Early in the evening on October 12th 2001, we made our way out of Melbourne in the middle of a huge rainstorm.
Destination –Halls Gap in the beautiful Grampians area of the Western District, Victoria, Australia.
Reason? This was to be the first gathering of Higher Ground, the Australian Friends of John Denver. We were to have an unforgettable weekend as we set forth to meet mostly new people from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
We had met some of our Victorian group members previously at a restaurant one night, which was lot of fun and was a great introduction to the weekend to come.
Friday night was a meet and greet with all members who had made their way to this remote area, over dirt roads (that quickly became mud) and through the bush. The setting was perfect and the accommodation excellent. When we arrived, Melanie and Phil were tuning up their guitars, Alistair was singing along and in the background was playing the video “Let this be a Voice”. The atmosphere was magic and already ties were being formed to this extraordinary group of people who had come from all over this country for the purpose of celebrating the life of a man we all admired so very much.
Saturday morning was an early start, together with the arrival of a family who were to join us for the day. The day started with the reading of an email from Harold Simpson, who had written some beautiful words on the behalf of the people in Aspen Colorado, and who at the same time were reading an email sent to them on our behalf. After a minute’s silence, we started the hard yakka of planting a number of trees.
In the awful aftermath of September 11, we planted four trees to commemorate those people who lost their lives during the terror attacks. Each tree represented one aeroplane that was used as a weapon against innocent people. The fifth tree was planted in memory of John Denver. Directly in front of the tree was placed a plaque that had been mounted on a piece of sandstone commemorating the event.
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