On the same day that Sydney recorded it’s hottest ever temperature, 45.8 degrees Celsius, I was sitting on my frozen arse in the middle of a street covered in snow. Newborn foals, slippery legs splayed as they attempt to hold themselves upright after months spent folded inside their mother’s protective womb can demonstrate more grace when perambulating than I do. I struggle to walk on flat even ground, let alone a concrete pavement covered in a layer of ice, mixed cocktail style with Paris’s favourite street accessory, dogshit.
I can’t walk on snow, I can’t ski and I am not at my best when covered in so many layers of wool that I resemble the Michelin’s Man’s slightly fatter wife. I can’t do any of this, because I am Australian. Australia’s unique and sunburned culture gives rise to many idiosyncrasies. One of them is that dogshit is never frozen into snow because dogs live on the back of utes. And here is a photo to prove it.
And so begins the recounting of a family road trip under the Southern Sun, 5 days of fun in our Korean chariot of fire.
Motherbear, the Art-sist-ologer, her Professor, and myself piled into our Korean Family Fun Bus that was so much fun it was actually called a Carnival. Little Squeal was strapped into her baby protection capsule, we were happy she was safe; she was not so happy to be pinned prone into a plastic sweatbox. She also had about four times more luggage than the rest of us…combined. Fruitphone in hand, and Diet Coke at the ready for the Chauffeur, I was chief navigator, Fruitpunch in hand, the Art-sistologer was chief baby feeder, Fruity Expression pasted on, The Professor was chief baby amuser and Motherbear, the only one among us with a driver’s license, was of course, driving. We headed south, we laughed a lot, first stop, Berrima.
Berrima is a speck in the middle of my home state, New South Wales. Berrima exists for a singular purpose in it’s isolated life, it is exactly halfway between Sydney and Canberra, the midpoint of a drive that takes around three hours when one follows the speed limit*, it is the place that everyone stops to take a comfort break. Berrima is essentially a town built around a public toilet.
We stopped, Squeal sucked, we smoked, Squeal was changed and dried and we were ready to leave. Then the Art-sist-ologer uttered the phrase that would bring forth peals of laughter and render me doubled over in tears. “Did you know that Berrima is the home of the Fibre of the Gods?”
Well no, I didn’t, but now I do. And here is the photo to prove it.
Indeed, Alpaca is a sort of Llama like beast that has become quite the fashionable animal to husband among Australia’s farmers. Alpacas can subsist on a whiff of fresh air, a handful of wheat and very little water. Hence, they survive and in fact thrive in Australia; more so than their thirsty ovine cousins and this fact, obviously, according to the giant sign upon the roof of the purveyor of the Fibre of the Gods, renders Alpacas so much more Saintly than the rest of those dastardly devilish beasts we usually rely on to furnish us with breathable warm fibre. Alpacas? Godly? Well who knew? Especially given that it rarely gets below 10 degrees in central New South Wales, I imagine that breathable warm fibre is somewhat obsolete.
Further down the road we crossed Wingecarribee Creek, the less contented version of Carribee Creek, and not quite so annoying as Wingecarribee River, all three of which are waterways one traverses en route to the Nation’s Capital.
As we approached Canberra, we passed a giant field. A field bordered by giant wind turbines and filled with cows and sheep. The Giant Field is not so remarkable considering we had spent the last three hours weaving our way down the heart of New South Wales’ agriculture centre. What is remarkable is that this Giant Field is named Lake George. Lake George the last thing one sees before arriving in Canberra. Lake George is a giant expanse of land demonstrating all the characteristics of a lake, except water. Lake George is dry, and has been for two decades. And here are the photos to prove it.
The Professor’s Mother, the Professor’s Father and Brother, my maternal cousins, my paternal cousins, the ones who we call double cousins, little people, older people, a few dogs and lots of Lego; 2 days catching up with family in timing consistent with a military training exercise. We stayed the night with my cousin Giggles and her husband Grin, yet another POM who invaded Australia and my family. They afforded us the hospitality of their four bedrooms with air conditioning, pure Australian luxury with enough space for her brother, all of us and two sheepdogs. In Australia we have real dogs, dogs that cannot be carried within monogrammed Louis Vuitton leathergoods, dogs that know better than to shit in the street, frozen or otherwise, dogs that bark like a proper dog should, they don’t mewl like a whimpering adolescent.
Canberra, the Nation’s Capital, is a city that serves two very useful purposes. Firstly, as the home of Australia’s federal government, Canberra is home to the large majority of Australia’s public servants. We’d prefer that they were re-grouped into one statutory municipality. We wouldn’t want them running errant, attempting to rule the rest of us, and that is why Australia is not France. The second is to be the place that provides the rest of Australia with porn and pot. The Australian Capital Territory; home to our government, the Australian National Library, the Australian National Gallery, the Australian National University and the only place in Australia where marijuana and pornography can be bought and sold as easily as apples or oranges.
A true Chicken and Egg conundrum; did the public service necessitate the vices or did the red light district give rise to the seat of government? Is Tom Cruise Gay? What is the meaning of life? Questions all with answers that will be revealed by the great philosophers of our distant future…
After sharing our days with family in Canberra, it was time to head east. We were off to Sussex Inlet, home to Ocean & Earth, one of Australia’s many iconic surfwear brands, and home to both my father’s sister and my mother’s brother, who are married each other (did you follow that?). I call them UPAD, you might call us a very close family, and the truth is it just makes it easier to keep track of cousins and grandparents when two whole families share exactly the same relatives. In Australia we are all about simplification of life’s great problems.
Halfway between Canberra and Sussex, exists another remote town cum public toilet named Braidwood. Braidwood, like its northern neighbour Berrima, is remote, surrounded by open land and dissected by a highway. The main street is filled with cafes and restaurants, never visited more than once, by those passing through, trying desperately to get to the ocean. The road in is straight and dry, the road out winds through hills and forests that have seen the end of too many young men in very fast cars.
Three hours and a hungry baby later, we came to a stop in front of UPAD’s house. Two Grey Kangaroos stood guard in the shaded front garden to welcome us. I sometimes wonder if bad shit happens to me because I write about my life on these pages. I sometimes wonder if insanely lucky shit happens to me for the same reason. In thirty years in Australia, I’d never seen a kangaroo outside of a zoo. All the same, here is a photo to prove it.
UPAD have a large house, everyone in Australia does. Apartments in Australia are larger than flats in Europe and farms can be larger than the Netherlands. At UPAD’s, the backyard is divided in two with space dedicated on each side to Australia’s two great backyard accoutrements, a swimming pool and a Hill’s Hoist. And here is a photo to prove it.
Until one lives in an inner city Parisian apartment, one has no concept of how hard it is to dry one’s clean laundry between October and March. Until one returns to Australia, one has no concept of how terrifying it is to live in fear of Huntsman Spiders. Life is a never-ending balancing act between pros and cons, but I’ll take the snow over spiders, I’ll eat my foie gras and you can have the dried out beef, I’ll take the dogshitty streets of Abbesses and try to forget that I’ve not seen a sun ripened pineapple since July.
The Smartarse packed his car with Sapphire, Smack and their formidable mother The MotherChef and joined us chez UPAD. For two days, my family was reunited under the one roof. We ate prawns, we drank cold white wine, we played with Lego, we ate too much, we drank too much, we swam our hangovers dry in the pool, we laughed and for a few hours, I was happy.
On the road home to Sydney, staring out at the Pacific Ocean on my right and wide yellowing farms on my left, my mind wandered. It is an odd sensation to be on holiday and partaking of activities that were once an everyday part of my life. I am a tourist when I go home. I am a visitor when I see my family. I took photos of places I’d seen a thousand times before, places that now seem as foreign to me as the Eiffel Tower might have been fifteen years ago.
The strange displaced feeling of my new life, a life my father never knew I had, was summed up in a short exchange with the four-year-old Sapphire who will soon be staying at my place in Paris.
“You know that we eat snails where I live?”
“Don’t be silly Auntie, no one eats snails!”
“Oh we do, and if you don’t like them, you can eat frogs”
“Now you are being really silly, no one eats frogs and snails”
About 30 years ago I remember my father saying something similar to me. About 30 years ago I remember my mother telling me about a woman who was Queen and the people cut off her head. About 15 years ago I decided to find out if all of those stories were true.
I don’t regret it.
* You hear that UPAD? Speed Limit.
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