When I was 8-years-old my father married my stepmother. He had met her about two years before, late one night at a truck stop on the Highway down the coast. She was returning home from Sydney with her dog, Bluedog, and had stopped for a “cuppa” and to give the dog a break. She let the dog wander while she was inside, as she had many times before. A man soon came in and asked, “Did anyone used to own a blue dog?” My Dad was on his way back to his mothers and had run over the dog, he thought he’d killed it. Well the dog had run off and Dad spent the next few hours helping to find it and the rest, as they say, is history. Within a year of their marriage my stepmother had my first younger sister, J. Five days short of two years later I had another younger sister, L.
My Dad, stepmother and “the girls” (J and L) live on the south coast. Well actually they live almost thirty-kilometres inland from a typical coastal town. My stepmother built the house and workshop for herself when she was a single, divorced woman thinking she would never submit herself to another marriage, let alone have any kids. It was built for one and sits on twenty-one acres of land bordered by the gravel road on one side and the winding fresh water river on the other. The property sits right in the middle of a National Park. The narrow and winding road from town is gravel for about 50kms, winding through the national park with rock face on one side and a view straight down to the river on the other side, for most of the drive. My Dad’s place sits not quite half way along that gravel road. If you keep driving to the end of the gravel, you will soon after reach a “blink and you’ll miss it” town which consists of a few peach farms, several houses and one pub, which has two petrol pumps and doubles as a mini corner store. My father was banned from this pub for a few years after standing up on the bar, obviously after a few beers and reciting “The Man from Snowy River”. I never really got that whole story.
The electricity lines don’t make it out from town to their place. Their power is provided by a group of twelve-volt batteries, which are recharged by the generator. The generator also provides 240V power while it is on, for such things as the computer and washing machine. The television only receives reception from two stations, although a neighbour across the river had pay TV for a while. There is no inside “flush” toilet, that’s a small building outside, built on a concrete slab, over quite a large pit. The river provides the household water supply, after drinking this for over a year I was unable to drink City water at all for years. The house itself is built of wood and is almost round in shape. There is only one real wall inside, between the kitchen and bathroom. At the centre of the house is a fireplace built of river rocks and the room sort of flows around it. A curtain at the entrance to the bathroom provides the only inside door. A loft upstairs is the main bedroom. L sleeps downstairs in a bedroom that furniture provides most of the walls to. J has her own room by way of a caravan just out the front of the house. The house, which was built for one, has managed to accommodate four on a permanent basis and at times even more people. For the last fifteen, or more, years there has been talk of extensions being built, the last couple of years small progress has been made. All of these factors are what give the house and lifestyle character and appeal. All of these factors are also what give visiting “city folk” such a culture shock.
I consider myself to be a city girl, but growing up with this beautiful escape I consider myself very fortunate. Summer holidays with Dad were always enjoyable as a child. Waking up each morning to the sounds of kookaburras laughing and taking only a few minutes to walk to the riverbank. Standing on the edge of the river in the sand and being able to clearly see the rocks and sand on the bottom, even where the water was over six or seven foot deep. Then diving into the water and swimming over to the mostly submerged rock formation, which serves as a diving block. Hours upon hours could be spent at the river, swimming, throwing rocks across the top of the water or simply watching nature. Fish, eels and snakes were not an uncommon sight while swimming. Wallabies could sometimes be seen on the far side of the river heading to the rapids where they would have a drink. I would occasionally set my alarm to wake before sunrise and walk to the river, just down stream from our swimming hole, and sit and watch as the platypus went about its morning routine.
I lived with my father for about eighteen months as a teenager. It didn’t work out for many reasons, not the least of which was that I was rather difficult at that time. I would catch the bus to school each morning, I was first on because it only came out that far. The morning driver and I did not get along well, on several occasions I was made to sit in the front seat, very uncool. The return bus trip in the afternoon was always much more fun. The driver was an older gentleman with a huge heart, and a brilliant smile. He would at times stop at the little corner shop just out of town for those of us who wanted to buy afternoon tea. By the halfway point of the trip there would only be a handful of kids left on the bus, sometimes less. I would lay on the seat, with my legs lying across the aisle to the opposite seat, watching the treetops as they passed by. After a while of doing this I learnt to tell exactly where I was and how soon I’d be home just by looking at those treetops. If I was the only kid left on the bus I would sit right in front of the windshield on the dash I guess it’s called, facing the back of the bus, and talk to the driver while I had a smoke.
These days I get to Dad’s only a couple of times a year. It still holds a lot of appeal, but for different reasons. Drew (Little boy) and I spend some of the school holidays down there. It is great to see Drew loving it as much as I do, although he has as much trouble with the traveling as I do too. We’ve caught a bus on several occasions, six hours is more than enough to make us both feel ill, thankfully he’s only thrown up once on the bus. Other times we catch the train and meet Dad halfway, not quite as much chance of the travel-sickness that way as the time is broken up.
My Dad gave Drew his first fishing rod and helped him try to catch his first fish, they had to settle for an eel. The girls have taken Drew on countless swims and bush walks and he never loses interest, although they almost lost him once. He now knows to never leave the path and that if you get lost you simply stay where you are until someone finds you.
© 2005
