So the road trip is a third of the way through, if you count road trips by legs and not distance driven. We have covered over 2000 kilometres in the past five days.
Driving, not flying. We stared with a last stop at our cottage and a cuddle with my dog. He doesn't understand time and doesn't understand why the house has changed and why he is getting fed by someone else. I mope about him because of all the things it is the dog I feel guilty about - He will be fine - but I still feel bad.
The day we left we were in the middle of a heat wave, or indian summer if you will. The sky was unmarred by clouds and the record heat temperatures for April will filing the weather reports. The car was half filled with our stuff.
- Our house - which is a big bag I think I should call Boris, It just looks like a solid Boris
- The backpacks don't have names they simply are. His is larger than mine
- The big black "case" this is a huge plastic tub, it holds all the stuff that we might need on the road but won't be travelling with us. Like the Christmas presents we still need to post before we leave.
- The carry on bag - much argument over this, it fits inside Boris and squishes down but... its another bag.
- bag for Camera gears thats not 'packed'
- Stuff.. like the teddy bear and cow stuffed animal. The cow is a travelling gift - Really its our 7 year old nephews touch point with us for the year.
I had an argument with my phone trying to make it play music. iKaruS wanted JoyRide from Roxette as the first song. My phone is slowly dying I've been managing it knowing it goes into the big 'do not travel' box so I kept at it till the speakers finally worked and we hummed along to Roxette for a while. This was easy highway driving, the maindrag between Sydney and Melbourne. Double or Triple lanes made overtaking easy and we slid by the late autumn paddocks. The colours browns and golds, the deciduous trees turning to their fall foliage while the gums looked sad wilting in the heat.
We stopped an hour later for lunch, having found a small village that has a most amazing pub turned into bakery and garden. Food took a long time to arrive but it didn't matter we had that sense of freedom from time that comes with an extended break. This was the first day and we could do what we liked when we liked.
So we waited then ate then drove more. We turned off the main highway and started to head west. The hills slowly flattened out to the dry lands. The large river red gums stood like sentinels in paddocks surrounded by the remnants of last years crops. iKaruS wondered idly how long the larger of the gums had been standing over the land.
The flatness became more pronounced, I slept a bit then woke to the scrub of the dry lands, cyprus pines, tea tree and salt bush. The blue sky blazed into the late afternoon as we turned into the small country town. It has changed since it was iKaruS teenage haunt. The rice mill is 'mothballed' a polite way of shutting down but keeping the locals on just enough hope that it might re-open one day. If they could grow enough rice. But the water rights are all sold these days and most smaller rice farms simple on-sell to a larger corporation. There is new industry in the town now - Solar Farming. It doesn't need many people once its all in place.
iKaruS's brother is on the edge of town, one of the smaller farms which used to grow rice. They are trying to diversify, sheep, cattle, maybe a crop of barley. They sold this years water rights but his brother has memories of swimming and yabbying in one of the smaller channels near the house. He wants to replant the willows and create a space where his three kids can enjoy themselves. They greet us on the one patch of green we've seen all day. The garden around the house. Stubbornly kept alive after grandfather died. Perhaps a waste of water and yet the symbolise is much greater. We sit instead of in the green grass over in the workshed surrounded by tractors and tools. The smell of old grease and the everpresent dust.
We talked as the kids played on a near by dry channel bank. Their mum warning them of the prickles. I didn't take much heed but the next day I had another shooting lesson. A box placed out into the dry ploughed field with a number of targets drawn on it. The kids safely inside the fence line of green grass at the house. I was not as bad as I thought I might be. Perhaps my brother in law thought I wasn't as bad either. But the prickles, pushed up through my shoes, embeding themselves deeply into my soles. They were called cats heads as they had two strong spikes pressing upwards into cats ears, the hard face sloped like a Siamese cat. Unprotected feet would not stand a chance. They sounded like gravel as they were scrapped off the bottom and sides of my shoes. The other spiney burs just had large spikes sticking up from nearly soft looking yellow fuzz. They stick to everything and embed into skin but not with the ferocity of the cat heads.
We didn't stay up late and headed to bed with the loud whir of the air conditioning unit, trying to cool the house down. The next day we roamed around, played with the kids and started to prune his grandmothers roses. So old it was almost impossible to tell what was the original and what was shoots. We decided in the end to let it flower and see if they liked them. After gardening and lunch and shooting practice we ate once more.
On small farms in small communities there is sense of isolation and self reliance. There is also a sense of community but that community may be at times further away than wanted. The small country store has a coffee shope, a small supermarket and a butcher. The butcher now does fresh bread and milk as the new owners of the store put the prices up. Both are struggling to stay afloat. The coffee shop is semi funded through government grants as a disability assistance scheme. From memory the coffee wasn't bad but we didn't go out this time. The self reliance is an odd thing, religion and sports become important features in life. Keeping children safe and entertained another important thing. More so than in a city where you might be able to get a baby sitter.
iKaruS brother took the opportunity while we were there for some him time. We did go out shooting after dark. I learnt I could kill rabbits and even with the ability to be able to eat them. This is a skill and takes time to develop. Next I need to learn for to skin them and I'd like to be able to tan the hides. But for now I was simply learning how to remove pests from the land that is over run with them.
That morning I sat inside the house, the air conditioning unit not yet on for the day watching as the wind kicked sand across the green lawns. It seemed never to end that wind, a constant blowing coating everything. Another record high temperature day was expected. I looked towards my brother in law, and saw for the first time a wrinkle against his eyes, an aging for the youngest of the brothers as he watched his land blown savagely about. We talked about the difficulties of fences and farming and the worries that it brings. It was nice to see him relax just a little bit in the evening.
All too soon we needed to be on the road once more. The car turned north for 18 hours. We broke it into two days. But more on that later.
- Log in to post comments
