Wild Man Story 2 Too

Johnny Chester

I too have a story of the wood chip bomber, that man of myth who lived/still lives alone(?) in the forest with his horse and dogs.

My story of this man relates to a time in the mid to late 1990s when I was living periodically in the forests near Nannup. Returning to my old camp one day after some time spent forest blockading, I wandered towards St John Brook at Cambrey for a wash in the stream. I did not get too far before I soon noticed with some mild trepidation, a decapitated head of a recently dispatched grey kangaroo. Its head was fresh and it lay off one the paths leading to the brook.

I had proceeded only a short distance when to my worry, I entered a clearing where a "pack" of large dogs lay lazing in the shade, and suddenly they sat on their haunches and showed their teeth and I could hear their snarling.

I wanted to quickly back step, but was frozen, until a white Irish wolfhound came towards me with its tail swishing rapidly back and forth and its tongue protruding from the side of its mouth.

"Hello!" I said. Any port in a storm is a welcome one. And this dog kept coming. It reached me with an inquisitive eye and a friendly tongue. Maybe it was the scented lolly or chocolate wrappers in my pockets, I don't know. But within a moment a voice was telling the rest of the pack to lie down. And from the shade came a friendly welcome from a bearded man with an Akubra hat.

"Any friend of my wolfhound is a friend of mine" he said.

His white horse stood off to one side, tethered to a branch and from our first introduction it became clear he was the woodchip bomber. I said "You're kidding!?" "You're a legend" I told him. I think he liked my attitude and together we swapped some small talk about our lives. He said he was pig hunting and followed the tracks through the forest where ever they took him. He was something of a wild man, and my memories of him are now magnified remembering that day.

Some years later I also saw him gallop his horse into Northbridge and his horse stood on its hind legs in front of the Alexander Library with police running from all directions. I think he was bare chested and although I knew it was him, I wondered what he was doing there. His forest cover and hidden sanctuary was a long way from where he now sat in his saddle.

He had a free spirit and I suppose he is still out there and so too is that Irish wolfhound of his or its offspring. I wonder what stories he swaps with those he meets, and whether he is as hospitable as he once was with me. I hope so.