Stuck in Sydney traffic? Bored of South Coast beaches? Looking for terrific sunsets and nation-leading coffee? Then you’re in for a treat courtesy of yet another Canberra appreciation post, taking on both familiar perspectives and fresh views.
With Mum staying here for a significant duration I was pleased to see she quickly adapted to the local custom of a morning flat white and was equally as fond of lakeside ambles, bushland meanders and golden sunsets. I was also pleased Canberra was able to throw on a few shows and spectacles involving balloons, lights and fireworks. Oh – and apart from one stormy afternoon – finally some proper summer weather.
The Canberra day begins for many with a labradoodle walk, a run or a cycle. More often than not mine is a cup of tea in bed first. The absolute shock of not having time for a cup of tea, throwing on some clothes and scrambling out in the dark shakes the very foundations of the household. And with usually quiet avenues peppered with SUVs, things are definitely amiss. I can’t even park close to where I want to, as if this was like Sydney or something.
From a distant parking spot the sky gently warms and people throng and inflatable bits of fabric fill with hot air, popping into the sunrise, drifting over the misty vapours of Lake Burley Griffin, perilously bound for a close encounter with the sharp needle of Telstra Tower. It is the balloon spectacular and it never fails to be spectacular, especially so when it is topped off with a long-awaited coffee and breakfast.
Later coffees are more typical and a particular favourite for Mum was an iced version down by the lake. Curtin proved reliable, often tied in with a quick pop into Coles. Even the poorer coffees – such as at the perennially disappointing LanyonHomestead – were compensated by sunshine and flowers and the fact this was still better than 95% of British establishments.
Lanyon would be a prime cream tea location, though that would deliver inevitable disappointment too. But other local foodstuffs excel and tempt. From Banh Mi to Kingsleys to ice cream from Messina, there are numerous dollops of delight which often pose the question, where can I get one of these at home?
At other times, it is the home-cooked variety of cuisine which provides content. A belated Christmas dinner from Mum feels both right and wrong in 30 degree heat but there is – as always – no room remaining for Christmas pudding. More climate-friendly BBQs – whether on the balcony or beside a river – are always popular; public BBQs another wonderful asset of the lucky country which can’t really get a run ‘back home’.
Fish and chips are more contestable in the culinary Ashes. In Australia we experience usually excellent seafood frequently let down by salty fries lacking malt vinegar. Mum is astounded that they don’t do proper chips and they don’t do proper vinegar, so much so that it becomes a FaceTime conversation piece with the relloes back home. But it’s only a small blip on a golden evening at Snapper & Co. If only I remembered to bring the bottle of malt vinegar gifted by Dad.
As the polite seagulls dissipate (another win for Australia), the sky glows in that most typical Canberra flourish. One of several satisfying sunsets as daylight savings stretches on towards the end of March. With each rise and fall, there is only a hint of coolness after dark and a slight yellowing in the canopy.
From late summer to early autumn the changes are only subtle as temperatures remain steady and some of the coffees remain iced. But the clocks tick and the calendar turns and nature knows this is a time in which to make hay, to harvest, to revel in abundance and prepare to turn your thoughts to the prospect of a winter.
On the fringes of Canberra, Tidbinbilla offers a couple of immersions into the natural Australia, a literal sanctuary in which this weird and wonderful land can do its thing. In late February, the same table at which I sat with Dad is now hosting an evening picnic with quiche and bubbles. In late March, the same type of snake is again putting on a display for British tourists to tell tales back home.
And if snakes ain’t your thing there are cuddlier critters to hit you in the face with the realisation, the dream that you are here in Australia. The birds chime and squawk in different tones and melodies. The lizards bask uncaged. The flies occasionally irk. And the platypus remain mysterious.
From here, half an hour to coffee, half an hour to cuisine, half an hour to home. Doorsteps rarely get any better.
Blog life seems to be taking the form of a brief flurry of updates followed by months of silence followed by simmering guilt that I should be creating something and sharing it followed by slowly creating something and sharing it followed by a brief flurry of inspiration and productivity followed by months of silence.
In real life, 2024 started with a bang in Sydney as one parent flew home, another arrived and, in between, the weather got better, I hung out in a pizza truck, held down a job, looked for new butterflies and scored some gold. And then sapphire.
What further superlatives can one spout about the Sapphire Coast in southern New South Wales? Visited once again but on this occasion seen through the fresh eyes of my Mum, down under for the very first time. Pinch yourself moments on white sand, vivid blue water, dense green eucalyptus. We’ll get there, with some fuel.
Alas after a week of heat and sunshine in Australia’s capital we hit the coast just as the cloud started to roll in. This didn’t stop obligatory visits to Tuross for waterfront seafood and Bodalla for sublime ice cream afters. A stop overnight in Narooma was pleasant if a little gloomy while morning coffee in charming Tilba brightened things up a touch.
It is at the parental intersection of Bermagui where glimmers of sunshine again reemerge. With vintage cheese from Tilba, bread from Honorbread and assorted extras from Woollies, we decamp at its lovely bay just as a blue hole in the grey opens up, like a portal into the upside up. A few regulars wade into the water for a swim, while the summit of Gulaga emerges beneath the receding sheet of cloud. The sapphire has tepidly begun.
By the time we reached beachside in Pambula, the atmospherics were notably more sparkly. A short walk from our cabin past delinquent kangaroos led to the sweeping arc of sand disappearing all the way up to Merimbula. A decent chunk of sun livened things up and illuminated the colours of the water. Here was – wrapped up a little because of the wind – a chance to unfold the seating contraption and maybe just doze. And then to open the eyes and be dazzled.
For dazzling it is hard to look past the shallow waters of the Pambula River, lapping at powder white sand and banks of eucalyptus chiming with the sound of bellbird. A cloudy start the next morning magically evaporated for a perfect amble. Peaceful apart from the occasional fisher and brisk walking lady having a cathartic meltdown on the phone.
It doesn’t take much to consider how this must look to virgin, English eyes. The vibrancy as if the TV has gone on the blink during an episode of Eastenders. Deep blues, shimmering gold, blinding white, blanketing green. Gently lapping translucent water, warm and pristine. Nature largely uninterrupted, heard in melody but rarely seen. Apart from a resting Orchard Swallowtail.
We returned to the Pambula River later in the day, just because it was there, around the corner. In between, the hustle and senior shuffle of downtown Merimbula, where millions of tax rebates are frittered away on hot weak cappuccinos and chicken parmigianas annually.
Bar Beach is a favoured spot, partly because you can get a good coffee overlooking a small, sheltered aquamarine bay. It is calm and appealing enough to swim in, especially with those English eyes. Thus a mother is submerged while I inch out just past knee high.
It would be good to come back here for a double bacon and egg roll. So we do just that on Monday morning and not for the first time in my life I am facing abject disappointment at a sign proclaiming the availability of a limited menu only. There is no double bacon and egg today, at least not this side of the estuary. Tomorrow will be fine, I am told. But there is to be no tomorrow.
And so sometimes fate dictates change, a new experience for me too. Nothing radically different of course, but a bacon and egg roll across that channel of sapphire on an isthmus of land known as Fishpen. A takeaway taken away to a small pontoon, bedecked by self-funded retirees living their best life. With ample time to dwell and, should they wish, write about another day in paradise. Such luxury.
I imagine people imagine spending Christmas in Australia on the beach. Barbecues sizzling, beer stubbies and glasses of Chardonnay clinking, the background soundtrack of pounding, refreshing, aquamarine surf. Dress code: thongs, budgie smugglers and Santa hats. Perhaps the odd singlet professing No Wucken Furries. She’ll be right maaaaaate.
I imagine Dad was not quite imagining this when arranging his first Christmas in Australia, but perhaps not far off. I doubt he was imagining a sodden suburb of Canberra, confined indoors as thunderclaps rage and the decision, the very right, to wear shorts on Christmas Day is a brave one. Family warmth proves consoling, food nourishing and, all in all, she’ll be right maaaaaate. I guess it was far from clichéd.
The sun came out on Christmas Day, the only downside being it was 7:30pm and not a lot of it was left. But still, BOM Radar viewing could be downed for a brief period and I could go for a quick walk before again imbibing quantities of ham and other saturated fats. The sun set and would, hopefully, come up once more.
And it did and for a moment outside Doubleshot waiting for a coffee on Boxing Day morning it felt truly Australian Christmassy. The test match started on time, Australian openers plodded on and Dad and I sat outside to eat traditional mashed potato with ham and an arrangement of pickles. To snooze or walk it off? Snooze appeals, but the sun is still out and the BOM radar looks okay. We shall walk.
The walk quickened on the way back to the car as rumbles of thunder intensified and evil clouds spilled down the mountains into the Gudgenby Valley. What started out promisingly was now an escape from paradise. A paradise of chirping birds, grassy meadows and fragrant eucalyptus. A footstep into the wild, sedated by the meandering waters of Rendezvous Creek and the encircling mountains. A spot to dwell and marvel and appreciate. Usually.
At some point on the road out of Namadgi someone up in the sky tipped a massive bucket of water down on the earth all in one go. A few minutes later it was dry again. BOM radar episodes were confusing, using the classic dramatic device of leaving things hanging. Would it, wouldn’t it, where and when and why? I pity the poor forecasters who have been lambasted for their forecasts of late (hint: the clue’s in the word forecast). It’s like forecasting an overlapping cohort of people will go apoplectic about a food store not selling tacky plastic flags the wrong shade of blue made in China which will probably end up in the stomach of a turtle on a degraded barrier reef. How unpatriotic of them.
I tell ya what’s proper Aussie. A majestic red-bellied black snake nonchalantly crossing your path and disappearing into the bush like it couldn’t give two fucks. They must be liking the humid sunny mornings followed by thundery downpours as much as they like putting on shows for Englishmen to tell terrifying tales to all the folks back home. You beauty.
This one was in Tidbinbilla, prior to the inevitable emergence of a thundery downpour. It was a highlight of what turned into a good day… largely because the thundery downpour came late enough to be able to do things first. It was a day which started off closer to home, down by the Murrumbidgee River and a walk to calendar-worthy Red Rocks Gorge. Greeted by a resident Peregrine Falcon, it was a perfect site for a flask of tea, a couple of pieces of shortbread and a watchful eye on potential snakes.
At the end of the walk, BOM Radar still looked pretty clear so Tidbinbilla came as a bonus. We picked up some takeaway lunch, spotted a new butterfly close to our picnic spot and continued on into the Sanctuary. Focused on elusive platypus, when someone says to you “watch out for that black snake” you do tend to almost fall over yourself. I have almost stepped on them before. At least this time there was warning and chance to admire, from a little distance.
* picture credit: Dad (don’t get too close!)
There seemed plenty for a snake to eat in Tidbinbilla. As much as there was plenty to eat at home. Having said that, I was tiring of ham and leftover desserts and a homemade lentil couscous salad thrown in to create the illusion that I was eating healthily. I was also tiring of being subjected to magical storms appearing from nothing in the space of half an hour when out in the middle of nowhere. Like at London Bridge Homestead, billowing clouds gathering upon all sides, the only hole being where we stood. Wondering whether to shelter in the dilapidated ruins of a shed or driving home with the assistance of BOM radar akin to an airline pilot weaving around tempestuous anvils of doom. Crash or crash through.
I was over the drama. What I needed was a settled, uncomplicated day. And also giant prawns. What I needed was some Australian Christmas.
It came a few days late on 28th December, driving to the South Coast to feel sand and sea and waves and a bit of congestion as people gather in pilgrimage to the ocean. Shady Murramarang forests delight and walks to untouched beaches are a blessing. Kangaroos hop along the sand, sea eagles soar and people frolic in thongs, budgie smugglers and Santa hats. It takes a while to arrive, but there are also giant prawns to be had under a cloudless sky. No wucken furries.
Growing up, Christmas TV viewing used to be such a big thing. A double episode of Eastenders in which someone and/or something sizzles in a suspicious blaze. A blockbuster movie that was so new it had only aired in the cinema little more than a year previous. A Father Ted comedy special which was really fecked. And of course – usually avoided because of concurrent feasting on dried up old turkey – The Queen.
While others still go crazy over Love Actually or A Muppets Christmas Carol or even the old royal turkey himself, I have mostly been watching the BOM radar this holiday season. Only Big Bash cricket – for all its stupidity – competes for airtime, though usually in the background, usually while looking at the BOM radar. It’s riveting viewing, where you simply won’t believe the biggest twist yet.
They say Christmas comes around earlier every year and it was just ticking over into December when BOM radar became the must watch event of the year. Was Mount Kosciuszko up in the clouds, was that storm clipping Thredbo, would it ever stop raining in Jindabyne? Would Yarrongobilly Caves provide best refuge or how about the local pub? As long as you get in after the meat raffle and before the Christmas karaoke, yes.
Rain, rain go away and come back in the form of a waterfall. A lull in weather drama one morning providing relief and release and joyous, primitive, natural freshness. Sawpit Creek plunging and fizzing and totally out of mobile range to check the radar. Ignorance and bliss and all that.
Nimmitabel also produced sketchy mobile data and all I can say about that is it was a stroke of luck that I fancied a pie. Or, supposedly, Cornish Pasty. While discovering the sacrilege of sweetcorn the heavens opened, rapid rivulets formed and I prayed for the car outside. By time I forced down the last corner of dry pastry it had stopped, and Dad and I plunged down towards the coast.
I wouldn’t quite say the rain followed us. At least not until after we navigated flooded detours in the Bega Valley, stopped the car, and went to discover sea foam oozing through Wallagoot Gap. Only then did the rain return, obliterating the scenic drive to Bermagui and forcing fish and chip consumption in the car.
There was clearly a bit of a British summer holiday vibe going on. This extended to the following day when it was – in spite of more downpours forecast – only really mostly cool and cloudy. Relativism a conduit of positivity, low expectations a nurturer of delight. Mustn’t grumble. Things could be worse. We could do something.
It wasn’t really a peachy beachy day, unless seeking moody shots of rock formations and blustery coastlines. So we ended up in Tilba, drinking coffee and eating cheese. In between, taking a tour of its lush environs under the brooding hulk of Gulaga. Briefly the sun came out, and so too the flies.
With all the runoff of recent days the normally sapphire seas around Bermagui were a bit more Bognor. But Monday – the day of travelling back to Canberra – was much better. Radar viewing indicated little going on, much like a filler episode of Home and Away (or a normal episode to be fair). There was good coffee on the beach to kick things off, good waterside coffee again in Narooma and fish and chips by the lake in Tuross for lunch. Filling the time between dining stops, beach views and maybe the risk of sunburn.
In fact we stopped stopping at beaches because we were tiring a little of golden sand and fabulous blue waves. A bushwalk among the spotted gums was calling. A search for elusive butterflies and a surprise sugar glider, taking advantage of a respite in the weather to feed on nectar and ambrosia. Inspiration for the ice cream at Bodalla Dairy.
For a day, BOM Radar was barely a thing. The Australian summer in all its glory was back. Even the sea started to look that little more sapphire. But then I heard they commissioned a second season. Featuring a Christmas special. In which there will be some even bigger twists you never ever saw coming in an unprecedented TV first. Oh how I hark back to a spot of arson among the mince pies in Eastenders.
I’ve skipped a bit. A deficit of time rivalled by that of inspiration. But I seem to have discovered a free half hour without internet on a veranda in western Victoria. Sat within a world which spurs me to wax lyrical. In offline mode.
The veranda is on the outskirts of Halls Gap in The Grampians. While I was napping, Dad has disappeared to stalk emus or swear at Common Browns I presume. He’s been in Australia for nearly six weeks and to chronicle everything will be a feat never accomplished. But this chunk feels manageable and interesting and special. And, like many of our stops to get here, bite-sized.
The Grampians – Gariwerd – proves antidote to Melbourne which itself is antidote to Canberra. Initially I loved the in-your-face life and buzz and noise and food and even the humidity with a freakish shower. But then it all got too much, tipping over the edge at a Big Bash cricket mess at the MCG, where feral kids run hyper on additives and everyone seems to be engaged in some kind of White Lightning inspired disco.
Plus the weather turned cool and grey, the coffee was, meh, just coffee Melbourne get over it, and I felt ready again for the volume to be dialled down. Which it is right now, other than for the singing of birds and a grown man swearing at butterflies in the distance.
Gariwerd is absolutely my cup of tea, and I like cups of tea. There are multiple lookouts for a start, walks in nature, plunging cascades and – yes get excited people – rock formations. Often these are all combined in the same place, in just the most perfect arrangement. Laid out as they always have been, and always will be.
Here, nature charts its course and writes its own story. And like the Mackenzie River deep in the heart of the bush, it’s a story of twists and turns, serenity and drama. Then, at some point, it all comes crashing down. The MackenzieFalls.
As stories go I feel like Dad could have an exhibition of the most beautiful waterfalls of Australia from this trip. And in a poky alcove on the side I would be allocated a small section for grainy photos called behind the scenes of the beautiful waterfalls of Australia exhibition. These would largely feature a man with white hair and a red hoodie hunched beside a borrowed tripod in front of a water feature. Included will be one or two of my own attempts, just for comparative purposes. Craft and patience versus laziness and luck.
Since I had taken a few happy snaps and went off exploring downriver, I missed the slightly awkward moment where a young chap got down on one knee to propose to his partner, Dad off to the side. He was probably waiting for a guy with a camera and tripod to leave, but could delay no more. Fair play, it’s a good spot to ask a girl to marry you but if they had been on the ball they could have booked a wedding photographer at the same time.
As the lovers moved on to chart their own story, our honeymoon took on spectacle with grandstand views. From Reid’s Lookout and TheBalconies, it is impossible not to marvel at the scale and essence of Gariwerd. A sea of wilderness lapping at encircling zigzag ranges, the sun sinking lower to spark the landscape aglow. You don’t really expect this approaching a few hills from the plains around Ararat.
It is vast, and breathtakingly epic. Yet there are so many intimate spaces and contemplative spots. The Grand Canyon proves grand, but in a different way. Nature’s brickwork is masterfully constructed with a water feature and exotic plantings. The narrowing walls cocoon and seem to concentrate calm and peace and a certain spirituality. It doesn’t take much to feel connected to the eons of time and the billions of stories past. To feel the land is part of you and you part of it. To follow footsteps special and sacred.
Modern day footsteps appear to largely belong to lithe German backpackers packing it all in. Or families of ten alighting from a Kia Carnival, emerging ever more incredulously like props from Mary Poppin’s bag. The steps they take, we take, are many and often upward. ThePinnacle is a pinnacle of sorts for all sorts. A craggy protrusion overlooking Halls Gap, the final few hundred metres taking longer than expected, navigating boulders and crevices and fellow walkers. Many, including Dad and I, stop for lunch. Others inch out to perilous outcrops for unforgettable photos. All leaving crumbs for future pasts.
Crumbs which scatter and seep into the earth, ground in by the footsteps that follow. Washing out in heavy rains, joining many other leftover tales on their way to a creek. Meandering around shrubs and wallabies, cutting a swathe in the rock, gathering and spilling over a cliff face. A sliver of water splitting an ancient amphitheatre, a silver band reuniting with life in the forest. There, a red hoodie huddles over a camera and composes. The final serene score of a most exquisite symphony.
Something didn’t sit right with me. Trying to get to sleep in a single bed on creaking, turn-of-the-century floorboards. Below, a bar serving the last of the whooping and hollering, the cackling shriek of a drunk Australian lady all the more painful when you know you need rest. Mind ticking over like the cycle of a misaligned wheel.
The remnants of merriment below had cowboy vibes. With Gucci trimmings. Equally at home in Fortitude Valley as downtown Linville, partying like they are 1999. On a night in 2023 when Australia received what to me at least felt a simple, unremarkable request from a broad representation of its first peoples for them to actually matter and said “yeah nah we’re alright thanks”. Whooping and hollering – as innocent as it may have been – struck a dissonant chord. And I edged closer to sleep with doubts about what it meant to be crossing country the next day.
The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail (Part II) traverses Waka Waka Country and Yuggera Country – or at least I think as much based on the little I can glean from local council pages. Today proclaimed as the longest continual recreational trail in Australia (if not the southern hemisphere), it intermittently welcomes people on bikes and horses and feet to roughly follow the course of a disused railway line from Yarraman – deep in the electorate of Maranoa – to the fringes of Ipswich. A manifestation of intrusion and industry and inevitable decline once quick riches had been cut down, torn, eradicated and washed from the earth.
In a sign of hope and rejuvenation the old rail line is now transformed into a place where people can come together on a shared journey, even if some of the newer locals remain deeply conspiratorial. Avid readers may realise this is my second time along it (and with my back now going through all sorts of agony it’ll probably be the last). From a pair of lone rangers we doubled in size as a group of four. Not quite MAMILS but only really lacking the Lycra. Starting off on brand by getting confused over where to start.
In many ways the first 20 kilometres is the hardest, adjusting to seats and handlebars and pedals and pace and the actual realisation of exercise. Things are a little undulating and already hot, and the approach to Blackbutt seems to drag on forever. But eventually bakery rejuvenation occurs, some tuning and top ups ensue, and we are full steam ahead.
The run to Linville is mostly bliss if a little jarring in places. Forest creeps in on both sides and the gradient works in your favour too. The breeze of momentum keeps you cool and a slice from Blackbutt survives well enough to sugar-rush the journey east. Beaming white in the afternoon sun, the Linville Hotel is a very beacon of balustrades and cold beer. The store next door a welcome purveyor of ice cream.
After a little recovery, day all too soon turns into night because Queensland doesn’t bother with daylight saving (probably because it is seen as another way the government are trying to control you with 5G vaccines or whatever). As much as I try, I cannot find the ideal beer to accompany a local steak and a background band mostly playing the entire catalogue of Crowded House. Only at the end, as encore way past their bedtime, do they strike up Farnham’s Voice. I cannot tell if this is a brave call, a lost opportunity, or a musical smirk.
Linville is in a pretty position among rugged hills, folded and contorted and topped with natural Australiana. Just beyond a few of the folds you’ll find Kilcoy, where in 1842 flour was laced with strychnine and given to a large group of Aboriginal people by two shepherds at a squatters station. Reports – like many of the time – are vague and swept under the carpet. At least sixty Aboriginal people were killed. A death pudding massacre.
I share this clearly not for entertainment or as a segue into some cycling incident but merely to share it, to acknowledge and make it known. I had no idea, freewheeling downhill, what happened among those hills until I got back home and decided to look into the Aboriginal origins and history of the country I had just crossed. Where the squatters came first, farms and forestry followed, towns and people sprung up and eventually a rail line was constructed. Large swathes of land were stripped of trees, including the unique Bunya Pine, which only now exists in small pockets to the west. Worse, the land was largely stripped of its inhabitants, sent to missions if not a fate more terminal.
The second day of pedalling through the present and the past is more open and exposed, the cursed removal of trees a bane to modern day cyclists exposed to the searing sun. Already the land looks a bit sick and brown from the latest evolution of drought. There are few animals, other than the occasional cluster of cows hunkering down under a lone tree or dilapidated shed.
There are also a few magpies and – miraculously – they are leaving me alone while going for the other mamils in my crew. This is wonderful, so much so that I whizz on and almost decapitate a snake that I didn’t even see until after I passed it. I feel somewhat blessed and incredibly fortunate in hindsight. It’s like they knew or something.
The towns – or what pass for towns – tick off at fairly regular intervals. Early on there is Moore with its three cafes, of which one only seems to be open and doing a good trade in weirdness and antipathy. It was here I discovered a publication called The Light which from a brief glance before I felt the urge to use it for toilet paper proclaims to shine a light on all things the establishment don’t want you to know. Likely bankrolled by such establishment figures as Rinehart, Hanson, Palmer and co.
Next along from Moore, after one of the bigger climbs of the trail is Harlin, which appears little more than a pub and a servo. Still, giant bottles of knock-off Gatorade are welcome, as is the cooling 90 metres of the Yimbun tunnel a little further on. It’s a good place to pause, adjust padding and apply sunscreen before persevering with more open, baked-earth riding to Toogoolawah.
You know Toogoolawah is – in relative terms – big because it has a choice of two pubs for lunch as well as a sprinkle of cafes. Closer to the highway you can even find some homemade fudge and maybe decent coffee but the old rail line has other places in mind. With a local recommendation we decamp outside a pub and have a hearty lunch in the shade. Pizza topped with so much topping it takes a while to discover the base. Welcome and delicious, but I am wondering how all that salami, olives, capsicum, tomato, feta, mozzarella, parsley and bread, pepped up by a lemonade, is going to sit.
There was a bit of gas departing Toogoolawah, an uphill grind but one that I quite enjoyed. Dropping into a nice low gear and spinning gently, consistently, without any real rush to get anywhere. Bare country eventually cedes to a line of boundary eucalypts that accompany us to a cutting where the railway peaks, and it’s downhill from there. Suddenly speed is a thing again, the ruts and stones bouncier, gripping on to handlebars that much tighter, the air flow providing welcome ventilation. In hindsight it feels like this all the way to Esk, but there was definitely still pedalling involved.
I was a little concerned about getting to Esk around 3pm, just as everything was no doubt closing. But a new addition along the BVRT, a very BVRT business in fact, was kicking on into a Sunday arvo session. Brisbane Valley Roasters no doubt attracts the hairy mamil with single origin roasts and cold brews and almond milk. There are bike racks and large wooden benches and probably some of those fake succulents you get from IKEA. After such high dose rustic rural, you may temporarily feel an inner Melbourne vibe, or at least central Tuggeranong.
But then Esk happens. For some reason today all the staff appear to be about 14. There are no lightly bearded hipsters or man buns dosing double shots and feathering foam. I opt for an iced coffee anyway, given the heat outside which is now well into the thirties. A solo performer mistunes his guitar and is gearing up for some gently grating entertainment, supported by a handful of friends and family. A lady from out of town accosts us and talks about love and secret hideaways up on the Darling Downs and how hard she has worked all her life and that young people don’t know what hard work looks like and they should stop buying avocados or something. I fear 5G radiation PayPal vaccines might be next. Still, at least it’s not sitting, working, sweating on a bike.
I assumed all the young people of Esk were working at Brisbane Valley Roasters that day, but it turns out there are even more of them in the IGA. I suppose as well as providing cheap labour for hard-working business owners it’s something for young people to do other than vape. And they’re all rather friendly in the IGA, even as Jason – by now high on morphine or something – rambles on about (and looks like) the Esk Yowie while I am trying to buy some reduced price tabbouleh from the girl behind the deli counter. Young people are nothing if not resilient in the face of the weirdness they encounter.
Dinner turns out to be an IGA affair since the pub is closed and the Thai is also – due to unforeseen events – closed. We stock up on food, too much food, for breakfast as well. Thinking, quite rightly, that nowhere will be open at five in the morning. And also thinking, quite wrongly, that we could eat two apple crumble cakes reduced to 99 cents, along with several pots of yogurt, cereal bars, a tree of bananas and a two kilo bag of rolled oats at five in the morning.
It is an uncivilised hour to rise but the final day is also the biggest and longest. And some of us have a train, and plane, to catch. While initially confronting, the early hour is by far the best on the bike. The light glowing soft, the air calm and cool and infused with that dewy, earthy fragrance of something akin to dried straw and peppermint. The trail is subdued too, enclosed by forest pretty much for the whole 20 kilometres to Coominya.
The last of the bananas disappears at Coominya, meaning I force myself to buy a chocolate éclair from the bakery at Lowood, a little further down the line. Brisbane feels closer now, the river widening, water to rinse off the humidity, feed the production of insipid beer, pressure wash four million Toyota Hiluxes. Yet after Fernvale and its supposed amazing pies, there is little to interrupt until reaching the very edge of Ipswich.
In the bush and scrub around here, 12 Aboriginal people were killed in 1843 when they were pursued by a vigilante group of soldiers, settlers and stockmen, seeking reprisal following the battle of ‘One Tree Hill.’ We all cruise on by unknowing and unthinking. An ignorance that is all too common, all too often the easiest option, the path of least resistance. Because if you don’t know you won’t actually feel impelled to reconcile.
Wulkuraka – an Aboriginal word meaning either red flowering gum or plenty of kookaburras. I see neither today, but they are assuredly there somewhere. Holding on, adapting, waiting to burst forth and laugh. May well they laugh at a troupe of four sweaty middle aged men trying to cross a finish line in tandem, the youngest with a wheelie. Having crossed country where, despite it all, there is embedded in the earth and the sky a profound resilience. Something which can never be washed away, tunnelled through or eroded. A line much older, deeper and enduring. Always.
In the scheme of things, in the scheme of the last 18 months, the loss of a car is just a small bump in the road. Perhaps that’s why I felt the tiniest tingle of relief as it was loaded on a trailer for a sliver of cash. Effectively a burden gone, another potential disaster-in-waiting purged. Plus who wants to pay for petrol at the moment anyway?
So with an empty carport and a sliver of cash I am left wondering what does one do with cash these days? Wave it in front of a card reader? Hide it under the mattress? Feed it in stages into the soulless void of a self-service surveillance checkout? I know I could put it in the bank, but that would involve a drive to the nearest branch in Wollongong and, well, see above.
No hasty decisions. The last time I made a hasty decision I bought a car and that didn’t go so well. I think the purchase came about as an expensive alternative to comfort eating after the ultimate, exquisitely executed ghosting. Buyers Beware. A spoonful of newfound adventure and fresh horizons, with the mid forties option of sleeping in the back. I slept in the back three times at $3,333 a night, and never very well.
So I don’t really have fond memories of that car, not in the same way as the almost as demanding Outback. And thus the day it went on that trailer it was almost like a release. And I could just go for a walk instead…
A walk first through the cemetery, my gateway from home to Woden storm drains and the afterlife. The vibe pretty much the same at both. Between, the purgatory of brutalist office block festering in diesel bus fumes and detours. Yonder the pearly gates of Westfield.
But I am not heading in that direction just now. Instead, life and joy and wonder. Sunlight and flowers and bees. Simple pleasures you see on foot, absorbed at a natural pace. Suburban magnolia peeking above fences, wattlebirds clucking in the callistemon, the honeyed smells of acacia. A hum of spring release and endeavour, all the way to the golf course.
A man talks loudly on his phone, the sound of a work call in between the wattle and magpies. We have all done it but I feel slightly irked by this intrusion. As if this spectacle of life, this annual miracle of rebirth is simply a backdrop ignored for talk of Gantt charts and stakeholder management.
Technology huh. Like this whole lane assist thing that new cars seem to think you want. Along with no key and handbrake. Welcome to 2023, I feel, as I take advantage of a bargain rental deal for the weekend. Cue a logistical feast of car-based activities, including Bunnings and IKEA and a drive to the tip. But there’s also a bit of time for at least a mini road trip.
Trying to manoeuvre around potholes in spite of lane assist I head south into Namadgi National Park. For all of Canberra’s interwoven parks and hills I want to feel that wilderness, that overpowering sense of nothing but me and the world. No cars, no phones, no storm drains. That almost but not quite realisation of being the first to tread into something undisturbed.
I’m in the Orroral Valley, which has in reality been quite disturbed by former homesteads and satellite tracking stations and – in 2020 – an army helicopter sparking a bushfire that went on to impact 80% of the park. If you didn’t know it you might not notice today, but a closer look reveals burnt stumps, scarred trees and charred stones.
From here I’m swiftly rising above the valley and eventually into another more untampered. Over a rise bedecked with fresh eucalyptus and large granite boulders and into the sinewy hollow of Nursery Creek. I like to think so named as a place where nature and life can breathe and evolve into something remarkable. Though probably more likely a place name claimed by an invading pastoralist slightly drunk and reminiscing about some nurse he once harassed in downtown Gundagai.
The walk ends at Nursery Swamp, which doesn’t feel particularly swampy today. Late winter has been dry, almost as dry as the sandwich I force down on the end of trail bench. A couple of scarlet robins espy me from a small bush, knowing there will be crumbs. Keeping a watchful distance until I depart. Sweet, and less in your face than a magpie.
Yes, those spring magpies. On the first warm day of the season I took my lunch out to a nearby bench to eat it in the sun, only to be harassed by a magpie. On a lovely, golden afternoon in Mulligans Flat, peace and contentment was obliterated in one fell swoop from a magpie. On the bike, well, I think one ride notched up a double figure attack count from more than one magpie.
It was a long ride to be fair. A part training part test ride. No hasty decisions when it comes to a car, but reckless abandon when it comes to a bike. An e-bike no less. Free of registration costs and petrol costs and faulty transmission (though maybe a dodgy Shimano) plus not enough room to sleep in the back.
Yes I’m not yet 50 and yes I will still use my other, conventional bike as well. But I feel this can take me further and higher and faster. Expand my horizons. And, with food and coffee stops, probably expand my waist. Among the losses, there’s still something to gain.
While closing an impromptu trip to England with cream tea nirvana may convey the archetypal happy ending, life – even curated online life – isn’t as simple as that. Endings are rarely happy affairs otherwise they would just keep on going. And more often than not, an end is also a beginning and a middle and any other indeterminate point on the march of civilisation, a turn of the wheel in the cycle of life.
It’s nice when that cycle is electric powered, even if this may ultimately lead to the downfall of civilisation. There is nothing like the fillip of pressing a switch to give you a boost at the very moment you are flagging. Especially when one of those switches says TURBO.
I always thought of Salisbury Plain as flat. The clue’s in the name after all. It should be a doddle to cycle through, barring confrontation with tanks and gunfire. But tanks need steep inclines to be put through their paces and bullets have to travel uphill or something. The plain is far from plain.
And so, when offered the services of an e-bike to join that of my Dad’s, I was happy to give it a whirl. Funnily enough, pride and that old man in Lycra tut-tutting in my head made me pedal au naturale for as long as possible. But when you flick that switch there is no stopping you.
I was quite the passenger that day, in more ways than one. Usually in awe at my map memory, if was to retrace our route across the plain I’d be as lost as a ray of sunshine in Manchester. Each chalky track seems to lead down to a tangled thicket then up past a copse and left towards some squaddies and then 180 degrees avoiding gunfire and then straight through a paddock before joining what looks like where we were an hour ago. Somehow this 3D puzzle spits you out in a village and you find yourself recuperating with a cider and delicious battered fish sandwich.
It was worth all the pedalling (and quite frequent button pushing) to be in that pub garden. British country pubs in the sunshine are really like nowhere else. I wasn’t expecting to be in another one an hour or so later, but even e-bikes get punctures. And unfortunately the pub was the nearest point of refuge as Dad turbocharged his way to the rescue vehicle.
Fast forward a few turns of the wheel and white chalk becomes white sand, fish sandwiches become fish cocktails, and electrical assistance becomes all my own willpower.
Returning to a classic bicycle has been tough, any incline – however short – feeling like a mission to reach base camp. Maybe riding in Australia is just more of a challenge, what with the limited number of proper teashops, the higher proportion of fit athletic types putting you to shame, and near certain harassment by magpies.
From sweating in Salisbury Plain my first foray back on the bike in Canberra was a freezing affair. Okay, maybe seven degrees but there are simply not enough layers to shield the core from that breeze which whips up no matter what direction you face. I struggled for barely ten flat kilometres, and that included a stop for coffee and a M&S mostly chocolate biscuit.
But over time, on those rare occasions when the temperature makes it into double figures and the wind is below 15kph, I have been getting more acclimatised to cycling without electric again. Just little jaunts two or three times a week. A few more inclines, but nothing too steep. And still coffees and biscuits.
It’ll be handy for the bike legs to come back as I feel like my car might be stuffed! Something with the electrics, the transmission, the gears. Not as simple as a flick of a switch, the crank of a derailleur and a couple of allez.
I may have harmed it going to and from Jervis Bay, not that it screwed up at the time. Perhaps it didn’t like the moisture as the first rain in weeks dampened activities for the journey down and back again. Still, the Sunday was sunny, if not reaching the globally heated summits of earlier that week. And with reasonable enough winds there was an opportunity to once again revert to pedal power.
In my head it was flat between Sanctuary Point and Vincentia but I hadn’t been to Jervis Bay in many years. The reality is more lumpen but can I just put it on record that I made it up that hill whereas the younger, fitter-looking guy who whizzed past me on the flat got off and walked. I probably have a bigger rear cassette.
Between Vincentia and Huskisson it is all bliss. There are more young, fit athletic types but also oldies shuffling and dawdling and standing in the middle of the cycle path chatting to other boomtime babies with their designer glasses and designer dogs. The route follows the coast, all beautiful bays and turquoise waters and that eye-watering white sand. Plenty of escapes for a bike to bask.
Of course returning to Sanctuary Point required a good coffee and biscuit as well as inching over a couple of those lumps again. I almost didn’t make it but figured I could reward myself with two potato scallops to go with lunch as a reward. The downhill stretch begins.
Post-lunch fatigue was inevitable and, looking for a turbo boost, I switched to foot power to amble along a stretch of the White Sands Walk. Boasting majestic bays punctuated by lush, tall eucalypt forest, I would definitely put this in the top ten. It’s the kind of walk that would make one of those TV shows where some minor but amiable celebrity type goes for a walk, meets a few random nerds, and hangs about in a hidden World War Two bunker that they just discovered. (Talking of this genre, now Nick Knowles is titting about on trains…I mean how many middle aged white English men need to show us how to ride a train?!)
One of the best things about being here on a late Sunday afternoon is that most people have by now returned to Sydney or Canberra or Nowra or Wollongong. And, with my legs and feet now pretty much out of gas I was starting to blend in well with the retired locals. I used my last dose of energy to make it down beside the basin in Sanctuary Point, sit on a bench with a flask of tea, and watch the sun sink. Dipping behind the hills as if thinking it was some kind of ending. Just another turn of the wheel.
Devon can be many things. A terrible processed meat in the deli counter at Coles. A fast bowler from the nineties. A hotbed of interbreeding rivalry between two cities. An hour of everybody’s time wasted in Escape to the Country. An elongated farmyard on the way to Cornwall. But, always, a sprawling canvas in which are sewn indelible gems, both sparkling and subtle.
The subtle, hidden ones are of course the best. These are the unassuming pockets that do their best impression of Tolkien’s Shire, before all that weird dark wizardry and multiple three hour orcfests came knocking at the door. Think thatched homes and fluffy rabbits and green hills and apple orchards and beady-eyed locals with distorted feet, living under an angle of sun that always casts a golden hue.
In a county that does a commendable impression of The Shire, it is perhaps apt that I should find myself on a special quest. Allied with a peculiar looking fellowship seeking out a special ring…of luxuriant clotted cream smeared atop treacly strawberry jam coating a fluffy, crunchy, warm cloud of a scone. It has been some mission.
Where to find this precious, last sighted many years ago lost in the valley of Badgeres Holte? Perhaps nestled among the shapely hills and sinewy estuaries of the South Hams? Possibly, but it is far too easy to get distracted by hog roast baps on the way to Thurlestone. And on glorious days beside the sea, ice cream is usually the natural order of events.
The quilted green squares of the South Hams do their best to go on forever (especially if you are driving the A379 in August), but from vantage points you can see the uplands of Dartmoor. Here it can often feel a bit more Mordor, particularly wedged between cold walls of granite as mists swirl, gusts of wind making diagonal raindrops feel like a thousand steel barbs. You’d quite fancy a dip in Mount Doom frankly.
Protection though comes in the valleys and the inns, one of which offers up one of the stingiest serves of cream tea in the whole of Devon. You can have silver platters and waistcoats all you like, but a dainty teaspoon of cream for three people is never going to fulfil a quest. Or sustain enough until a Toby Carvery.
Perhaps the pickings are too thin upon this high wilderness or perhaps this is just some benefit of Brexit or whatever (yes I went there, too soon?). There is an untrammelled and capacious beauty in the high moor, but it is somehow at its very best, at its most precious, where the outreaches of civilisation and cultivation lap at the rocky tors and sheep-strewn bracken. This could be a state of mind as much an aesthetic, reassurance that down in the fields there is life, possibly even grazing cows, and maybe a café with a nice scone.
The area around Sheepstor is such an area and one I am happy to take footsteps within time and again. Late afternoon and into evening it was pleasing to share it with fellow adventurers, though our end destination on this occasion was wholesome food and ale in the Walkhampton Inn. Another welcome staging post to add to the list of options when travelling through this way.
And so the end of the journey draws closer. It would have been difficult to eventually fulfil this quest without the insight and companionship of others. Like those who did their research among indistinguishable five star reviews proclaiming every cream tea anywhere “the best one I’ve ever had” only for reality to reveal a dry, crumbly, measly mess. And for those who – during the course of quite a few years – accompanied me to pokey cafes in seaside towns or faced National Trust disappointment or journeyed with hope through the Shire to encounter a dry, crumbly, measly mess.
And then there are also those who drove me to a small village in the borderlands between the countryside and the moor.
A small village out of Hobbiton central casting, centred around a church green, fringed by a babbling brook glistening in the golden sun. Birds and butterflies flit from stone walls to thatched roofs while walkers pass through on their way to higher places. Quiet, unassuming, charming and with a small, unpretentious, homely café in the heart. Or should I say – even better – tea room. Screw your gold disappeary ring, bring me one of those cream teas right now.
Among the excitement, among the relief there is deep sadness that there are people who cannot join us as we complete the mission. They certainly were wholesome advocates of such adventure and had their fair share of memorable bites and dollops through the years. Lovers of Devon, the Shire and the very simple amalgam of people and nature together, the simple amalgam too of jam and cream. We eat – and we eat a lot with joy and with heart and possibly with some clogged up heart as well – in their honour. Together, it is very, very precious.
In unprecedented developments I went to Looe and didn’t buy a pasty. Instead my bag was packed with a leftover barbecue sausage sandwich and bag of crisps. It was one of those cost-of-living crisis kind of days, what with the £2 bus fare as well. As if a £2 bus fare balances out a decade of incompetence and self-sabotage and party time plunging living standards.
Anyway, walking is free, as they say. And the bus dropped me off at West Looe, a tidally fulsome river away from cellars of lard and pasty caverns. If only I were a seagull. About to hop along on two webbed feet all the way to Polperro. After a snack.
This was a walk I had started once before, in my youth on a hot, sunny day. Quite probably commencing at Looe Guildhall, where antique plates or boxes with flowers stuck on were being flogged. I felt flogged climbing one hill too many and turned back to make sure I could get my body-sized slot in the back of a red Citroen van. To think I was younger and allegedly fitter then.
Let’s say some thirty-something years later, the weather wasn’t so hot but it was sunny and the shelter of the coast path, straddled between perpendicular hills and scrubby cliffs, made it feel nice. In some ways this was a reacquaintance with and continuation of my three day walk along the southern Cornish coastline last year. Only in the other direction and missing a chunk (Polperro to Mevagissey 2024 anyone?). Amazingly, it was like I’d never been away, I muttered as I hauled myself up the first skyward incline.
The steepest part of this stretch is likely to be when leaving Talland Bay, a gorgeous enclave and half way point populated by a small beach, a church on a hill and a café. The café is the kind of thing that makes the South West Coast Path such a civilised affair, despite the occasional wild meandering through shrubbery. Walk a bit, have a cream tea, walk a bit, regret cream tea as you sweat your way up the world’s steepest footpath.
I spent a bit of money on the cream tea, so after some more gentle walking surrounded by exquisite beauty I was overjoyed to enter Polperro for free. This is an unprecedented state of affairs. Normally I require a bank loan at eye-watering interest rates to visit Polperro. Today, not a penny…although I later found out to spend a penny I would need fifty pennies. The fleecing is still alive and well, including the tacky plastic King Charles Coronation flags that – a week or so after the event – were at least discounted to a pound.
Anyway, this is a far better way to arrive into Polperro than the car park of extortion. Turning a corner that you wouldn’t know was there until it is in your face, the sea surges into the embrace of a snug harbour fringed by whitewash and kaleidoscopic bunting. Lobster pots pile up along the sea wall and old bits of rope look as though they would barely tame a seagull, let alone a trawler.
A poky old pub tempts with Tribute, a bakery window is piled with scones, Roly’s fudge is being freshly made. And all I can pay for today are crumbs… admittedly delicious fudge crumbs that will be adorning ice cream for many months to come. I’ve still got to fork out for the bus ride home.
The £2 bus fares continued to tempt during May but I wasn’t convinced about taking a two and a half hour ride to Bude or Padstow. Not only because of the duration but also because you would get 15 minutes in either place before having to board the return journey. Either that or you could take a connecting bus to Launceston and then wait another two hours for a tractor to Liskeard via a maize maze and then hitch a lift to Carkeel roundabout before rolling down a hill.
So I took a train to Truro instead, got incorrect bus times online and then eventually made it to St. Agnes, a total journey time of, erm, about two and a half hours. Still, I got there around lunchtime which made it prime time for giant sausage rolls. And an iced bun for takeaway. I had utopian visions of savouring the iced bun with a cup of tea at Chapel Porth, several miles away. But following the plunge down to Trevaunance Cove and the goat track up again, icing was in a perilous state of affairs and needed rescuing.
Unlike the Looe to Polperro adventure, this was reasonably familiar ground. I had first discovered St. Agnes’ penchant for novelty sausage rolls several years back and ended up doing the same walk as today. This is not a bad thing, not a bad thing at all. For not only do you receive an abundance of the essence of Cornwall (azure seas, rolling surf, plunging cliffs, tin mines, seagulls, thrift, heather and gorse and Poldork), but it ends with a hedgehog.
This is Chapel Porth‘s signature dish, an almost impossible to control combo of ice cream, clotted cream and roasted hazelnuts. Shame that iced bun never made it here, though I still would have been quite satisfied with it alongside a cup of tea. As it was, I took the ice cream down to a rapidly shrinking beach, the tide high and a keen wind mustering the first sensation of being a bit cold today. Perfect ice cream weather, right?
All this eating might make one plump but you can pretty much guarantee you will burn it off again on the next climb. For me, this involved veering away from the coast and cutting back to St. Agnes via the beacon. It was a walk I may have enjoyed more, were it not for the fact I seemed to be in an increasing hurry to meet the bus.
With five minutes to spare, I settled under a shady tree near the bus stop, pleased to have a sit down and gather myself for the journey home. Five minutes became ten and twenty and an hour and there it finally was, grinding up a hill in a puff of diesel. Delivering me back to Truro where trains were delayed because a boat had hit a bridge. This is almost as Cornish as the old cows on the line excuse. Suddenly the two pound buses don’t sound so bad.
Not that it really mattered. What else was I to do? Other than sit at the platform and take salvation in an emergency bag of M&S crisps for dinner, thankful once again for the sunshine and the South West Coast Path. A strenuous brute of a thing that yet is so comforting, so uplifting, so more beautiful than pretty much anywhere else there is.
The first glimpse of the sun came cascading through a spring green canopy in Central Park. Its emergence immediately lifted a weight, a heavy cloak of gloom and despair. A reminder of hope and joy and wonder simply being on this Earth. In Central Park, Plymouth of all places.
Central Park, where I roamed as a kid, played on the swings, rode my bike, swung a golf club, gorged on hot doughnuts at Sunday morning car boot sales, took my rite of passage to the theatre of greens and generally didn’t think much of it. It was just a park after all.
Sure, it is a big park, bigger still with the little legs of childhood that make every memory lane seem longer and more tiresome. As a consequence, the farthest reaches from home were rarely visited: a thin green valley leading to Ford Park Cemetery. Always shady and damp and slightly foreboding. Always requiring a walk up through thickets and brambles and the mulch of autumns past to return to sunlit uplands and open vistas.
How perspectives can change with age and leg growth and many years in a parallel hemisphere. Today it is a tranquil sanctuary, bounteous and welcoming, the plunge downward providing a sense of anticipation and relief. Peace is here, though not through silence; the gentle melody of spring birdsong a balm to the outside world. I know a couple of people who would have liked it here, on this bench. And I cannot help but think in some way they are present today.
From that point, the glories of spring transformed the month of May to one of warm morning cuppas on the deck, barbecues and even the occasional pair of shorts. A Saturday morning on Plymouth Hoe abuzz with happy, generous people sipping inconsistent coffee, gazing out to sea or even finding themselves within it. It is warm, but surely not to that degree.
There is a pleasure to be had anonymous among the throngs of humanity. To observe those moments of togetherness, to grab snatches of a random conversation, to catch a glance and exchange a smile and even – in Britain – murmur a good morning. A good morning so often appended with a “beautiful weather today innit” and – if you hit the jackpot – a “me lovverrrr” to boot. How can you not treasure Plymouth on days like these?
And should humanity become tiring and overwhelming, just pop down to the woods again. Ham Woods, rediscovered briefly in Covid isolation last year after many long years of separation. A thin but surprisingly abundant ribbon of green between council estates and parkways and incinerators. A place for childhood bike rides, rope swings and dog walks, repeated ad infinitum through the years.
Bluebells have their moment in the sun. Flowering wild garlic gathers as if some snow-speckled glade. Sparkling blue Forget-me-nots pepper the hedgerows and remnants of wall long reclaimed by nature. And always look up, into that endless, incredible green. Marching forth like it always does in May. Cocooning and encompassing you in joyous embrace. The wonder of the woodlands.
This is the beast that keeps needing food. So said my Dad to me somewhere in a field in Wiltshire. A beast conceived as an excuse to write and post photos instead of sending emails and attaching images on the presumption that recipients want to read all about my new life in Australia. A beast born in 2006 and promptly copping censure for making a mockery of my last day at work in Hanger Lane. As if working in Hanger Lane isn’t mockery enough.
I went to Australia when I was still in my twenties (just), had mostly black hair, and talked of peppers and courgettes instead of capsicum and zucchinis. It opened up a new world, new horizons, adventure and opportunity. Plenty of blog feed. But the old world never really left me, such was the green blood of Plymouth coursing through my veins.
It was a world where I moved as a kid with my brother, sister, Mum and Stepdad. A world which is still there in abundance but also comes with a deep absence. Our family has grown, our world has expanded but it has also depleted.
It has been a year scarred by loss. It hurts us and changes us and forces us to confront realities. But it also strengthens us and brings us together and magnifies the joy of simple things, of making the most of what we have, of treasures to cherish and memories to make. It is the contrast between night and day.
There is despondency in the cold and gloom lifted by the parting of clouds and the tinkle of birdsong among springtime growth. There is warmth as the daytimes lengthen and the astonishing weather soothes though some blessing from above. There are fond, happy recollections of days past and future recollections made anew. There is, finally again, a magnificent cream tea that would’ve been enjoyed in any world, at any time, by anyone.
Whether unplanned or not, four weeks in southwest England would always provide plenty of feed. Cornish coastal capers, pasties and sausage rolls, Dartmoor ramblings, Devonshire cream teas, Wiltshire walks and whopping great pub lunches. And one day soon I will probably share some of them, in bite size chunks.
But for now all I want to do is remember those little things, those quieter moments, those intimate connections. Central Park trees, lambs in fields, burnt barbecue sausages with extended family, and other animals. Morning cuppas at the decision table, what do you wants on car journeys and Argyle trophies among happy people. Good, decent, caring people. My people.
Plymouth loses one of those people, our family loses one of those people. But he will never really leave us, he will never really leave me, part of the green blood still coursing strongly through my veins.
Bob, Dad, Grandad, Percy Baldpatch. Forever rest in the sun and enjoy the birdsong.
Drilling into brick ain’t easy. But at least it’s – via a series of chunky payments over 360 weeks – my brick. The small hole above the bathroom window where I eventually gave up proving to be an imprint. My signature. The final flourish being the calls to the tradies that follow.
I did fix a wonky cupboard door, rip up a small piece of carpet, revitalise a cooktop and cleanse a stained sink. And I did manage to find a good plumber to repair a leaky tap and got some people around to do measures and quotes and hopefully install new flooring. The flooring has taken on an almost mythical quality, the promised sunlit uplands of when I finally feel I can properly unpack and organise rooms. At the moment, it’s somewhere on a ship trying to get into Sydney.
I think the delineation between non-homeownership and homeownership must be how many times I have been to Bunnings in the last month. It may be double figures though not once have I succumbed to a slimy morsel of cooked entrails with onions loosely encased in a slice of bread. I’ve been to Ikea three times and Kmart at least the same, plus some carpet showrooms and the expensive kitchenware section of David Jones, to browse. It is like I have entered a parallel universe I never knew existed, where a few hundred dollars here and there is offloaded with hardly the bat of an eyelid.
In the meantime, the regular universe has been doing its thing. In my neighbourhood there are some tall dark conifers under which sit a carpet of needles and the occasional crazy person. But there are also some wonderful deciduous trees putting on a rainbow spectacle as the Canberra autumn seeps in. The red and green king parrots blend into the canopy, only startling with delight when whizzing overhead. The cockatoos are voracious, wanton in their pursuit of abundant, nutty delicacies. Leafy detritus scatters the ground.
A week or two of still days in the low twenties has offered much. It’s great for a bushwalk and I took the opportunity of a somewhat back to normal Saturday to head up into the hills. It had been quite some time since I had last walked from Corin Forest out to Square Rock, fresh and pepperminty in the morning sun. At the rock, expansive views west and a flask of tea to go with a Creme Egg. Before popping into Bunnings in Tuggers on the way home.
A couple of four day weekends have propelled April into even more genial heights. While the first over Easter was a bit of a homestay, the second turned into a tale of two weekends, with Monday and Tuesday enjoyed on the South Coast. Narooma was my last minute overnighter, hastily arranged when I decided I was too tired and achy and old to camp. This at least meant plenty of room in the back for the bike, to burn off some of the cakes / ice cream / fish and chips via beautiful boardwalks.
Cognisant of Tuesday being a public holiday I was especially keen to feast on staples on the Monday lest everything be closed the next day. Setting out early meant perfect timing for coffee and a muffin in Mossy Point, enjoyed down on the public jetty. For the most part this was a picture-perfect setting for sipping and munching and soaking up the salty air, prior to the appearance of a wet dog keen to get in on some of the muffin action. I’m not sure if the remainder of my coffee comprised half dog seawater blend.
Next on the agenda after a morning coffee stop was lunch so really I needed to create at least a little time and exercise between the two. A diversion to Moruya Heads offered up a fine way to fill in the gap, taking in golden bays, tranquil lagoons and a blend of dilapidated shacks and multimillion dollar homes. This a scene practically replicated up and down the coast, including in the next town down, Tuross Head.
The Boatshed in Tuross Head caters for prince and pauper alike. While most people drive and park up for a spot of lunch, the more fabulous way would be to pull up in your boat while a member of staff hands out your seafood platter from the deck. If more people were doing this there may actually be somewhere to sit, but I contentedly took mine away anyway, around the corner and beside the lake. The one disappointment being the depletion of salt and pepper calamari from the menu. As I waited for mine to cook, piles of chips topped with calamari taunted me as they were delivered to happy people sitting on sunny tables.
I resolved to make amends with ice cream, filling the next gap between eats with a small but sometimes steep bike ride beside the Tuross beachfront. The ice cream came further down the road in Bodalla. An obligatory stop when anywhere slightly within the vicinity. It never fails to disappoint and I made the point of checking if they were open Anzac Day as well. Store that one in your back pocket.
With a heavier car I eventually make it to Narooma as the afternoon was heading into that moment of low light and lengthening shadows. Enough time to wander beside Wagonga Inlet as it twists its way towards Bar Beach and the small, hazardous outlet into the ocean. In the calmer waters, resident seals await patiently for leftovers from the fishing boats returning from the sea, or maybe to munch on dark chocolate digestives instead. Whatever floats your boat. And I think about the necessity of a light, leafy dinner.
While I missed the dawn services of Anzac Day, I arose early enough to sample the warming glow of a rising sun reflecting off the sea. With barely a breath it would’ve been inexcusable not to ride my bike along the waterways and Oceanside beaches up towards Dalmeny. And back again to Narooma where what I think is a fairly new cafe fulfilled my hopes for simple, waterfront coffee sips.
All that was left was to paddle in the ocean, lie on a beach, eat another ice cream and meet up with friends in Malua Bay before the journey home. Waiting for me there an unexpected delivery of flat pack furniture. Still flat and still packed, ready for that tremendous day when they can be assembled on a fake oak floor. Hoping to make it into the world without any more careless signatures – unless I need to anchor them to the wall.
There’s a folksy Australian song that rattles off numerous place names in rapid succession. You know the one, something like Tumbarumba Cootamundra Gooloogong Corryong Arawang Wee Waa etc etc. Macca will play it on his weird Sunday morning radio show, Australia All Over, in which Tony from Mungallala will tell us about the weather in western Queensland before an out-of-tune ukulele solo and some tips from Brenda of Bendigo on making a mint courtesy of franking credits while decimating the countryside in a f*ck off caravan. I sometimes tune in to keep my finger on the pulse.
I bring this to mind only because I feel like I have been living through that song during the first quarter of 2023. A less catchy but almost as infinite Phillip, Wallaroo, Grenfell, Crestwood, Queanbeyan, Nirimba, Lyons, Duffy. Like all good journeys it seems the final destination will also take me back to the beginning, a grande boucle finishing in Phillip. A few hundred metres from my old apartment. Just a matter of selling my soul to a hopefully solvent bank and one or two handshakes away.
Ah, handshakes eh. Remember how they were the norm? And then how a raccoon dog got sick and people thought we would never shake hands again, bewildering the Australian Liberal Party leader. And then we pretended the raccoon dog thing had gone and we went back to shaking hands again as well as not talking to our neighbours and not pickling vegetables and not walking an hour every single day? I tell you, I could live without those pesky handshakes.
For the sake of a good story I like to think it was a soul-selling handshake with a mortgage broker that not only meant my Australia All Over tour was destined to end but gave me the added bonus of COVID-19 on top of hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Most people get a little cashback or a year of insurance with their mortgage. I got an illness that shattered my delusion at being one of the invincibles.
Frankly, this sucked given I was somewhere between Queanbeyan and Nirimba at the time and continued to see the Cs and Ts in Lyons and Duffy. And what of it? I can’t say it was ever too serious for me but it drags on like an episode of Vera and is just as sure to make me feel sleepy. It also has impeccable timing at emerging just at the time when I thought I might have a break away from everything.
Nirimba is also known as a part of Caloundra which is also known as a part of the Sunshine Coast which is also known as a part of Queensland. Needing a few weeks of fill-in accommodation why not spend a little of it on the Sunny Coast instead of, say, Queanbeyan? With the offer put out there, why not seek some payback for those domestique duties back in the rail trail days? Why not celebrate Canberra Day with that time worn custom of fleeing Canberra? I mean, it’s not like anything could go wrong.
Indeed, apart from the terrible option of a Red Rooster dinner off the G’day Bruce Highway, things started off fairly well. A dawn start down by the beach with coffee and a brekkie wrap. Yes, it was a bit dull – the Sunshine Coast doing its usual thing of lacking sunshine – and, yes, it was a bit too early given the backwardness of the time zone, but there were good, healthy, fresh air vibes. In the water, surfers lay as bait for sharks while landlubbers strode with purpose along the boardwalk before settling down to read about rugby players in the Courier Mail. Happy Valley life.
Later in the morning the activewear extravaganza continued as I took a mountain bike along the smooth bike paths of new suburbia and found an island of remnant forest. As islands go it was more of the Drake variety than, say, Greenland, a small reminder of how abundant this ecosystem once was before bulldozers and progress. Just a koala-less snippet enough to take a sexy bike photo and at least pretend this was deep in the heart of the wilderness. Before popping to the IGA.
Perhaps this was the turning point. On the way back, laden with sweet potatoes and a cauliflower, the gloom that had threatened all morning decided to unleash its saturating dampness. It wasn’t especially cold nor especially refreshing but a chore that made the short ride back bitter and infuriating. The only solace coming in brief moments imagining I was some Wouter Van Aert whizzing through the lanes of Flanders. And remembering that there was also an apple turnover being transported in my backpack.
What made me sick? Mortgage brokers, rain, apple turnovers, red roosters, plane flights or, perhaps in keeping with such things, a work planning day? I will never know but on Saturday things started to emerge. Unfortunately this came after a good two hours hard labour on a building site, sweeping up all sorts of dust while musing on the ostentatiousness of so much floor space. A smoko Beefy’s pie and slice of carrot cake wasn’t the only thing irritating my throat.
Do you know how many times I have shoved a swab up my nose and sometimes down my throat and watched as a bit of fluid rises up a small strip of paper on a cheap white plastic thing ironically made in China? You know that moment where the march upward reaches the T and you start to vision a line forming, convinced this time is the time, yet it proceeds up to C without a second thought? Well, the answer is I don’t know how many times that has happened to me, but at least plenty. In some ways it was a relief to finally see that T line glow bright and true, for at least there is a clear reason for how I am feeling. In other ways, my dreams of superhero status were dashed and I was stuck homeless and hopeless in Queensland.
I will not bore you with descriptions of too much sickness as surely we’ve all had enough of that to last a lifetime. In the end it was a blessing to be in Queensland yet also I longed for my own retreat, my own place of solace, my own bed, my own home. The blessing was that I had friends care for me and look out for me and even vacate their own home. I had a bedroom and a bathroom and a dose of warm, humid air when I wanted relief from air conditioning. I had Netflix and a domestique making me coffee, and two generous doggies to pat. I had taste and smell and, mostly, an appetite. Even if gathering treats from the IGA by bike was out of the question for a few days.
If only the home was closer to the beach. I would have gone on soothing strolls away from people, feeling the salty warmth of the ocean on my feet and shutting my eyes to absorb the rhythms of the surf. As it was I had the Dinosaur park and display homes to scrutinise, a sporting oval with distant views to the Glasshouse Mountains and, occasionally, the company of the dogs who will go absolutely bananas at the sense of any other dog in the neighbourhood. By day five, a trip to McDonalds was starting to sound like the most exciting thing to do, if I could make it.
But fast forward several days and it is back to the early morning beachside vibes of Happy Valley. This time, the morning sun is rising, shimmering off the mirror-like sinews of Pumicestone Passage. Surfers stroll down the steps with vigour into a golden glow. The water is gentle and soothing and delightfully warm. The air is still and the day is already on its way to becoming hot. I breathe it in as best I can, this bounteousness of ocean air. Just with a little regret at what could have been.
Now I enter the post-COVID era, superpowers extinguished. Really, how on earth did I last this long? It caps off what has been quite a rubbish start to 2023. All those place names might sound jaunty and adventuresome in a folk song but everyone could do with a place to hang their hat. A place to call their own. A place to mull over kitchen benchtop resurfacing and vinyl tiles and a new vanity. A place to put pictures on the wall, my pictures on a wall! Let the homeowner era finally begin*.
It is funny how an arbitrary line on the map can make such a difference to how things feel. Like totally new government feels. Different planning rules and street signs and higher rates and corflutes advocating for the next new candidate for the next new government. It’s not quite the transformation one feels walking from France into Switzerland, but welcome to Queanbeyan, New South Wales.
Somehow in Queanbeyan the gardens feel more exotic. As if it is longing to be part of the South Coast while ignoring the spectre of winter frosts. Dusk welcomes shrieking rainbow lorikeets while engine braking emanates from the trunk road heading through town. Surprisingly cute tin and weatherboard cottages compete for space with the sturdy brick brown blocks of flats lining the river. Buzzing waterfront taqueria contrast with a roundabout Red Rooster.
This is the juxtaposition of Queanbo life. A not quite Canberra suburb, a not quite country NSW town. A probable temporary life for me, though there have been a few properties that could have cut the mustard to make it last longer. You do get more bang for your buck, but at what cost?
Okay, well rates are set to increase by more than 60% over the next three years. The Queanbeyan River can sometimes flood. Everywhere else seems just that little greater, gas-guzzling distance away. And – at least where I’ve been staying – I just haven’t had the same level of greenery from the door.
I did find a reasonable coffee shop where you can get a large coffee for less than a fiver. Yet this little miracle means walking a little along the Kings Highway and then deviating through Brad Haddin Oval where you are reminded of the irritating deeds of Brad Haddin.
It’s a graceful and elegant oval set among large shady trees. Old folk from a nearby retirement complex play bowls and shuffle upon the tennis courts. It doesn’t really feel like Brad Haddin but perhaps he has mellowed too, joining the likes of Glenn McGrath and Mitchell Johnson as somehow thoroughly likeable chaps. I have doubts if Nathan Lyon will ever get there.
Perhaps Queanbeyan will feel the same to me, if and when it is no longer in my face like an amped up baggy green rage fest. I’m sure also when I leave someone will have come up with the bright idea of putting a café somewhere between the town centre and Jerrabomberra, providing the opportunity to grab a morning coffee and head into the bush. For now, flask tea is the best option.
Mount Jerrabomberra has proven the proverbially island in the sea. I had walked it once, gently rising along the main fire trail to a summit view and radio transmitter. But there are many random tracks veering off here and there, a spaghetti network offering infinite choose your own adventure.
Even the bush seems a little different here. Maybe it is the geology or the aspect or the way in which it is or is not managed. But one thing it has in common with many a neighbour is the encroachment of sprawling suburbs, trees spilling downhill to lap at a new road, a new Aldi, a new McMansion.
Apparently the land rates in Jerrabomberra are some of the highest in the country. Technically this is a Queanbeyan suburb but feels as much as it actually is over the hill and far away. What strikes me, more than anything, is that it has a stronger Canberra air. I think in the grassy median strips and footpaths between the backs of houses, and the engineered waterways and looping crescents, moulded to the hilly contours of the land. There is even a lake, albeit small, albeit with palm trees and an island that could well be Mar-a-Lago down under.
There are secrets here to be unearthed. Transecting that fringe between the mansions and the wilderness, a lushly green gully, a flowery scent of undergrowth, a deepening expanse of gum trees and acacia. The forest seems to push on, becoming more impenetrable as you go, perhaps heading ever eastward all the way to the ranges and the coast. Or maybe coming up against Googong.
Googong is the newer Jerrabomberra, the modern type where the larger houses take up pretty much all of their small block and where a scattering of townhouses offer as much floor space as an apartment at twice the price. What’s the cost of stairs and a garage?
It took until my last Friday night of Queanbo life to make it to Googong, or more precisely the fringes of Googong, bypassed to reach its namesake dam. This is no ornamental pond with palm trees or cultivated lake with coffee shops, but an expansive, Windermere-esque ribbon of water running many miles from north to south. The Lake District parallels may come as a stretch but there was something comforting and lovely strolling upon its shores under golden evening light.
Critics may jape that this is the best view in Queanbeyan, mainly because Queanbeyan is a long way behind your back. How do I feel about the place after almost an eight week stay? The welcome to town signpost sums it up well: Country living, city benefits, though I’d argue there are also city annoyances to add to the list. But in the ultimate test of the ‘could I live here?’ conundrum, I was pleased to enjoy a decent coffee one final morning, served up from my regular go-to café. Where, just before I depart, they finally remember my name.
gbpilgrim 