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.
It’s not all magpie terror, bin Frisbee and occasional canals in my park. No, there are plenty of structured entertainment opportunities, from workout contraptions dotted along the path at intervals, to swings, slides, tunnels and a concrete skate park. I don’t tend to linger here lest people get the wrong impression. I also avoid the skate park, determined to avoid catching baggy pants, hormones, acne and that kind of thing.
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gbpilgrim 