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.