Day Fourteen

Today Mia and I drove to Hanging Rock for a hike.

As you can see it is not a destination to be trifled with, nor an ascent to be taken lightly.

It was quite hot, and the air smelled of roasting dry eucalyptus leaves, a classic Australian summer smell. I spent a lot of my walk sniffing appreciatively and wondering how to bottle that smell and bring it home to a Cleveland winter.

With much huffing, puffing and breaks for water and candy snakes, we made it to the summit and climbed as high as we could there.

The views were 360 degrees, and quite breathtaking. Hanging Rock is some kind of ancient larval deposit, and as you can see by the flat country all around, a bit unusual.

I very trickily set up my camera on timer mode and leapt gracefully across the chasm to perch beside Mia for a picture.

We think this might have been the reason for calling it Hanging Rock, because it is mostly up and down with crevasses to slip between.

There were areas where to rock face was incredibly high. The Aboriginal people believed that there was 'unfinished business' at the rock, and although they would come there for ceremonies, they would never stay long.

In the interactive exhibit there was a large amount of space given to the book and movie, 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' which made it quite a famous landmark.

You can see from these pictures taken from the car how incredibly dry Victoria is compared to where my Mum lives.

This is much more normal for me, in terms of what I feel naturally is an Australian landscape, and although there are drought conditions, I loved the taste of what to me is an Aussie summer.

High pale blue skies, burnt tawny grasses and stands of eucalypts. Ahhhhh.

Mia and I made a quick stop at the drive through bottle-o before heading home to crank up the air conditioner and spend the afternoon in classic summer style - hanging out and never far from a cold beer.

I can't get the STUPID thing to format properly. Sorry. Hope you can figure it out, but it's very frustrating.

Day Nine

Mum and I made a little foray to the coastal town of Byron Bay.















We went, of course, for the shopping, and because it is supposed to be a hub of progressive and alternative ideas and businesses - Waldorf schools, Auyervedic practitioners etc.















As it turns out the mood of the town really centered on tanned, bikinied, gorgeous young people from all over the world with surfboards tucked under their arms, because the true hub of Byron are it's beautiful beaches.


















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I loved this paperbark tree - when we were kids we would peel off the bark from these trees and carefully seperate the layers and use it to write notes and secret messages.




















This is a banksia tree, and as I walked up under it I could hear the little bright green and red parrots we call 'twenty-eights' (why I have no idea) making an absolute ruckus feeding on the blossoms. They flew off in a blur of colour when I tried to take their pictures though.


































So Byron was quaint, brightly colored and with plenty of interesting people watching opportunities - the extremely wealthy alternative population, the old hippies who still own their now million dollar properties on the edge of town and drive around in old VW buses, and the young, beautiful travellers from all corners of the globe.















We actually got to meet some of those, a lovely pair of Swedish lads who manfully gave our car a push so Mum could clutch start it after we left the lights on and ran the battery down.
















On our way home we stopped at the antique store in Moobil - pronounced Mobil but the spelling clearly exploited for all its worth.




















This lady has set up home in the backyard. Yes, the spiders here do seem unusually large. Last night the one from earlier who was in my room and did keep her promise not to crawl across my face ran across the hall in front of me and into Mums room. I thought she was a mouse.

Day Eight

Today I took the bus to get my Nana and bring her back for her first lunch at my Mum's new house. I met her at the bus stop near her apartment, and when I crossed the road she was there waiting for me. It was so incredible to scan the sea of faces and to find one of them resolving into that of my Nana, and for her to smile, stand up, and come over to kiss me. I wanted to tell everyone at the bus stop - "This is MY Nana." I didn't.















We had a nice, quick lunch, and then caught an afternoon bus back to her place. She dozed gently all the way, and once it even seemed like she might rest her head on my shoulder, but she caught herself just in time.
















We spent time looking at photo albums, chatting and napping companionably. I don't know when I will visit her here again, and I tried to take it all in.
The pictures of my cousins,
















her wedding pictures,













and my uncle as a little boy.




















Tomorrow Mum and I are taking Nana to the airport - she's going to Bendigo, where my Dad grew up, for her sisters 80th birthday. I probably won't see her again this visit, and it was lovely to have time with her, not just as a granddaughter, but as a friend.

Day Seven

This is a young magpie who sits on the front fence or picks his way around the backyard eating worms and insects. He's quite brave and will let us get close to him, only legging it out the way at the last minute. May asked me to post his picture, so here it is.




















Today Mum and I drove to The Channon, an hour and a half away over the rainforest covered hills and rolling cow pasture valleys.















I just sat in the passenger seat and watched it all go by - the mist sitting on the hilltops, the stands of ghost gums, the farmlets tucked behind stands of banana palms.















The Channon market is like a big Hessler Street fair. Lots of good organic food, hippies and music.
Right away Mum got us some amazing Samosas fom this little place, and while I waited I looked around.




















We were there sort of early - ten am, but there were already a lot of people and kids there. The remarkable thing was that it was really quiet, except for the piping of a little boy playing Amazing Grace on his recorder.




















Later it picked up, and this amazing Samba band rocked through. Even us uptight Australians bopped around smiling, they were that good.















There were street musicians, hemp stalls and handcrafts.




















This old Aboriginal man orated wildly, nonsensically and completely harmlessly, amusing the crowd even as they steered clear of him.




















We were told at The Channon general store that this was falafel not to miss, but we were still full of samosa, and did in fact miss it.




















I think this picture describes well the folks who were drawn to the market there - it was very free, alternative and open.









































Not surprisingly this is one of the nearest towns, Nimbin, and we stopped here on our way home to peruse the galleries, have a cuppa, and attempted to avoid breathing any sweet smelling smoke, which was thick and pungent along all the storefronts. Mum had to drive and I didn't want her addled.















Nimbin is known for its artsy head shop culture all over Australia.




















Here I am enjoying an Australian latte at the Choices Cafe.

















































































On our way home I had to get this shot of the traditional Australian hotel. I know exactly what it smells like in there too - stale beer, old smoke and something else undefinable, but even just thinking about it gives me the best image of my Grandpa. One of his mottos was 'One before eleven, and eleven before one.'

Day Six

Ah, finally a change of scenery.
We drove to my Nana's this morning - she lives about half an hour away on the coast. The drive there is lovely, through canefields, along the river and just green and lush with little houses on stilts and rusted tin roofs.
















We picked Nana up and wandered down the street to poke about in an estate sale. How to describe my deep pleasure at walking along the footpath chatting with my Mum and Nana under the warm sun, a sea breeze picking up the red banksia flowers and tossing them gently. These of course are the two women I have known longest, since before I knew to know, and I have a rare moment of feeling myself stretch back completely.















After the sale we drove to Tweed Heads, eating the quintessental Australian lunch, meat pies, at an outdoor cafe where we had views of the surf, the skyline at Surfers Paradise and the high blue sky.















Across the street I left Mum and Nana under a shady pergola on a bench that was clearly too high for them but gave them the opportunity to swing their legs like schoolgirls, and strolled toward the ocean.





















It was only my intention to stand at the fence and look, and breathe deeply of the salt air and listen for a moment to the waves crashing onto the shore, but before I knew it I had my shoes off and I was walking down the hot sand path (oh that feeling) toward the water. The waves, seeing me coming, rushed up and engulfed me to the knees. What a welcome!















Mum took this picture so that you can see I really was there, and then we drove to a cliffside lookout named Point Danger by Captain Cook, called Fingal by the Aboriginals.





















You can see in the groin the mouth of the Tweed River, the one we cross in Murwillumbah on our way into town, the same one, even further upstream, that we soaked our toes in at the base of Wollumbin.
















Captain Cook called this Point Danger because his experience offshore was of treacherous reefs, and he named Wollumbin Mount Warning at the same time because he could see it from his vantage point at sea and used it as a reference point for the same reefs. This I learnt jostling for space with Japanese tourists at the lookout.
















Back at Nana's for tea and cake. Mum and Nana read People magazine together, commenting on babies, Brad and Angelina's infertility and who's gotten fat. Nana told wonderful self -deprecating stories about the many ways she has embarrassed herself over the years with her trusting nature and her seven sons fond teasing and joke playing.
I poked around on her sideboards, looking at pictures the go back almost a hundred years, of her as a girl, my grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and me. She is the memory keeper for our huge and rambling family, and the proof is everywhere.
















Back at Mum's, slightly sunburned and more than a little satisfied, I fell asleep on the sofa watching Ghostbusters.