South East of Araluen sits acres of seemingly untamed wilderness, stretching out to Eden at the coast.
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In 1981 John Blay received a fellowship from the Literature Board and National Parks to explore the wilderness.
In 1982, he set off to spend 12 months in the wilderness areas to understand what a place like that could mean to him as a writer.
Blay was meant to take a year to walk from Araluen to Bemboka.
In the end, he spent nearly four years wandering the wilds of the forest.
During this time he came to understand more and more of what he had thought of as the wild country, seeing the history of human occupation in some of the seemingly wildest places.
“When you live in town in a nice house, you get the feeling that it’s harsh out there, but in fact there are extraordinary places out there that are as comfortable as a motel room,” he said.