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Creekton Falls Area 2018 Remembering Bruce

Creekton Falls Area. Oct 2018. Remembering Bruce.

Surely it is inevitable that the Fairfax Family would gather at Creekton on this weekend, it being the anniversary of Bruce’s disappearance and death. Like my second daughter, I was not so sure about doing this. What would my feelings be when I entered this place where I last saw the person I loved so much, and have lived three quarters of my life with? He was my soulmate, the only person who has truly known and understood me, and the one with whom I shared experiences, ideas, joys and hopes – and disappointments, of course – and, the most amazing sharing of all, that of our joining together to bring two beautiful people into the world, and of combining forces to participate in life and love with them, to teach them values we as a couple thought were important, and to hopefully impart to them a love of things we love, as we feel they are worth loving. We also, of course, watched with delight as their personalities grew and their own stamp on life took place. And later still, we watched the same process playing itself out with young Gussy and Abby. Did you notice in the above how I slipped from past tense to present? This is part of the ‘problem’ faced when you have been part of someone, and they of you for so long. Bruce is gone, but he is still part of who I am, and I still live as if he were there, just not right now … until suddenly, and not when I expect it, or think it appropriate, I realise that it is all finished, and yet still I have these thought and behaviour habits that are not undone so easily.

Creekton was a sad place, and a time for reflection, and yet other things – stupid, tiny things – can upset me far more. Last night I was terribly upset, as I saw an excellent film about Mary Shelley (whom I admire enormously), and I wanted to share my thoughts and reactions with Bruce, and to hear his, and I realised with terrible pain that there is no one in the whole world with whom I can share such things any more. Normally coming home from films or theatre, we would talk for hours about the themes or implications of what we had seen, but now I just had to bottle it all up. My dog does not understand Mary Shelley.

In Iceland, I saw a man with Parkinson’s, and I burst out howling, sobbing on my daughter’s shoulder. I was shocked by my reaction. And yet Creekton didn’t make me howl. Maybe I had my very strong guard up in anticipation. It was a pensive time, not without tears, but they were quiet ones. The flowers we took there to distribute caused me more tears than the place itself. Maybe that’s because a year ago, when I first encountered Creekton, I saw and felt nothing but beauty, not knowing what the future held. Then, when Bruce didn’t show up, I merely thought he was “mislaid”; I thought it was over-dramatic calling Search and Rescue, but others encouraged me to do it. I was only mildly worried come nightfall, as he was appropriately clad to endure a night out, wearing a puffer jacket and lined waterproof pants. However, at 9 or 10 or whatever, the helicopter came down to land near where I was (pacing up and down), so I went up to the two pilots to thank them so much for continuing to search for my husband after everyone else had gone home. I was filled with gratitude and wanted to express it. The noise of the ‘copter would also give Bruce hope if he was lying somewhere. It was only when they told me that they were not just searching visually with strong lights, but were also using infrared rays to detect body warmth that my heart sank. They had found no warmth in that forest apart from mine. Only then did I know despair, but it was dark and I went to the car to cry with Tessa (dog). I don’t associate that dreadful night with Creekton or the beauty that was there.

The Police kept giving me hope that all was not lost. I became a wound up machine that could not sit still, but needed movement – movement of any kind – to keep me from thinking. Up and down the path I paced, an automaton pushing time along. If I moved quickly enough and for long enough, maybe I wouldn’t need to think at all; I could get drunk on movement. Movement became my laudanum. Intellectually, I assimilated the fact that my husband was dead. Emotionally, I only arrive at full realisation maybe once or twice a month. It’s like I am mostly in shock still, and am protected against reality much of the time. It’s odd that we can have intellectual knowledge, and yet remain emotionally cushioned from an extreme event. Shock is the most astonishing protective mechanism. I can’t discern any evolutionary explanation for the existence of such a kind reaction to extreme pain, in that it does not directly (or indirectly, really) contribute to our survival. I was once hit badly by a car. It smashed the bones of my upper body, yet I didn’t feel a thing. I heard a bang (me being hit) and then I observed myself flying through space towards a railing. I concentrated hard to protect my spine against a bad landing. But pain wasn’t part of the equation at all. Nietzsche says that if we knew unveiled reality we would drown in horror. I think he’s right. Of course Schopenhauer agrees to sentiments like that.

And so, we gathered. We walked the walk to Duckhole Lake. I had real trouble stopping myself from searching for Bruce, as if it were not a total absurdity that after all that searching by so many people he could be found near the track. But my eyes kept scanning to left and right, searching for that telltale metallic red of his jacket. We built a little raft of flowers and made a cutting-grass cross. Abby (aged two) added decorations of her own. Gussy (seven) both added a dried forest-fungus he had found and liked, and built his own raft of barks and lichen. We floated them out to the centre of the lake. We three girls had our own quiet time, and also sang some special songs. And then it was time to take the children further along the track on what was more a bushwalk and not quite so much a poignant pilgrimage. I have convinced myself that Bruce died painlessly from pneumonia. I didn’t like observing the thickness of the bush and being prodded to contemplate the notion that he could have gone off the track in this section and had a less benign ending. I concentrated on the job at hand, of getting two very young people across a n extremely demanding track. Because most readers using this blog are researching it to find routes and suitable tracks, I will give that section of the day its own blog, so they don’t have to wade through grief in order to find out what the Creekton Track is like for a person with no emotive associations.

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Bruce’s love poem for Louise.

Bruce’s Love Poem for Louise


A love poem is written for the lover, and yet poets have shared their love poems since time immemorial. Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” (Sonnet 18), or the lines “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, / or bends with the remover to remove” (Sonnet 116), spring to mind (although I feel the sentiments of that second one, beautiful as they sound, raise many questions I wish to discuss). Donne’s image in his love poem Valediction of the compass is another that presents itself without much thought, although he, too, writes words which challenge me: “Dull sublunary lovers’ love / (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit / Absence, because it doth remove / Those things which elemented it.” I agree more with CS Lewis who sees love as an equal and mutual exchange between two people, and which thus requires the presence of both for its full continuance and active renewal.


Possibly my favourite love poem, however, is that by ee cummins “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in. my heart)i am never without it(anywhere. i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done. by only me is your doing,my darling). This was chosen by Gracey to read at Bruce’s memorial service.


Some at that service did know about Bruce’s poem to me, as it had been read by Bruce at Kirsten (our firstborn daughter)’s wedding. Yelena (our second-born daughter) chose to have it read at her recent wedding, where it made more than a few people cry. I share it publicly here, because it is a beautiful poem, because people have been asking me to have access to it again, and it seems fitting to have it shared, to honour Bruce the writer, and to commemorate a love that has not died just because he has. I do agree with Donne that love transcends physicality.
In this poem, you can sense Bruce pondering not just his love for me, but the nature of love itself. Like the bard he loved, he furnishes his reader with no simplistic answers.

Bruce’s Love Poem to Louise.
Somehow there’s a sureness about it,
A certainly which defies logic.
When something of me responds to something in you,
And it’s not exactly clear what, but what is clear
Is that we belong together
And somehow the two of us together make a whole
Which is greater than the sum of its parts
And richer than the rest of the world
Or whatever part of the world we might ever come across.
When I recognise that the part of me which is tied up in you
Is the most important part
And nothing else really matters very much.
When I know that nothing is more important than pleasing you
And nothing hurts more than when I know I let you down,
Because in that I failed myself.
And it isn’t very comfortable
Because I know my most important audience is my
Strictest judge
And since you are the only judge whose judgement counts
And since you are the only one who really knows me
And since you are the only one I want to please (save God)
I know there will never be an end
Only, please God, more and more wonderful beginnings
For the new beginnings are implied in the old
And we start again and again in the work of loving
As though a lit candle constantly renews itself
And the wax wrinkles mean nothing
And the flame never burns out.
And there it is.
In the end, love is a flame that never burns out
That sometimes grows dim and diminished,
Dwindles to a whisper for a moment,
But casts off its flicker
And flames out in the darkness that encroaches.
Love is something true, and lovely,
And I find myself
In you.

I am not a poet to respond to him. My art forms are prose and photography. I cannot give back in kind to this great man who seemed to have enough love left over for the whole wide world, but I hope that the gift of our shared life for so many years was poetry enough.


The magnolia pictured in this selection is one that was bought and planted on the day that Abigail Grace, Kirsten’s daughter, was born. The white rose was bought in honour of Yelena and Jonnie’s wedding.

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Bruce’s final footsteps 2017 Oct

The cascade under Creekton Falls (which you can just see, behind). This beautiful forest is where those of us who love Bruce will always feel his special presence. This was his final choice. Isn’t it spectacular? Thanks to our friends who got themselves scratched and scarred and cut and bruised and exhausted for his sake.

Dear friends,

Many of you have heard our sad news on the ABC or alternative media; others not. This is the story as we know it . (Sorry for the groupie bit, but I’m sure you understand).
I had a trip planned with our walking club, and Bruce was staying at home with carers. However, I told him that if he had his bag packed and in the car by that (Wednesday) night, I would cancel my trip, and take him down south on a waterfall bagging spree instead. The week before, he had failed to pack for a trip I’d planned, so I was not expecting anything different this week, but he surprised me by having everything in the car by 9.30 pm. I then had the job of cancelling out of my planned trip, and calling off the carers. Off we set.
On the first day, we visited three falls on Mt Wellington and stayed with a former student in Hobart. On the next, we visited two falls in the Geeveston area. Bruce chose Dover for our next night, so we booked in there late in the afternoon. This choice meant I could visit the Creekton Falls next day, a little bit further south.
Bruce and I have a “handicap system” when what I am doing is too hard for him, which happens quite often. We go to the same destination, I give him a few suggestions of where he can walk, and a time to return, and then I do my thing, faster, harder and further, while he does his. It has always worked in the past. This is what he had chosen to do this weekend. He was exactly where he wanted to be: in the wilderness, wild and free like a normal person.
I set out down the track, and looked around to see if there was anything to see. I had suggested Bruce should walk on the very nice dirt road and look at the forest, but he chose to come on my very clear track. I didn’t stop him. It only got difficult much, much further on, and he would turn around before that point. However, I saw that he had begun by following me. He was already about 150 mts behind me in two minutes. I gave him a resigned little wave and smile and he had the cheekiest look on his face: “Yep, I’m coming too, AND I’m eating my apple while I walk (also not allowed).” His smile was boyishly defiant. He was not going to submit to a pusillanimous life of protection. He had not a clue in the world why the rest of us kept trying to molly coddle him. It annoyed him, actually. He saw himself as being perfectly capable; just a little slower than some other (overly fast) people.
In the last month or two, he has been walking in thick snow in the Walls of Jerusalem, he has scrambled onto the plateau, up a very difficult rock scree above Meander Falls (only 4 of 14 of us made it to the top, and he was one of those). He loved a grand adventure, and loved being in nature. Today was no different. The track I was on was really beautiful. Why should he be denied this?
I never saw him again, and we have no idea what happened. We only know that he wasn’t there at our meeting time. I presumed he was either in his dream world, which can happen, or that he’d somehow managed to wander off the track. Given that he can just dream for a while without realising time is passing by, it was lucky I called the SES by 1pm, which gave them time for a thorough search before nightfall. I began to get worried that he’d choked on that apple doing two things at once, or that he’d fallen and bled to death. However, the thorough helicopter search ruled out that. Police searched every track and road in the area by car and foot, and searched from the sky using a helicopter that kept going until about 10.30. The ‘copter had an infrared warmth detector and stunningly strong lights, but nothing was found. I explored offtrack in all the places where perhaps someone could go off to the side, but to no avail. I went to bed that night devastated, convinced of his death. I phoned Kirsten at 6 a.m. to tell her I needed her and Lenie, both of whom had already offered to come down.
On day two, stunning masses joined us in the search. Bushwalkers from all my clubs (LWC, HWC, Pandani) were there in force. The orienteering community warmed my heart to melt point by being there in strong presence (we haven’t been Oing for quite a few years because of Bruce’s illness). And, of course the Grammar community came – the Headmaster, Stephen, and several others had driven through the night to be there for the 7.30 briefing. Any helper from Launceston, and there were many, had driven for 5 hours through the night, many leaving straight after work the night before, to be there. People cancelled work and other commitments, they went without sleep, they ripped their clothes and their bodies in the bush (one rescuer ended up in hospital). We called, we whistled, we yelled. The whole thing was done with military precision, and yet with incredible sensitivity to the girls’ and my feelings. The Policeman in charge would be directing operations one minute, and putting his arms around me for a cry the next. The girls also had many cries on his shoulders – and he was not the only one. The officers were almost all hugging us in between searching. They kept referring to us to enquire about Bruce’s likely behaviour, which is obviously a logical thing to do, but is sometimes ignored. Each new friend that arrived during the day (and friends were now arriving from interstate), was taken aside and filled in patiently on where things were at and why the next step was being taken.
This went on for another two days. At the end of day three, Kirsten, Lenie and I were called aside to discuss what should happen the next day. Medical experts from far and wide were consulted (and they consulted national doyens in demented psychology, and in PD) in every aspect of how long a man in his condition, with his weight and height and health could be expected to live. We were reaching the end point of Bruce’s possible time. They said that if he hadn’t been found by the end of the morrow, and if we agreed, they would switch the kind of search they were doing to be “searching for a deceased person”. By this stage, we also felt that he couldn’t be alive by the end of day four. We doubted he could be alive as we spoke. You can’t wander out of the huge search area we had covered if you lack your dopamine and you have PD. Chris (officer) explained to me that he had probably died of hypothermia or a heart attack. These are both incredibly kind ways to go. We agreed to one final day of searching and to call it off by the end of day 5. We were also grateful for the sense we had that, had we insisted on further searching, they would have tried somehow to humour us, stupid as that would have actually been. They were incredibly sensitive to our wants.
I write this, telling you of an event that still seems like some kind of story I’ve read. Intellectually, and probably emotionally (we have all been wrung through a giant wringer), I know that Bruce is gone. It is not that I can’t believe the logic or that I want further searching, but some part of me is still in denial. It is expecting Bruce to wander in any second with that cheeky smile of his and look triumphant at fooling everyone for so long. He sure did that! As Kirsten said, he has gone out with flare. As I added, not with a whimper, but a bang.
I am struggling with the fact that I am not going to have my soulmate and best friend of just off fifty years by my side to share observations with, to have a chuckle with over something stupid, to read titbits out of books with, or share my joys and sorrows and insecurities with. But if I stop being so selfish and think of him rather than me, I have to admit that he has left this life’s party before it became too late. The next few years would not have been kind to Bruce. And he has gone in the most beautiful forest you could ever imagine. It soothes us girls to think of him there. It will always be Brucey Forest to us and, I suspect, to all who joined us in trying to find him before it was too late.
And so it was that we came to day 6. Time to give up and go home. The previous day had already switched in its focus of search. The group that was left was small: we three girls, Lena’s fiancé, Bruce’s two brothers who had come down from Sydney, and also some very special former students who were part of our adopted, extended family, and who had flown in from Sydney (2), Nowra and Melbourne. Tessa (dog) was utterly exhausted, as she had been working ten times harder than us all, but she, too, came to the lake to say farewell to dada. (I have since been sent a picture of the lake from above. I can’t believe it. This lake has the shape of a heart!!!)
We walked that track for the fortieth time and sat in the rain to stare and think. At my request, we all sang Amazing Grace, and at Kirsten’s, Dona Nobis Pacem. Daniel (former student) shared with us two of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poems (Pied Beauty and The Windhover) that he felt reflected exactly the Bruce he knew and loved (he chose perfectly). We exchanged a few funny stories about this man we all loved so dearly, this gentle, patient, generous giant who has touched so many lives and taught so many people to fly. Then the boys left us, and we girls had our own time saying farewell. The girls yelled “Bye dada”; I shared with them the words of the song I had been singing constantly to him as I searched: “If I needed you, would you come to me, would you come to me to relieve my pain? And if you needed me, I would come to you, I would swim the shores to relieve your pain.” If Bruce had been lying somewhere, able to hear but not respond, those words would let him know I was still searching. He already knew the extent of my love for him. There was no need for some “last minute” declaration.
One of the songs we will sing at his memorial service reflects our family’s attitude to life. The final stanza goes like this:
“It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance,
It’s the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance,
It’s the one who won’t be taken who never learns to give,
And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.”
Pandani Bushwalkers and I said that together at the end of day two. The girls and I sang it together here at the lake.
Bruce was not afraid to live, with a capital L. He courageously fought Parkinson’s from the moment he knew he had it and never let it stop him living. He could have lived longer wrapped in cotton wool, sitting on a couch and watching tele, but that would have been breathing, not living. Bruce chose to live and has gone down fighting. That’s the way to go, my darling.
We have had hundreds and hundreds of beautiful tributes from people who tell us that Bruce was the best teacher they ever had, that he made them what they are, that he influenced the whole shape of the rest of their lives, of how inspiring, kind and generous he was. Of course, the bushwalking and orienteering communities have also been fabulous. There will be a memorial service where we will farewell this beloved man on 3rd November. It will be in the afternoon, as friends from far-away places will be flying in, and this will give them the morning in which to do so.