Reclaiming home

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Potato Point

After a day submerged in the chaos of returning home after six weeks away – sorting clean clothes from dirty, finding lost leopard pattern slippers, drying tents and tarps, washing up the camp utensils, recovering pieces of torn map, and replacing items in their proper Potato Point abodes – I set about reclaiming the pleasures of home. I woke at daybreak eager for a walk around my bailiwick. Who needs away (lovely though it is!) for a visual feast?

Reflections in the creek at South Jemo’s

Beach grass flowering

Banksia flower (before bird breakfast)

Leftovers from bird breakfast

Banksia flower cross-section, courtesy of birds

Wattle budding and flowering

Topknot pigeons

and my blueberry ash in bud.

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Taking the slow road home

The journey home that takes twelve hours if you fang it, takes us three days. The aim is to avoid all traffic, so we woggle through the back blocks, often changing plans as we become intrigued by a road, or inveigled by a landscape. This time, coming back from Queensland we managed to insinuate our peaceful way parallel to busy roads, merely nudging the odd city in transit.

Here’s the pay dirt for this kind of travel.

Reflections for breakfast at Ashford

Dinner with wallabies at Coolah Tops

A feast of clouds and light leaving Coolah Tops

Contrasting buildings at Leadville

Spectacular rocks near Uardry

Cudgegong cemetery, with gravestones rescued from drowning in the Windermere Dam

A multi-purpose site near Crookwell

Karst country from the Abercrombie Caves campsite

And a vivid rosella joining us for breakfast, defying two stroppy young magpies.

Six weeks away from home

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Coochiemudlo Island, Girraween NP, Liston, Mt Tamborine

It’s a challenge to be away from home for six weeks. In an attempt to recreate life as I know it, I lugged a pile of stuff and an even bigger pile of good intentions when I headed to Liston to joint house-sit, alpaca-sit, dog-sit, cat-sit and chook-sit for my daughter. Needless to say, most of them travelled back with me untouched.

When I look back on 6 weeks, I wonder how on earth I spent my time. I cooked a lot … and shopped inordinately … and bought and wore a pair of knee-high boots … and wrote a few real letters, on paper, with stamps … and watched David Attenborough docos … and collected eggs … and visited family on Mt Tamborine … and went to the drive in. Eventually, in the last two weeks, I fulfilled a few intentions: I walked through the Liston bush and enjoyed the Junction track at Girraween and had lunch with one of my daughter’s friends.

I walked Em and Loki

I learnt the deceit of cats – in daytime a peaceful ball of fur: at night a dismemberer and disemboweller of mice and birds

I became enamoured of fence lichen …

… and Liston bark

I visited my son at work in the Ecosciences Precinct, Brisbane

I caught the early light and long shadows on a Gold Coast beach …

… experienced the Gold Coast surreal …

… and watched my grand-daughter conquer a Gold Coast sand dune

I visited Coochiemudlo Island in Moreton Bay …

and found dramatic reflections and strange shells.

I found more lichen to feed my amour in the Eagle Heights back yard.

I finally walked the junction track in Girraween National Park

… and saw Boronia amabilis (maybe)

… and lunched below a boulder.

I fed my rock patterns obsession …

… and indulged my propensity for failing to identify plants.

However, I didn’t become fluent in Polish … complete my paid work … knit … perfect a few recorder pieces … write a stunning nature piece for a writing competition … master my i-pod … immerse myself in Polish history … walk daily … and so it goes on.