early morning chill I feel the cold sand between my toes. I think of the old negro spiritual – I think we may have sung it too:
I went down to the river to pray
Studyin’ about that good ol’ way
And who will wear the starry crown?
Oh Lord show me the way
Oh sisters let’s go down, come on down, dontcha wanna come down
Oh brothers let’s go down, down to the river to pray.
We begin with silence, spend some time praying for those we will encounter, centering ourselves in a recognition of the God who is simultaneously and radically for us, for the military, and for the victims of that military. We conclude with the Lord’s prayer – “your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and “forgive us our trespasses…”
As I lift my pack to cross the stream I feel its heaviness, knowing that this is just the beginning of feeling its weight. Balancing across the stream is difficult, particularly given that it’s deeper than I expect, and we have only a submerged log to make our way across. But as we descend the steep bank to the bracing water, someone begins singing the spiritual:
Wade in the water
Wade in the water children
Wade in the water
God’s gon’ trouble the water
It feels like my baptism – not the one held in church, within the confines of a supposedly religious space, but the immersion into new life, the crossing of a boundary into new territory. Baptisms used to be done like this – the convert would enter the water on one side of the river, strip off their clothes and come out the other side a new person, symbolising the change that had taken place. The river becomes liminal space, a threshold – the old life left behind in death, and the resurrection life beckoning us forward. In one sense we’re just crossing a river. In another sense, we’re entering into new life, beyond the practices of death that bounds society, called forward to live in the light of resurrection.
And as we sing that song, it’s like we’re entering the stories of liberation of the Hebrew people, for whom God ‘troubled the water’ to allow them to escape their pursuers in the Egyptian army. Expecting to be pursued by an army ourselves this becomes a comfort, knowing that just as God made it difficult for the Hebrews to be followed, and the African slaves who sang this song escaping from their slave owners, so God will protect us now.
On the other side, to my surprise we don’t find what we’re looking for – a fence bearing the distinctive “Military range boundary – do not enter” and “Danger: Laser hazard” signs. This is a problem, but not one to panic over yet, though much of our strategy for proving our presence on the base depends on having video and still footage of us crossing the boundary. We decide to walk further up the road to find it. As we walk, we sing the call and response:
We’re gonna keep on moving forward
We’re gonna keep on moving forward
We’re gonna keep on moving forward
Never turning back
Never turning back
As we walk, we take turns carrying the enormous helium cannister. It soon becomes apparent that the fence is not going to appear. My guess is that we’ve walked too far in the wrong direction, and need to return to the stream. Laughing at the irony of what we’ve just sung, we turn and head back towards the stream.
Upon arrival we begin to inflate the balloons. The balloons are to serve two purposes; one to indicate to the military that we have infiltrated their boundary, but perhaps more importantly to prove to those outside the base – the public – that we are inside the military area. Knowing the military will deny our presence, we need irrefutable proof. Rather than carry the cannister on the long trek inside, we decide to inflate them here and carry them in. They’re enormous balloons – about a metre across, so we wonder about walking along the stream so as to avoid them catching on trees. But the stream is much too hard on barefeet, so we decide against it.
As we inflate the balloons, one is accidentally let go. Shocked, my mind initially reels with the implications of this, and then I catch myself. 
“Wow, that’s really beautiful.” And then immediately: “But oh my lord we need to get out of here.” The urgency makes my heart race a bit faster. If the military have seen it, they could be here in a matter of minutes with a helicopter.
Jess immediately restories it. “Well, we let one go to signal our intentions. They now can’t say they weren’t warned we were coming. Add that to the media release,” she tells Julian. Then, “It is what it is,” she adds, the first of many such utterings by all of us over the next few days. Balloons inflated, Julian takes some pictures of us, we exchange hugs and best wishes and then we strike north, following the ridge, into what we assume is military country despite the lack of boundary markers.
It’s pretty hard going immediately, especially trying to manoevre the enormous balloons between the steel grass which reaches our waist, and the branches that surround us. It’s certainly not the straightest route we could take, as we wind our way between the gaps in the trees. The sense of urgency has only increased with the lost balloon, the lost time in going the wrong direction, and the awkwardness of carrying balloons through the bush. We’ve now walked for an hour and have gotten nowhere, a waste of limited time and energy. Given other processes have been set in motion – the Age article outlining our exploits would have been released about 4am, I’m guessing, and the news (if we’re lucky) might have taken an hour (or less) to reach Queensland, so I assume we’re already being looked for by now. Our main media release would go out at 8am, and Julian would be waiting for our balloons to be released at 9:30, unless the impossible had happened and the military had admitted they’d be stopping the games by then. I was keen to put as much distance between us and the boundary as possible by that time.
Despite my rush we decide together that we’ll only go as fast as the slowest person. My mind goes to the song we often sing at Urban Seed.
Slow down
Slow down
Slow down
Somebody’s fallin’ behind.
Puffing and sweating already, we push on for a while. You certainly know you’re alive. None of us are particularly fit, but we do ok considering. But it’s not far into this session that one of the balloons behind me goes bang. We inflated five altogether – one of the two small ones had already been released, and now one of the big ones had burst. Down to three we trudged on, more determined than ever to protect them from the steel grass which had claimed that one.
About an hour and a half from the road, we came to a fence which appeared to be the boundary to the base. Signs on a nearby tree confirmed it. Confusion reigned. How could this be – weren’t we already in the military area? Maybe this was a second fence? Obviously not. We had seriously miscalculated our position. We were two and a half hours into our walk and had only just reached the boundary. The me
dia release was out already saying we were inside, but more importantly it was almost 9am, half an hour away from signalling our presence in the base, and we had only just reached the boundary. We took a moment, took some pictures of us beside the boundary signs and took a GPS reading, which we didn’t trust much. It was as we were standing beside the tree bearing the sign that the third balloon went. As we inched closer to the tree for the picture, another balloon burst against it. And then there were two – one large and one medium. Here we were, just at the boundary, and we had just two out of five ballons for our strategy left. We realised we could blow up some balloons ourselves and tie them on to the others to bulk it up a bit visually.
Then we crossed the boundary again, walked along the fence, and entered the base again further east. At that point we struck due north, going as far as we could before releasing the remaining balloons. It was difficult to find a clearing large enough to not have any overhanging branches that could snag or pop our remaining balloons, but finally at 9.25 we found the best one we could and stopped. We blew up some more balloons and tied them on, but they were too heavy for the others. Then the unthinkable – in the sun afforded by the clearing, our last large balloon burst. One medium balloon remained – our last hope of a signal.
A flurry of tying and untying followed – the three new balloons we had strapped to our remaining one were too heavy for it so we removed one, then two – and then we paused for a moment before getting the camera ready to record the release of this, our last remaining balloon with just one other strapped to it. As it rose tentatively into the air, we said a prayer for the victims of war, those whose blood was represented in the stark red of the balloon against the blue sky. It threaded its way through the branches above, and we watched until it was out of sight. Then after applying some sunscreen we struck northwards again, relieved to be rid of the balloons.
The terrain was reasonably hilly as we followed the compass – bearing north we were up and down ridges created by small, now empty creeks. Up hill and down dale we went, until at last in the late morning we flopped exhausted in a gully. Here, with just the sounds of nature around us, and having walked for hours through the bush, it seemed we were the proverbial needles in an enormous haystack. It would be impossible for anyone to find us if we chose to stay hidden. The urgency of earlier had now eased as we were now clearly inside the base undetected. The mood lightened and our conversation followed suit. We spent some time praying morning prayers (better late than never!) from my community’s prayer book.
The time spent talking went quickly, and we’d soon been there an hour. It was very difficult to saddle that pack back on, but once more we made our way up the hill and out of there. Continuing north through a forest floor covered in Byfield ferns, we did a quick bit to Jess’ camera before she said, “It feels like we’re near a road.” Sure enough, not long after a clearing appeared ahead.
The map said there was no road anywhere near where we thought we were, so it was a puzzling development, though admittedly it was an old map and things could have changed. Jess did some reconnaissance up to the road while the rest of us waited in cover. She returned, saying she could see personnel up the road, near what appeared to be a tank. We moved further east along the road so as to be far enough away from the people as not to be heard. At that point we took a GPS reading and spent some time working out exactly where we were. I left the very patient Margaret to work it out according to the map. In the meantime I took the opportunity to bust out the new binoculars I’d bought at the op shop. Jess spent a few minutes getting a picture of a gate just 100m down the road from where we were sitting, and sending it off as proof that we were inside the base. Unfortunately the signs on the gate were fairly generic, so it wouldn’t constitute proof to the general public, but it would to the military.
Then I heard Margaret say, “Well according to this, we’re right in the middle of Samuel Hill.” Just what we’d been trying to avoid! Not only had we started kilometres south of the boundary, but we’d just navigated ourselves right into the centre of the largest base in the training area. It was hard not to laugh at such a ridiculous position.
It was then that we heard a helicopter taking off not far away. Clearly we were very close to Samuel Hill. We all laid down in the steel grass, trying to get out of sight – me in my white t-shirt trying to hide under the scrub. As the chopper flew low enough overhead to see the US flag painted on it I tried to get a picture, but missed twice. It made several passes, some closer than others, but we assumed it hadn’t seen us. I still don’t know if they were tracking us then.
It was about now that the problem of water arose as a significant issue. Last time Jess had spent time in the base the rivers and creeks had been full to overflowing – but then it had rained for almost two weeks at that point. This time there had been no rain for weeks. Everything was dry, there was zero running water and the only small pools that remained were stagnant and brown. We had each brought about 2 litres of water, maybe enough to get us through today with the amount of sweat we were generating, but we’d need more before going very far tomorrow. We had to get somewhere we’d find water.
So as we sat there trying to decide which way to go, we were very aware that we still weren’t entirely sure of what surrounded us. Not wanting to go back the way we’d come, but not sure what we’d hit if we went north, east or west, we decided to head cautiously north east, a path as quickly as possible towards the largest reachable body of water on the map, and in the rough direction we needed to go to both get away from Samuel Hill and head towards a live fire area. That meant crossing the road, and being aware that we’d need to be careful of running into infrastructure or soldiers themselves.
We did so all together, bolting for the cover on the other side of the road and not stopping until we were clearly out of sight of the road. Making our way north east, we followed a creek for a while, criss-crossing it occasionally to maintain our bearing, before stopping for lunch in a rainforest beside the creek. There was just the smallest trickle of running water between two billabongs, and we tried to collect some of it. It was very brown.
Lunch was amazing – it felt like a surge of energy and interest in a day we’d really flogged ourselves physically. Flat bread with slices of tasty cheese and tomato, just sensational. I drank great gulps of water too, knowing I’d lost a lot of fluid to sweat. Wearing long pants and walking with a heavy pack was making my Cornish body sweat a lot, and my clothes were saturated. Water was definitely going to be an issue.
It was time to get going now – we’d rested too much really, and had to make up some ground. The terrain the whole day was remarkable – one minute you’d be walking through classic Australian eucalypt forest, then through forests of steel grass and razor-sharp cycads, then you’d hit a patch of rainforest. Each section had a markedly different climate – rainforest sections would be cool and damp, eucalypt sections drier and quite hot. You could go through several different ecosystems in just ten minutes. I also found it amazing how quick and easy it is to lose your bearings when you’re relying solely on your own sense of where you’re heading. Thankfully the compass was accurate, and when possible we 
used the sun.
The rest of the afternoon we just walked – trying to cut off a long bend in the creek to reach some waterholes. It was hot work, and we often tripped or stumbled over fallen logs or unexpected holes underfoot. We’d decided to keep away from roads, so we had to bush-bash our whole way. Occasionally there would be an animal track to make the going slightly easier, but even they were few and far between and were not exactly cleared for creatures our size. Each step meant lifting your legs to clear the undergrowth, so it was somewhat like climbing stairs for a day.
At one point, Jarrod said he’d seen an enormous eagle or something in a tree. Having just passed a bush turkey nest, I wondered if it was one and sure enough, as we looked up a massive gum tree, there it was. The hugest bush turkey I’ve ever seen, perched like a vulture near the top of the tree, hopping its way from branch to branch. It was an awe-inspiring sight, I must say. We took some photos of us passing by and kept on.
Towards the end of the day we tried to use our phones to contact Treena, but there was no reception in the valley, so we walked up the hill a bit to where there was some. We learned there had been no admission that we were in there, and that we needed to give them more proof. Not surprising, but a little disappointing. We phoned Scott Ludlam’s office, and picked up a voice message from the police liason, Kerri, saying she was concerned about our safety, and asking us to come out. We drafted a text message response but decided not to send it – yet. I phoned Barney Zwartz, and thanked him for the article and explained our current position. It was then that I turned my own phone on and sent a message to Julie, having forgotten to send one earlier in the day that I’d set up before we went in. I then turned it off and pulled the battery out again.
As we moved off, Jarrod almost walked straight into an enormous, spectacular black, yellow and orange spider stretched across its web at about face height. We stopped to admire it. It wouldn’t be the only time we’d admire some rare creature. That I guess is part of the beauty of going off the beaten track in a wilderness area – such spectacular creatures you don’t get to see elsewhere.
By this time we had to push it to make camp before dark – Jess drove us hard to make some ground. I was exhausted – I could hardly lift my legs over the steel grass, cycads and fallen logs, but drove myself on.
After some time we found our way back to what we assumed was the creek, and found two stagnant billabongs, but as they were the largest bodies of water we’d encountered and it was going to get dark soon, we made camp. We had heard that the army regularly does night manoevres where they will be woken up and told to move quickly from one place to another, at which point they use tanks and armoured vehicles to crash through the bush, flattening anything in their way. So we chose our camp carefully, between the water and some large trees as somewhere relatively 
unlikely for them to crash through. We started by putting up the tents and setting up our beds, and then Margaret set to putting the Trangier together to make dinner.
While Margaret and Jess made dinner, I went to lie down (after offering to help with dinner!) while Jarrod sat and read Bonhoeffer to me. There were certainly a number of choice quotes that spoke to our present situation, but I can’t remember them now.
It was hard to get myself up again, but dinner was amazing – rice with tuna and peas, full of carbohydrates. I was so grateful for Margaret’s organisation of meals – details have never been my strong suit, but she’d organised things very well. Over dinner we made a list of priorities and options for the following day. True to form, I was too exhausted to engage much, and got rather cranky in the gathering darkness when I sensed Jess was trying to push too hard for something. After making the list, the suggestion was made that we leave off deciding on options until the morning when we’d all had some more rest. We sat in the darkness discussing options for a while. We also boiled water, hoping it would be enough for the next day.
High overhead the drone of air force planes was constantly moving from one end of the sky to the other. Despite our tiredness, the adrenaline still kicked in when there was a rustle in the bushes or a helicopter overhead. I remember Margaret making the comment at some stage that there’s no use jumping every time we think there’s something there – it will just wear us out. If they find us, they find us, and there’s no use being on tenderhooks about it. It was a sober reminder to remain centred rather than reactive, and I recalled it often from then on. It also made me relax about having the torch on or being found overnight – being able to simply relax into whatever happened revealed how purely psychological my edginess was.
Crawling into my sleeping bag was a huge relief, and as Jarrod, Jess and Margaret read the breviary out loud between the tents I listened and felt ministered to. Monday prayers focus on incarnation, both in terms of the creation stories and the divine/human connection through Jesus. The Monday evening prayers features the Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon attributed to St. Francis. This particular evening one line stood out more than usual:
“All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water
So useful, lowly, precious and pure.”
Here in the wilderness, where there was no tap water and we depend for our very life on gathering, boiling, and purifying stagnant water, there was a deep sense of connection not only to Francis and his contemporaries but to the majority of the world through history and even now, who cannot turn on a tap at all let alone one with clean water. People whose very existence depends on a reliance on rivers and streams, open to the sky and the elements, dependant on the vagaries of season and climate. A connection to the rhythms of the earth, people for whom drought means dehydration and death, and rain means blessing and survival. I think of how even in Melbourne where we have comparatively severe water restrictions in a time of extreme drought, we can still take access to clean water for granted. As I drift off to sleep my parched mouth is just a small taste of solidarity with the poor around the world, and those who, throughout history, saw water as grace, not as a given. How precious pure water is, yet how lowly and necessary!
And then the prayer from Walter Brueggemann caught my ear – “we live in the midst of empire…”
As military helicopters circled overhead, even here in the midst of the wilderness, it seemed as though empire ruled. And so we prayed:
“Newborn Beginning…after Caesar”
We live in the midst of empire,
awaiting the birth of the baby the angel foretold.
Caesar decreed a census, everyone counted;
Caesar intended to have up-to-date data for the tax rolls;
Caesar intended to have current lists of draft eligibility;
Caesar intended taxes to support armies,
because the emperor, in whatever era,
is always about money and power,
about power and force,
about force and control,
and eventually violence.
And while we wait for the Christ Child,
we are enthralled by the things of Caesar –
money…power…control,
and all the well-being that comes from
such control, even if it requires a little violence.
But in the midst of the decree
will come this long-expected Jesus,
innocent, vulnerable, full of grace and truth,
grace and not power, truth and not money,
mercy and not control.
We also dwell in the land of Caesar;
we pray for the gift of your spirit,
that we may loosen our grip on the things of Caesar,
that we may turn our eyes toward the baby,
our ears toward the newness,
our hearts toward the gentleness,
our power and money and control
toward your new governance.
We crave the newness.
And while the decree of the emperor
rings in our ears with such authority,
give us newness that we may start again
at the beginning,
that the innocence of the baby may
intrude upon our ambiguity,
that the vulnerability of the child may
veto our lust for control,
that we may be filled with wonder
and so less of anxiety,
in the blessed name of the baby we pray.
Money, power, control…innocence, vulnerability, grace and truth. While it’s easy to polarise these things, their contours are thrown into stark relief as you go to sleep unprotected on a military base during live-fire exercises. Each night’s prayers finishes with the phrase, “The Lord almighty grant us a peaceful night, and a perfect end,” a recognition that we are never more vulnerable than when we sleep. At that point, as we relinquish our consciousness, we place our trust radically in God that we will wake to see another day. As I fell asleep to the sounds of military helicopters, this had never seemed more true.
Jesus, and said that I did it because I take following him seriously – that he calls me to love my enemies, to put down my sword, to be a blessed peacemaker. I definitely remember saying that I don’t regret what I’ve done, that I have no remorse, that I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I stopped to pause for breath and he said, “I’ve heard enough. That’s all thankyou.” Then he said, “In sentencing I’m taking into account your lack of remorse. For the trespass I impose a fine of $400. For the obstruct police I impose a fine of $300. That is all.” As I was led from the dock I added, “I just want to say that I’m not prepared to pay a fine.” “You’ve said enough,” the magistrate snapped.
need to take to do that. We decided those risks needed to be taken to prove conclusively we were here, and that they would need to be pictures further in than Samuel Hill. It was decided that we’d head towards a live fire area as planned, stopping on the way to collect water. We boiled a bit more water, packed up camp and saddled our packs once again.
the heat so as to blend in with the landscape. Taking Jess’ camera, we wandered towards the road, being very careful in case another vehicle came by, but there were none to be seen. I stood on the road, looking for something that could mark our presence in the base. About a hundred metres north was a turn off, and about 50m on from there was a floodway. 50m to the south was a diamond-shaped sign facing the other direction. Jarrod checked it out while I took pictures. Then we made our way back to the side of the road. On our way back we discovered that there was a drain under the road, with a deep ditch on either side where we could easily sit without being seen from the road. We decided to offer that spot as a place we could potentially get a picture of passing traffic.
was playing. Beginning with the Our Father, we then launched into reading the names of those killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We would alternately read an Afghani name with an Australian or US name. Most of the Afghani ones had a description of their age, and where and how they were killed. The Australian ones had their name and rank, and the US ones had their name, rank and age. After each name was read, we said together, “Lord, have mercy,” and paused to honour their life before reading the next name.
