The scent on the morning breeze, as the sun yawns into her golden arc and warms the grey green leaves of a eucalyptus forest, is intoxicating. It’s a forest smell unlike any other I’ve had the privilege of waking too, being born of northern forests on the Canadian Shield with their sharp, piney scent and deep peat undertones. Forests are a bit like wines, with their layers of aroma and flavour that make up the nose of a place, wholly dependent on ingredients and age.

Karri trees, which retain their aboriginal name, are unexpectedly beautiful. Imagine the biggest oak for basic shape, but with clusters of leaves only at the ends of the branches. They look as if they’ve been badly sunburned. Their bark bubbles and peels off in long stretches like shoulder skin on a summer’s afternoon. Take your peeling tree, the colour of a silvery grey beech, and imagine how it would look dipped in honey and then set to drip dry on a hillside with a thousand just like it. Now insert the subtle, sweet, eucalyptus scent on the morning breeze. There are very few other trees competing for space; the long legs of the Karri trees stretch into the shadowy distance of the forest with giant fern growing four feet high around their ankles. Add an emu to the undergrowth for visual interest. A pair of magpies weave between the trees shrieking like sheep bred with wailing cats, tearing the fabric of the silence. Look up and see the Kookaburra watching silently from the nook in the branch right above your head.

You are in Leeuwin Naturaliste National Forest on the south coast of Western Australia.

The boys and I took a walk into the twilight at the end of the day, mosquitos humming and bees buzzing drunkenly in the shrubbery. They were sure there was a big turtle down the path to our right, so we chased it far enough to discover that it was only a log sticking out with a turtle face shaped branch stump. With their endless prattle it was the only creature we saw, but I took comfort in the idea that their noise also scared off any snakes within a hundred yard radius.

There is a lot of hard work involved in this mothering project: cooking, cleaning, washing, folding, reminding, encouraging, correcting, and back around to washing and cleaning again. If it weren’t for the odd walk through a eucalyptus forest in which the child magically returns to his most real form: forest elf and wonder-sprite, it would be easy to get bogged down in the minutia and forget why we’re working our way through the 20 year long haul with some degree of purpose.