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In this, the fouth segment of our travels around Oz, we travel from Bondi to Grandparenthood.
Index
26 January 2010
As we travel along life's path, we all come upon forks in the road that ultimately force us to make decisions and choose our own destinies. Sometimes it seems to me that I have come across more than my fair share. In my 53 years upon this earth I have stumbled upon a whole canteen of forks. But I make the most of every experience and live by the ethos that what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger and to date I have managed to turn every experience into a positive one.
In 1981 a series of seemingly innocuous events conspired to throw up forks in our road. The ultimate result of which was that we packed up our kit and caboodle and together with our pre-schooler, moved away from our family and friends in Sydney and set up home in Canberra.
Paramount among these events where the following:
- Late in July of 1981 I sold the business I had established in Artarmon a few years prior.
- In August the company that employed hubby decided to close the branch where he worked.
- On 9 September 1981 Sir Robin Askin, ( A.K.A. Sir Robert Askin) the 32nd premier of New South Wales (from 1965 to 1975), passed away.
These may appear, at first glance, to be random, unrelated events and hardly conducive to moving to
another state hundreds of miles away. But in reality they were all relevant, perhaps not in the same context as the alignment of
the planets on the same side of the sun in 1982 which may or may not have played a pivotal role in drawing us to return to Sydney,
but relevant all the same.
After I explain, all will become apparent.
With the proceeds from the sale of the business in Artarmon we were able to pay off the mortgage on
our first home and at the tender age of 24 and 29 respectively, we became debt free. Due to the ensuing celebrations a few weeks later
I discovered I was expecting our second child…it was some party!
Then reality struck; it looked as if hubby was about to join the ranks of the unemployed when they
closed the branch he worked for.
We were deliberating what to do when out of the blue, at the age of 74 Sir Robin Askin passed away.
Not that we had any direct link to the former premier but a friend of ours from Canberra, John, was a second cousin twice removed, or
some such relation. Six degrees of separation, and all that jazz! Whilst in Sydney to attend the funeral John visited with us and
suggested we move to Canberra where he could offer hubby employment in his printing business.
As we were able to find tenants to rent our house in Bronte for a larger sum than an equivalent house
in Canberra would cost us, we did not hesitate and decided to take a chance and move inter state.
Although our stay in the nation’s capital was brief, lasting less than a year, we enjoyed every moment
of it. While there, we discovered a warm and caring community unlike any we had experienced in the ‘big smoke’.
Lifetime friendships were forged. Our elder son passed some unforgettable milestone such as starting big school and loosing his
first baby tooth whilst trying to pries apart two recalcitrant Lego blocks.
The highlight of our time in Canberra however, came after an arduous 48-minute labour one warm April morning,
When I brought into this world a healthy baby boy, the product of our celebrations nine months earlier.
Unfortunately, on the business front, things were going base over apex. In hindsight we should have heeded
the old adage; never do business with family or friends. Needless to say the friendship with John evaporated when the business arrangements
turned sour, perhaps relevant to the alignment of the planets, but more likely due to the poor management skills of our delusional ex-friend.
All this occurred the day I came home from hospital with our new little bundle of joy and prompted us joining the dole queue. Eventually
we bit the bullet and returned to our home in Sydney's beachside suburb of Bronte, none the worse for the experience and even perhaps a little
the wiser.
Now over 27 years later we have recently spent a most enjoyable week rediscovering the delights of Canberra.
We rekindled old friendships and enjoyed a very entertaining evening with our dear friends, Richard and Leonie, and found that even after so
many years apart we are still singing from the same hymn sheet.
The national capital has blossomed in the years since we lived there.
When Walter Burley Griffin together with his wife/partner
Marion Mahony Griffin, won the competition in 1911 to design the new national capital
the brief included that is was to accommodate 24,000 people. By 1981 there were already ten times that many living in Canberra.
Today the city has ballooned and now has a population of over 350,000 and it is expected to top 400,000 within this decade.
We were delighted to see many new places of interest.
The National Gallery was exhibiting the “Masterpieces from Paris” and while no longer exactly new, the new Parliament House,
built in 1988, a tribute to understated elegance, takes pride of place at the apex of the triangle around which the city was designed.
The new National Museum and the new
National Portrait Gallery add to the architectural gems scattered around this once pastoral landscape.
The National Museum
The National Portrait Gallery
Canberra, being a planned city, unlike most others that, like Topsy, just grew, has one of the best road
systems in Australia while remaining aesthetically pleasing. Designed before every home had at least two automobiles and for less than 10%
of the current population, the system of concentric circular roadways which tend to disorient the uninitiated, are still functioning well
though are starting to feel the pinch during peak hour.
However, as the city was designed back in the day of the corner store, the original concept failed to
anticipate the current trend of people wanting to congregate en-mass at large shopping malls. Now instead of people walking to their local
grocer as Walter Burly Griffin had anticipated, everyone drives into these mega-malls.
Not far from where we resided during our sojourn in Canberra in the then trendy suburb of “
Swinger Hill”, (keep reading as soon as you have finished guffawing) was the shopping centre at Woden Plaza. Once home to a strip mall
and medium size complex where you could easily find free car parking, today the mega-mall has taken over the entire site and charges its
clients for the privilege of shopping there. If you drive anything higher than an average sedan, to park your car for one hour costs
80cents; not a king’s ransom admittedly, but wait, it gets worse. During a time when our Prime Minister is throwing money at the
population to stimulate the economy this shopping centre has decided it doesn’t want us hanging around spending our money on their premises.
It charges $2.40 for two hours parking and $4.50 for three hours. Who was the mathematical genius who sanctified that?
16 February 2010
If you have been watching our map lately, as we daisy chain around this country, it may appear to some to resemble a
snail trail on the garden path. We do generally have a long-term big plan to which we adhere. We had to be in Melbourne by October 2008 to
meet hubby’s brother and sister-in-law. We had to be in Darwin in May 2009 to catch our flight to the UK and now we have to be in
Melbourne by late April 2010 for the imminent arrival of our first grandbaby. But we seldom have a short-term plan, set in stone, as to
where we will be much beyond the next day. If the weather is fine and the view is agreeable we may hang around one particularly pleasant
spot for a few days. If there is a better view to be had by travelling the long way round from point A to point B, then you will find us there.
As it had been well over 25 years since we had last visited the Kosciuszko National Park we decided to head there after
leaving Canberra. Kosciuszko National Park is one of the world's great national parks, and the largest in New South Wales. Covering 690,000
hectares, the park contains the highest mountain on mainland Australia, the famous Snowy River and all NSW ski fields and is nationally and
internationally recognised as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
We spent almost a week discovering the beauty of the north end of the park. In the park are some delightful camping areas.
At Yarragobilly we discovered one such campsite near the historic Cotterill’s Cottage, beside a babbling brook and stayed three nights.
During the day we traversed several four-wheel drive tracks through beautiful, alpine landscape.
We trekked to the Blue Waterholes, shimmying across sheer rock faces and doing a delicate balancing act as we trod carefully
over slippery stepping stones before discovering the easiest way to ford the shallow creek beds was to throw caution to the wind and simple
step into the icy water.
The original plan was to travel through the northern end of the park, up along the east side of the Blowering Reservoir to
Tumut then turn south along the West side of Blowering before entering the southern end of the National Park.
But as the old Yiddisch saying goes: “Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht.”
(translation: “Man plans, God laughs.”) And so it was that we arrived in Tumut only to be advised that this road into the south
end of the park was unsuitable for caravans. Due to this we headed north to Gundagai, then back east to the coast via Goulburn and Moss Vale.
This is was not the first time that we have been thwarted in our efforts to traverse this continent with our current rig,
but an optimist is someone who can enjoy the view on a detour. It did give us the time to really enjoy the south coast of New South Wales and
it give us a good excuse to drop in on my old mate Helen, her husband Gerard and their tribe of delightful off-spring, most of whom are now
quite grown up.
Kayaking with Helen
The last time we saw Helen and Gerry, 20 something years ago, they had produced just two kids, now there are five.
They visited us on our farm in Maryvale soon after we had moved there from Bronte. Though time has dulled my memory somewhat, I do recall
through the fog, that it was a very joyful time we spent together and I also remember, but would rather forget, a rather appalling hangover
as a result. It did teach me, however, that I suffer from an allergy to champagne; it makes me believe that I can sing and dance, and there
was that rumour of having danced the ‘Hora’ to the strains of “Hava Nagila” on the bar of the Maryvale Pub….
but more about that another time.
As we have been known to do, we brought with us some drought breaking rains, much to the delight of the inhabitants of
Narooma. We had managed to out run the rain for a few days but they eventually caught up with us again just as we arrived in Eden at the
Southern part of the Ben Boyd National Park, a place of great natural beauty – evidently, but not as spectacular through rain
splattered glasses. As the rain created rivulets, the colour of Café au Lait, beside and across the badly corrugated roadside,
we decided to make good our escape before we got bogged in completely. After perusing the Bureau of Meteorology web site we changed our plans
again and headed for the hills. The rain had, by now, brought fresh green shoots to the drought-starved fields between Bombala and Cooma and
covered them in what looked like a coat of green corduroy.
So here we are back in Cooma again at the gateway to the Kosciuszko National Park. It has taken us almost four weeks to travel
from Canberra to this point and upon consulting my map was appalled to discover that we had managed to cover, as the crow flies, just a tad over 80km.
As for the route we travelled; it was well over 500km up hill and down yonder dale dragging our 3 tonne caravan behind us, for a large percentage
of the time barely getting out of first gear, much to the consternation of the poor sods travelling behind us. This has caused us to long deliberate
whether or not to replace this rig with something more suitable…but what? There is not one perfect method to travel around Australia.
Since embarking upon this trip we have seen them all. From the million dollar Winebago to the light weight camper-trailers that unfurl like the
pop-up nursery books of old.
Blowering Reserve
We have considered our options, and they are numerous. We considered a 4x4 truck with slide on camper and dirt bike strapped
to the boot. However a great idea struck me while we were camped alone on acres of land by the banks of the much-depleted Blowering Reservoir.
As I float in the reservoir on my foam noodle (not that, with my body mass index, I require much assistance to float) a nearby kangaroo perplexed
by the sight as if he had spotted the Loch Ness Monster. I was watching a dragonfly hovering above me when the proverbial light bulb suddenly
ignited above my head. A helicopter; that is what we need. Of course it would have some drawbacks. It’s hard enough to find parking at
Woollies as it is. So I thought it might need to be something big enough to carry a small all terrain vehicle such as a Tomcar, for getting
around town as well as driving across sand dunes. Also we would still need accommodation, so something big enough to fit out like a motorhome.
We might need some thing the size of…oh; I don’t know…a Chinook perhaps.
Hmmm…didn’t I reading somewhere that the Australian Government has recently retired its fleet of Chinook Helicopters?
What do you reckon a second hand Chinook is worth these days? How many kilometres per litre do those babies consume? Probably more like how many
litres per kilometre? And does our GPS come with the option of aerial navigation?
Excuse me while I go jump onto Ebay. Now where should I start my search; “surplus military helicopter”, or “
aviation hardware”?
23 March 2010
On 6 September 1940 the 20th century’s equivalent of convicts arrived in Australia.
With the outbreak of World War II and gripped with the fear of a threatened German invasion the British government decided to
deport males over the age of 16 who fell into the classification of Enemy Aliens. As a staunch supported of Mother England the
Australian government agreed to accept 6,000 internees from the United Kingdom. However, only one shipment was dispatched to Australia. Under the
orders of Winston Churchill, they were sent from Liverpool on the military transport ship the
HMT Dunera .
On board, the passengers included 2,000 German Jewish refugees aged between 16 and 45, who had escaped from Nazi Germany.
Some of the boys had arrived in Britain through “Kindertransport”,
the name given to the rescue mission that took place nine months prior to the outbreak of World War II. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000
predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, and the occupied territories of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Free
City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, and farms. Once those who had arrived on German passports reached the
age of eighteen their status changed overnight, from refugee to that of Enemy Alien.
Also on board the Dunera were 200 Italian and 250 German Nazi prisoners of war (P.O.W.’s).
Under appalling conditions, the trip lasted 57 days. Apart from overcrowding on the ship with the attendant problems of hygiene
and harsh treatment by crew members, the journey was also made unpleasant by the fear of torpedo attacks, the uncertainty of the destination,
and by tensions between Jewish refugees and German Nazi passengers.
When the overcrowded Dunera set sail, its internees were told they were bound for Canada. Watched over by 309 poorly trained
British soldiers, the men endured horrendous conditions. They were stripped of their possessions, including documents and false teeth, many of
which were thrown overboard. They were beaten and insulted as "Jewish swine" and had to sleep below deck on floors awash with human
waste, with portholes battened shut.
The first Australian on board when the Dunera docked in Sydney, medical army officer Alan Frost, was appalled. His report led
to the court martial of the officer-in-charge, Lieutenant-Colonel William Scott.
Hay Railway Station
Upon arrival in Australia the refugees were interned together with the P.O.W.’s in a purpose built detention centre near
the remote township of Hay, selected due, in no small measure, to its isolated location. They arrived at Hay on 7 September 1940 by four trains
from Sydney.
While awaiting release, the ‘Dunera Boys’, as they were collectively known, developed rich cultural and
intellectual programs at their camp, giving concerts and establishing an unofficial university. After a period of time the injustice of their
situation was realised.
The opportunity and the first possibility of freedom came with the Japanese strike at Pearl Harbour, in December 1941.
Australia found herself short of manpower, and we were given the choice to volunteer to serve in the Australian army."
The internment at Hay of this assemblage of refugees from Nazi oppression in Europe had been an important milestone in
Australia’s cultural history. Just under half of those interned at Hay eventually chose to remain in Australia. The influence of
this group of men on subsequent cultural, scientific and business developments in Australia is difficult to over-state; they became an
integral and celebrated part of the nation’s cultural and intellectual life. Their arrival in 1940 was seen as the greatest injection
of talent to enter Australia on a single vessel.
The 'Dunera Boys', are still fondly remembered in Hay; every year the town holds a 'Dunera Day' in which many
surviving internees return to the site of their former imprisonment.
Recently as we meandered along the length of Murrumbidgee River westward from Wagga Wagga we happened upon the township of Hay.
It lies on the very flat alluvial plains of the Riverina. The plains cover and area over twice the size of Holland and just as flat,
stretching 350k east-west and 270k north-south. It reminded us of the Nullarbor Plains due to the almost complete absence of trees as far as the
eye could see.
Hay lies along part of the great network of stock routes that in the 1860’s became colloquially known as The Long Paddock -
a web of tracks and trails that linked the stock-breeding areas of the inland New South Wales with the growing markets in the south.
The sudden influx of carnivorous Gold Miners into Victoria and the yet undeveloped refrigeration technologies provided the necessity to
bring a constant supply of fresh meat into the gold fields. Today we can travel the length on bitumen and in the comfort of our air-conditioned
vehicles. Back then it took weeks to traverse and it was often plagued by suspicions such as that of the headless horseman. It turned out to be
an enterprising local butcher. He was taking advantage of the gullible drovers and after scaring the bejeezus out them dressed in coat draped
over a frame that concealed his head he pilfered the cattle to beef up is own stock - so to speak.
Described as ‘a modest splat’, by author, Bill Bryson in his novel “The Big Island”, Hay has remained a typical small country town. The population has not increased much since before the camp was built and the infux of prisoners and caused it to double overnight. There is a very inauspicious museum to the Dunera Boys in two railway carriages behind the now defunct railway station.
Most people would consider the incarceration of refugees in such a way, inconceivable today. Just imagine if refugees arriving in Australia today were kept behind bar ….oops, wait a minute…they are. Perhaps not a lot has changed in the past 70 years.
23 March 2010
After returning from our sojourn in Canberra in 1982 we settled back into the routine of life in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. However after a period of three years, bringing up two little boys and working full time, life got a bit too hectic. Each child was at a different stage. Our elder son was in primary school and thus need before school care and after school care and during the school holidays, vacation care needed to be organised. Family-day-care mothers first cared for our toddler before he was old enough to be enrolled in a child-care centre. School functions came and went; sports days were missed. We were too busy trying to make ends meet to be able to be the type of parents we longed to be.
It was then that we decide a change was needed. We bought a hundred acres in Queensland and a year later we sold the family home in Bronte and packed up our goods and chattel and migrated to the small country town of Maryvale, a distance of 900km. By Australian standards, where farms can be larger than some European countries, our farm was considered tiny in comparison.
The change was fantastic. The tight knit community embraced us with open arms and we quickly became an integral part. The boys rode their bicycles to and from school each day and came home each afternoon, not to an empty house, but to a home where I was always ready to serve afternoon tea and supervise homework. We could finally let the boys have some pets; apart from the chooks and goat we also adopted a kelpie dog called Coodah and a kitten that we named Monty.
I had time to join the P&C (PTA) at the small school the boys attended and to volunteer to teach classes of science and help with craft lessons. I was a regular on tuck shop duty and spent hours ferrying troops of kids to and from swimming lessons where I also taught them to swim.
I served on several committees and was elected president of the CWA (Country Women's Association) and the P&C.
Both hubby and I performed in several local theatre productions and in between all this we also managed to find the time to set up a hydroponic flower farm to provide us with an income. Our dreams of self-sufficiency had been a tad optomistic; to my amazement, toilet paper didn't grow on trees.... at least not in a form that didn't leave splinters.
The demand for our flowers grew, and so did the area under cultivation. Before we knew it, we had become slaves to the farm. Every day the plants needed watering, dependent upon the weather conditions igloos needed opening or closing twice a day . Flowers needed cutting before the heat of the day wilted them. Markets had been established in Brisbane and we would get up at 4am to pack boxes of fresh flowers for me to hand deliver into a dozen different florist shops a few times a week. It was almost as time consuming as being dairy farmers. We were unable to take a holiday together. The few times hubby visited his family overseas, I was left at home to manage the farm and when I wanted to stay with my mother on the Gold Coast, hubby selflessly volunteered to stay on to oversee the flower production...what a saint! By the time our elder son was in his last year of high school we had had enough and sold the farm in Maryvale and moved onto bigger and better things in Brisbane.
The abandoned old farm house
Because of all this past history I was sympathetic when I saw the ad whilst searching for somewhere to housesit in Melbourne. The owners of a sheep and cattle farm in Victoria’s High Country near Mt Buller wanted to take 9 days off and fly to Alice Springs to attend a family wedding and needed someone to take care of the farm animals and pets.
At this point of our journey we were ahead of schedule for our planned arrival in Melbourne late in April for the immanent arrival of our first grand-baby and could easily afford to take 9 days out of our hectic travelling schedule.
We know how hard it is for farmers to take a holiday and were only too happy to assist. The promise of fresh lamb for dinner was an added incentive. We were warmly greeted by our hosts, Greg and Kerrie and bowled over by their dogs, Oscar and Merle. I hope they felt confident as we waved them good-bye and settled into our new role farmers.
It has been a long time since we had lived in a small farming community. It was refreshing to see that doors key were still an optional extra and people are happy to stop and have a good old chinwag. It didn’t take long to fall into the country pace of life… a slower pace. Feeding the chooks and gathering the warm freshly laid eggs, checking the electric fences and lavishing loving affection on the pets was all in a days work before falling asleep in front of the TV of an evening; soon it all came back to us.
The crisp clear mornings heralded the end of summer and we were back in long pants for the first time since returning from the UK. There were interesting places to investigate; Mansfield, Mt Buller, Craig’s Hut, Jamieson and Lake Eildon all lay within a short distance from the farm.
Craig's Hut
We learned a thing or two during our stay. We learned to ride quad bikes. We learned that no matter how carefully you watch your step, the sole of your shoe will act like a magnet to goose poo and I learned that since last riding a horse at the age of 14 my bum has become far more tender. I've been walking like John Wayne for days.
After 9 days of stuffing our selves on fresh eggs and tender lamb we waddled to the gate to welcome Greg and Kerrie home again. It might take us a while to get our figures back but gee it was worth every minute fit.
30 May 2010
Growing up in the 1960’s I recall all the historic events of the day played to the sound track of a monotonous click clack, click clack, click clack; knitting needles a blur, as my mother’s nibble fingers wove their magic.
“This is Brian Henderson, live from the studios of TCN Nine” click clack, click clack... “President Kennedy has been shot”, click clack, click clack… “The Beatles have touched down in Australia”, click clack, click clack… “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah”, click clack, click clack… “I have a dream!”, click clack, click clack… “Choppers flying into Nui Dat” click clack, click clack, “Harold Holt is missing” click clack, click clack…. “One small step for a man”, click clack, click clack… “one giant leap for mankind” click clack, click clack.
I can still picture my mum perched on our very modern black and white sofa, beneath her version of a Kandinski abstract that she had artistically rendered on the base of our old playpen, surrounded by balls of wool.
As a young child I would spent hours at her knees observing her knit until, at the age of four, I nagged her into casting a few stitches onto a pair of knitting needles for me and so a learnt to knit. With my little fat fingers I was no match for her agility but I managed to knit in my awkward style, though my first endeavours more resembled Venetian lace than the rows of neat little chevrons my mum produced. Gradually I became more proficient and I outfitted all my dolls with leftover scraps of wool.
Money was hard to come by back in those days and my mum, who was born during the great depression, took recycling seriously. The jumpers she knitted for my elder sister were handed down to me 12 months later and when I outgrew them they were fastidiously unravelled. I remember, as a small child, sitting on a kitchen chair opposite my mother, while she wound the wool into skeins around my out stretched hands, held about 30 cm apart. I loved to watch it unfurl from its knitted form, all kinky from the years it had spent confined in a garment, washed and worn and washed again innumerable times. The skeins of limp wool were then washed and hung out to dry on our Hill’s hoist. By the time the leaves had fallen from the trees it had all been knitted into new garments.
Knitting seems to have become a lost art, one which younger women, even many my age, have been reluctant to embrace. Perhaps it is considered old fashion or superfluous in this modern age of all things disposable.
For three weeks we house sat for a lovely couple, Paul and Deb, who had gone sailing off the coast of Turkey (tough life for some). During that time the curbs of Melbourne’s charming south-east suburbs groaned under the mounds of redundant household cast-offs as the council collection day approached. Outside most homes the amount of wares disposed of was more than some African villages would see in a lifetime. Apart from old couches, computers, prams, wardrobes and mattresses, the growing number of bulky old CRT TV’s signify the enthusiasm with which Australians have embraced the wide-screen, digital television phenomenon. I would never have imagined the day we brought home our very first colour TV that one day they would end up as litter on the footpath, free for the taking. Any thief, worth his salt, could easily calculate which homes would be likely to have a new flat screen TV sitting in their living room, ripe for the picking.
Since leaving Sydney 4 months ago I have rekindled my passion for knitting and even though I still knit in a ham-fisted, fat-fingered, four year old fashion I have still managed to produced a veritable hoard of cardigans, bootees and bonnets. They are now all coming to good use since 30 April at 2:15am, when we were presented with our first grandchild. A son and heir to our son and heir. The dynasty continues with Charlie Ray and though I may be a tad biased, he is indeed perfection personified.
Charlie and me
Our daughter-in-law’s parents were over here from Wales for the birth of their first grandchild too. When we all got together it was amazing to watch these six mature, well educated, intelligent adults all going completely ga-ga over this tiny bundle of joy.
Charlie with his mummy
The transformation in our elder son, the father of our grandson, is nothing short of miraculous. Overnight he has morphed from a self-interested, generation ‘x’er
into a doting daddy. He fusses over Charlie and doesn’t even mind changing dirty nappies. He has become emotional and affectionate, even his daggy old parents are suddenly acknowledged as being human after all.
Tomorrow we will be departing Melbourne and leaving our 4 week old grandson in the loving care of his doting parents. It will be the hardest thing, to leave him, knowing it could be months before we see him again. I will miss breathing in his sweet, baby smell, and feeling is gentle breaths upon my skin as he slumbers peacefully, snuggled up against me, all soft and….. Oh damn, the tears are welling up already, excuse me while I run to fetch a tissue before I short circuit the keyboard.
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