SWELTERING HOME

JAN 17

    

WE came home a different way, and it felt like it made a bit of a difference. Virtually the Hume Highway all the way this time, instead of crossing the Snowy Mountains. The weather, this time, was the dominant factor. Melbourne had had a terrible period of 40 + degrees, and we were heading towards the final day of it. It was also hot in NSW. So a hot, hot car full of hot, hot people, much hotter than New York on the day of Tom Buchanan and Gatsby’s showdown. We looked out for spot fires on the sides of the road for the final hour or so. The radio informed us that there were bushfires not far to the west of us, towards Lancefield. We were. Fortunately, a day early. At the same time, the next day, much of the Hume Highway on the outskirts of Melbourne was closed because of fiery paddocks.

 

The other role the weather played was not long after our arrival, home. I went to Brunswick to get something to eat and the sky was nasty, aggressive, spitting. It rained huge, heavy drops, and the thunder roared. Like Gil, in the lamentable Midnight in Paris, I felt the urge to walk slowly along Sydney Road, in the rain. It was lovely.

Predictably, the one thing I enjoyed the most about the return journey home, besides the cold drink in Albury, and the rest at the Tucker Box in Gundagai, was a final tour of Braidwood in the morning. I filmed sections of the main street this time, instead of taking photos, and behind a wooden door, just down from Freya’s parents’ café, is a little lane that Danny wanders down a couple of times in the film. It leads to Freya’s house, and was an additional serendipitous discovery. We also visited the town 30 kilometres away that features the old train station, where Danny says goodbye to Freya for the final time. It is in a little town called Bungendore. The train station fits the period and mood of the film beautifully.

 

 

 

SWIMMING IN PAIN

JAN 16

A terrible evening of trying to sleep with a lower back feeling like it is on fire. The pain shifted during the night from the middle of the lower back, to my left hip region. Causes- probably these hopeless beds, a long run on hard sand in bare feet, being thrown around in the surf, and that marathon 12 or 13 hours of driving in the car. Oh, and of course pre-existing back complaints.

Speaking of surf, Malua Bay today. We have been concentrating on these beaches south of Bateman’s Bay. The northern ones don’t seem to be as interesting- Long Beach, Moloney Beach, unless you’re prepared to travel a fair distance to somewhere like Jervis Bay. Malua Bay was very windy. However, I quite liked it. Smaller and less pretentious than Broulee. A rocky outcrop on the right. The water as clear as ever and those lovely complications in the water- the dips and breaks of the rolling waves.

 

EATING OUT AT BATEMAN'S BAY

JAN 15

              

About a kilometre and a half away is an Indian restaurant called Kholi’s. If you are ever out this way I would recommend it. Good service, no glitz, well presented food. Opposite is the Soldier’s Club which we couldn’t resist. It is everything that is tacky, but also in a contrasting way, fabulous as well.

 

A typical NSW club that people from Victoria travelled to in droves years ago before poker machines were introduced everywhere. You show your driver’s licence at the reception. The kids go off to a child minding room where they can play with toys and other kids, supervised. What a racket for some parents! Then you go upstairs to be hit by the razzle dazzle of millions of colourful and noisy gambling machines, tables everywhere filled with people in smart sandals and shorts, eating roasts and steaks and salads, and a long window opening up to the incredible vista of the sparkling bay across the road. J and I put a dollar coin into a machine for the hell of it and immediately five one dollar coins bounced back at us. So there you go, the ultimate paradox. Huge NSW clubs that are disgusting and compelling at the same time.

Outcome: stomach full of Indian food, pockets jingling and back killing me.

HENRY MILLER, IN NSW

JAN 14

 

                                                  

The ‘city centre’ of Bateman’s Bay is one of your regular coastal shopping areas. Seafood places, and malls, and Coffee Club shops and newsagents and post office, and arcades full of beauty treatment places, a Rivers shop, Smiggles, chemists galore and lots of hotel places situated right on top of the bay for a pretty penny. It was depressingly hot walking in, but coming back there was a really nice bay breeze. The tops of the masts of the boats marooned on the water bobbled around a bit. I read The Sydney Morning Herald and it was just like reading The Age. The Sydney stories didn’t interest me much.

I am reading some Henry Miller for the first time. His first novel, Tropic of Cancer. It’s overly long and rambling and I can’t be too bothered with some of it, and parts of it are a bit like if D H Lawrence had’ve lived another ten years or so, except in most places it isn’t very lyrical. A lot of sex which gets tiring after a while, but some really beautiful and well written passages too. In case you don’t know it, it is all about his madman experiences of being young in the 30’s in Paris, very Holden Caulfield-like, but with lots of stream of consciousness added, a cross therefore between Salinger and Joyce is how I would put it (perhaps with a pinch of Dickens thrown in).

“ The windows of my hotel are festering and there is a thick, acrid stench as of chemicals burning. Looking into the Seine I see mud and desolation, street lamps drowning, men and women choking to death, the bridges covered with houses, slaughterhouses of love. A man is standing against the wall with an accordion strapped to his belly; his hands are cut off at the wrists, but the accordion writhes between his stumps like a sack of snakes. The universe has dwindled; it is only a block long and there are no stars, no trees, no rivers. The people who live here are dead; they make chairs which other people sit on in their dreams. In the middle of the street is a wheel and in the hub of the wheel a gallows is fixed. People already are trying frantically to mount the gallows, but the wheel is turning too fast…”

   

 

VARIATIONS ON SWIMMING, NSW

JAN 13

 

This morning we went for easier, and gentler. Broulee Beach is more calm and dull but much more kid friendly. It is, however, along the same coast as Tuross Head, and is therefore still very beautiful. The waves lapped in moderately all day. The sand was the same. It had ‘go for a run’ written all over it. To the east, the white sand stretched alongside the turquoise water for about four or five kilometres. I love running barefoot along sand. However, you do feel it in your calves afterwards.

Back at the Coach House Marina Resort, S and I had a lengthy swim in the pool. Lying on your back for ages, arms akimbo, feet together and softly paddling, is one of the best feelings. I closed my eyes and all I could see was this brilliant glowing orange behind my eyes. ‘I Believe I’ve Transcended’ said Van Morrison on his live Astral Weeks record.

SHARKS: TUROSS HEAD, NSW

 

JAN 12

 

      

DREAMS about Braidwood. Loene Carmen (Freya Olsen) stood here, Danny Embling (Noah Taylor) walked here, Trevor Leishmann (Ben Mendelsohn) strutted there. Another bright day here on the coast, but not as bright as the Southern Tablelands.

A lovely drive south of here to Tuross Head. I came here when I was a kid about twelve. Mother’s sister lived close by back then in Moruya. I remember being alone, deep out in the ocean, for hours on end, mother watching me from the shore with some trepidation because I’d had a convulsion a year or two before.

Tuross Head has some shops and numerous houses, but somehow the atmosphere of the town remains congenial. The beach itself is an absolute knockout. Apparently one of the things Sylvia Plath hated the most about England was the crappy beaches. I don’t know how this compares to the US East Coast, but it seems pretty magical to me. The water is translucent and the sand white and soft. The vista at my favourite Victorian beach is nice- Jan Juc- but the vista at Tuross Head leaves it for dead. I love the green hill that you can stand on to get a complete look at the ocean and its people. There are beautiful little shallow inlets that little kids swim in. The rest of the ocean is fierce and suitable for brave kids, strong swimmers, and surfers. We wandered around for ages ankle deep, and found shells for A. A man came with a nasty looking dog, but appearances can be deceiving.

 We were all set for a great day which suited every member of the family but things don’t always turn out exactly the way you wish them to. First of all, before we even went in the water, we looked up and noticed the whole ocean swimming population was hastily retreating onto the shore. Someone somewhere said they had seen a shark, and that meant closed for business. This lasted two hours, hence the ankle deep ‘swimming’ and shell collecting.

Secondly, S started crying because she had sharp pain on her cheek and thought it was bleeding. It was probably what is known in the vernacular as a ‘stinger’, and it created discomfort for a good half hour. The lifesavers tried to cheer her up by playing it down.

Then, after I instinctively protected S from a sharply rising wave, I felt acute pain in my right arm and shoulder. It is an old injury which was woken up and made worse. It meant I had to nurse it and get out of the water.

Then, lo and behold, A was in tears because the space under her neck was sore and inflamed because of sea lice. J also felt similar pain around her eyes. Tuross Head: a terrible beauty.

 

 

BRAIDWOOD NSW, AND 'THE YEAR MY VOICE BROKE'

 

JAN 11

 

 

PILGRIMAGES are one of my favourite things in the whole world. There were dozens of D H Lawrence flavoured ones several years ago. Even in Australia you can go to Craig Street, In Thirroul near Sydney, where Lawrence wrote Kangaroo, and lived with Frieda for about six weeks near the roaring Pacific Ocean. The height of my passion for Vincent Van Gogh occurred when I was in my early twenties. I met some university students from Eindhoven in Holland at that time, and they took  me to Nuenen, a little village where Van Gogh grew up with this parents, and his father was the local pastor. Then there’s Arles, a plethora of locations for various masterpieces, although the Yellow House was bombed by the Nazis. One of the most beautiful places in the world, for me, is the tiny village of Auvers-Sur-Oise, where you can see the fateful wheatfields, the simple Gothic church in the famous painting with the purple windows, and the humble graves, side by side by side, of Vincent Van Gogh and Theo Van Gogh, both dead within a short space of time.

                     

So this brings me to a pilgrimage of a different kind, and no less rewarding, 62 kilometres from here, called Braidwood, where I stayed for the whole day yesterday and could have stayed for several more. It’s where my favourite Australian film was made: The Year My Voice Broke (1987). Holding my MacBook Air, I had the film as it were in my hand.

                                            

Upon arriving, heart beating quickly, we found the church hall that appears at the mid-section of the film. The characters go to the hall for a social evening of music and dance. Danny meets Freya there. The Everly Brothers are making the joint jump with ‘Temptation’ and Trevor arrives late and stuns the whole dance floor, and trance-like they watch the young lovers leave. The film shows Danny’s arrival, complete with a Marlon Brando impersonation, on the west side of the hall and through the side entrance. I took photos at this point where Danny walks in. The windows of the Anglican Church hall were opaque, but there was the tiniest crack that offered me a singular, frustratingly hazy glimpse inside, that I could compare to the vision in the film.

 

Then we ventured over to the main street and found out that the café that Freya and her family own is now a ‘Vinnies’ store. The interior of both shots are similar, and it was fun to once again compare the vision of the film with the vision from current day life. The white pillars for the building next door are the same, as are the steps leading into the shop. Just a little further up the road is the newly renovated building that is now a tourist office, but was then a picture theatre. Here I could see the spot in which Danny queried the cinema owner about any upcoming Brigitte Bardot films (’not that you’d be allowed into’), and where he first gets bullied by the thugs, Pierdon and Malseed.

 

Across the road from the cinema, one of my favourite scenes was enacted. Freya and Danny are outside, late at night, watching the moths bump against the electric lights. According to Freya, ‘the whole town’s out dreaming.’ They talk intimately of Mrs O’Neill’s ghost and forcefields. It picks up on the gothic nature of the film. It was amazing to be able to stand in that exact spot. Although the shop fronts are newly painted, the posts sticking out of the ground are the same. Some of them have little metal hooks on them.

 

Other highlights included having a drink at the pub that is featured quite often in the film- except there has been a lot of renovating here so it was hard to reconcile the images with that of real life- and visiting the cemetery and the racecourse where Trevor breaks the track record. Besides the hills scenes which serves as Danny and Freya’s sanctuary- ‘Willy Hill’- the most difficult spot to find was the scene at the waterhole where Trevor nearly ‘drowns’ Freya because the madman keeps her head under the water too long. It was a fair way out of town, over Shoalwater Creek at Bombay Bridge. If you ever go there, go completely over the bridge, and there it is at the end of a short track on your right hand side. It’s a beautiful spot of cool, fresh water and soft sand, and it looks exactly the same in the film.

I could have lingered over these spots in Braidwood forever. Before we left we had a quick look for ‘Willy Hill’, to no avail, and had a chat with the daughter of the Braidwood Hotel. She was only about 8 years old when the film crew landed on her parent’s doorstep. Earlier on, in 1970, the pub played host to another film crew when Mick Jagger’s ‘Ned Kelly’ came to town. Yes, Ben Mendelsohn and Mick Jagger in the same pub, but at different times. The lovely town is steeped in history. Old buildings, thick gutters and a wide, wide street. A perfect location for a film set in the 1960’s.

 

 

 

 

AT THE COACHHOUSE MARINA RESORT

JAN 10 2014

 

THE accommodation here, at The Coachhouse, at Bateman’s Bay, NSW, is basic. They charge about $200 a night, which I know isn’t top end these days, but you don’t get much for it. We are staying at cabin 24, on Second Avenue. There are millions of avenues, with these cheap cabins everywhere, about 20 in each avenue, and God knows how many avenues. The cabins are cheaply made weatherboards, small with not much inside. Cicadas go at it all the time and there are these palm trees dotted all over the place. The swimming pool is ok but you can’t escape anyone. There is a cheap plasticky playground that the children don’t rate. One of the plastic equipment samples is a four legged stool which has one leg missing. There are tennis courts that look like they’ve been used millions of times and a dodgy looking beach volleyball court with imported sand. The table tennis table doesn’t have a net and the table soccer doesn’t have a ball. There are quite a few suckers like us wandering around with this kind of slow, holiday slouch. They are playing lazy tennis, or walking around in desultory fashion in groups, or having BBQ’s on the weedy grass, wearing sun hats and sunglasses and pastel coloured shorts. Every one of the adults has some kind of holiday smirk on his or her face, like they think they’ve won the lottery here in Batemans Bay, because they’re on holidays, and they are walking for the first time since the last holidays, and they get to practise their forehand or backhand at last.

                            

ON THE WAY TO BATEMAN'S BAY

JAN 9 2014

 

 

‘RIGHT, are we ready at last? The water’s been turned off- remember the last disaster when we went away? You’ve checked the tyres, we’ve got fuel. The boot is full. We’re leaving an hour and a half later than I wanted to’ (we got up at 5:30 a.m.)

If you look at a map you will see the distance between the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, and Bateman’s Bay, NSW. It is a pretty good drive. I mean ‘pretty’ in the sense of long, really. Over two days it’s manageable, but with two kids in the back, around the ages of 5 and 8, it is a different proposition.

We meander our way up the Hume Highway. My heart is in my throat a little bit as far as the tyres are concerned. I did pump them up last night, but it might have been better to have just left them alone. The tyre pressure lever seemed a bit faulty- or maybe it was just me. I was a bit under confident in terms of how much pressure to put into the tyres in the first place. Then when I did have a guess, and stuck the steel gauge onto the rubber nozzle, the machine said that the air pressure was decreasing, for some unknown reason, and I didn’t want that to happen, obviously. Suddenly it was there again, shooting up, and it starting beeping when it got to an area that I thought was about right. So that gave me some comfort. However, for another tyre, before it reached the number I wanted it said ‘ERR’, which I took to mean as ‘error’, so that got the wind up me again, and I just cut my losses and went home.

So needless to say the thought of going up the Hume Highway or thereabouts for what could be the next 9 hours didn’t exactly thrill me. Not to mention the extra weight in the car. I mean, we had scooters, beach towels, food, a fold up tent, wine bottles, clothes, not to mention two or three extremely heavy suitcases. With girls of course you have to add dolls and things like the Barbie computer. We didn’t have to worry about beach balls, footballs or cricket bats. Not with these girls.

J insisted on driving first and I closed my eyes for a while. If you have ever driven up these parts of the Hume Highway towards Seymour and beyond, you would understand why. I must have drifted because we had already left Euroa, which is not a bad town, and the area past here for quite a way has become famous for its associations with Ned Kelly. On reaching Benalla, I realised that our journey really had begun, because I used to work in this town, and I knew it was a while from home. I had a quick look at the old location, and saw that it hadn’t changed much. Nostalgia’s a funny thing. I remember I was pretty much glad to leave. You either stay for a couple of years in these places or you never get out of there. But here was standing in this kind of quadrangle remembering some nice times. Chatting to Jane and Siobhan in the warm sunshine, looking over to see Karen Westbury desperately trying to get a tan on her sporty legs as she was getting married in a few months, seeing from the distance the first classroom I ever stepped into, solo, and remembering what an enormous plunge it was, and the way in which you are desperate to give off the impression that this was something you had done thousands of times before. And then, with a shiver, recalling memories not quite as pleasant as these- a girl with the name Nicole comes to mind- and you step back into the car and leave all the good and bad behind you once more. Well, not quite, because Wangaratta is up ahead (talking of good and bad), but you don’t sail through there, because it’s off the highway and your focus is now destination because you spent too long at the playground in Benalla, looking at the 22 and 23 year old mothers wheeling prams.

There’s lots of swapping drivers and stretching and the kids are really good. It’s around lunchtime now so the car stops at Wodonga, which is near the border of New South Wales. It’s fun strolling around the shopping centre. The girl at Baker’s Delight is really lovely and offers you a discount on the next loaf of bread you buy. I ask her if that discount will still be valid in ten years’ time. S tries on Katy Perry perfume because she really loves that catchy song ‘Roar’ and A wants a cuddle every ten seconds and wants to be picked up all the time. There are a few young mothers with prams again, but not many dads in sight. There are also enormous butcher shops.

We play music out of the CD player to pass the time and chew up kilometres. Johnny Cash singing ‘Delia’s Song’ and The Doors ‘When The Music’s Over’ and Nick Cave, but for some reason the music isn’t much of a distraction. I’ve heard it all too many times. We had this great idea, which was to borrow these little portable DVD players that you strap onto the front seat headrests. The kids in the back have headphones and can watch Disney and stuff like that, until the power runs out. It keeps things really quiet. I can’t read though. Looking at the crossword will probably make me feel sick.

Towns fly by. The power for the DVD’s run out. But still the kids are quietish. They’re real kids though. They keep asking if we’re nearly there, and the truth of it is that we might be half way, but maybe we’re not even really half way.

There’s a little town called Corryong I kind of remember from when I was a kid. It has the ‘Man From Snowy River’ glamour attached to it. The woman from the little supermarket is pretty nice, and the man from the tourism shop is helpful. We buy a big box of icy poles. They don’t let you buy three or four these days, you have to buy ten. So we eat some and give some away.

  

After Corryong you hit the mountains. The Snowy Mountains. Years ago they had this thing that migrants worked on called the ‘Snowy River Mountain Scheme.’ The landscape is spectacular. It’s probably the best part of our drive. All these ghost gums everywhere. They’re called ‘ghost gums’ because the trunks are all spookily white. They are everywhere, so you get this impression of white sticking out everywhere amidst this otherwise green and black landscape. We get out and take photos but maybe there’s a dead animal around somewhere, because there’s ants over every inch of ground, and this huge flies that might be called horseflies, or march flies, that tend to stick a bit on your leg or arm and if there’s many of them they can drive you mental.

 

I can never get over these ghost gums. They are really beautiful. It is all steep, winding roads, and no snow anywhere of course because it is summer, and in winter there would be snow everywhere. Perisher Valley and Thredbo, after all, are pretty close by. I worry at this point about car sickness. Not me so much, although I am normally susceptible to it as well, but the kids who are quiet. But they’re quiet because we have power now and we have those magical DVD’s on again. They’re not looking outside so much, and missing all of this wonder.
 
                    

As a kid we had a family holiday at Cooma. It must have been winter because we went tobogganing, and our cousins came, and it was the best holiday of the lot of them. I must have been about ten. When we enter Cooma, in my mind I’m already saying to myself that I love this place. And of course, I find it really charming. There are Santa Claus faces sitting on the rooves of millions of shops, including pubs, hardware shops, butchers, Op Shops, service stations, even McDonald’s. Christmas is past, of course, but they’ve allowed this little Santa Claus faces to linger longer because they are so charming.

Now there’s some real drama in the trip. We have trouble finding the turn off we need to head north not far past Cooma. We contemplate getting petrol, but a place near Canberra called Queanbeyan is the target, and that’s within reach. It is now mid-afternoon, getting towards late afternoon. We miss the turn off we need, and have to go back, but it’s not too bad, as we waste only fifteen minutes. However we see a sign for Braidwood, a town we know is only about 40 minutes from Bateman’s Bay. To go to Queanbeyan, near Canberra, and then down along the coast to Bateman’s Bay, will surely take a lot longer. Just to feel safe we ask a lady somewhere her thoughts, and she encourages us to take this unknown, minor road to Braidwood, 162 kilometres away. The Melway tells us it is a broken road, but the Melway wouldn’t know, it is at least twenty years old!

This road to Braidwood we have embarked upon is sealed for some of the way, but soon enough we find it becomes gravel, and then there is rutted, corrugated bits, and it starts becoming difficult to drive, and we have to slow down. We are in a Mazda, not a 4 wheel drive. Should we turn back around and then go on the sealed road to Queanbeyan? Surely we have come too far already.

The kids are oblivious to all of this. My wife and I are exchanging glances. I am driving and she is forever telling me to slow down, on these gravelly roads that sound like gristle when you drive over them. She had a scare once, way before we met, where her old car actually flipped on gravel roads.

Now the trip seems interminable. I remember the query about the tyres as we drive over this maddeningly unmade road. Then it occurs to me that we were going to get petrol at Queanbeyan, a big town. What if little Braidwood doesn’t have a service station open? Then there is the problem of night arriving with its purple legions. Dusk is settling in. There is dust all over the windscreen and there is no water to use with the windscreen wipers left. Kangaroos are bounding along at times alongside the car, threatening to become confused and hop in front of our headlights. We seem the remnants of such occurrences on the side of the road. Kangaroo skeletal parts with bits of fur still attached to bone. Petrol diminishing. And worst of all, there are no signs anywhere telling us where we are. We assume we are still on the Braidwood road, but how far have we come?

                                              

Then at last there is a sign. ‘Braidwood 62 kilometres.’ We are halfway. At least we know. The direction conundrum is settled. It’s just the petrol, and to a lesser extent, tyre situation, still abrasive in our minds. On entering the historic town of Braidwood, we see one, no, two petrol stations somewhere along the main and only drag. It is, by this time, about 8:00 PM. The petrol stations are closed, the pub looks lifeless, we don’t even see any chickens in anyone’s backyard. There are two lights on the petrol meter on the dashboard, and we have 62 kilometres to go. Soon enough another light goes off, and with 30 kilometres to go the red light warning sign comes on. Suddenly the car becomes a friend, a human being. ‘Oh, come on car, you’re doing really well, you can make it. You’ve done such a great job all day.’

There is a new, discernible sweat these last thirty kilometres- whether to go fast or go slow and use the less accelerator less- does it make any difference? We eventually we make it, probably just, the welcoming sign a bright yellow shell on the Pacific Highway, and we eventually crawl into our newest driveway at around 9:30 PM. It’s dark now, but even in the gloom the accommodation for our next week or so doesn’t look very promising.