Thursday, September 22, 2011

Hail Port Stephens!





Sometimes we meet amazingly warm people when we are camping. One of these was Tars from Port Stephens Tourism who kindly helped us book a few activities before we arrived. Not only that, but he met us at our first activity and took pictures of us launching into the sky on a tandem parasail. 

To thank Tars for his support, we invited him and his son to join us for a sausage sizzle at our campsite one evening. All sounds pretty manageable… and that’s what we thought…

Our days were packed as we rushed from Oakdale Farm to the Toboggan Hill, and from the Australian Shark and Ray Centre to Sahara Trail Rides. As it neared time for our guests to arrive we ran into the shopping centre to grab a few last minute goodies.

It was then the forces of nature dumped celestial buckets on Port Stephens. Not only that, but hail, well, hailed down. The cacophony inside the supermarket was deafening and the 10 metre run to our car left us totally drenched. 

As we approached Fingal Bay Holiday Park trepidation set in. It looked like a refugee camp. Tents were strewn across the lawn, disheveled campers wandered around picking up errant pieces of caravans.
Gratefully, our camper trailer (Blueberry Pie) was where we had left it. Our kind neighbours had lashed it to a nearby tree and pole breakage was minimal. Our welcoming shade cloth mat was covered in debris and it looked like a stream had run through our campsite. Every single thing was wet. It was 10 minutes before our guests arrived.

Now, if you have ever wondered what if feels like to be on one of those reality TV shows with the clock ticking… this was it. Amber and I raced around in high speed motion and JUST got things together in time to start sizzling a sausage and hand our guest a glass of wine. We must have looked a sight…. Our rain jackets still on, soaked to the bone, but smiling!

And what a lovely evening it was. A lovely conversation for me, someone for Amber to impress on her scooter, and tales to tell for years to come!


Friday, September 16, 2011

I honk for geese!

I don’t know what it is, but Amber and I seem to attract lost animals. Many’s the time we have rescued dogs wandering around the road and taken them to the nearest vet.  But it’s not tales of wandering canines I wish to share today, but more unusual species…

We were heading out of Port Stephens on our way north one day. Amber had just settled in with her DS and the traffic was thinning as I moved further from town.  One last roundabout to circumnavigate and we were on the straight highway.

It was then I saw it. I flash of brown, black and white on the verge; No tail; Stumpy legs. “Oh, no!” I thought… not a guinea pig. An internal battle raged then between my angelic self and pragmatic self who really wanted to get a few ‘k’s under our belts.  I glanced over, and Amber hadn’t seen it. I could simply keep driving.

Why I didn’t, I will never know. I turned the car around and came to rest on the grassy verge where the flash of colour had disappeared into the bush. Amber was immediately alert and I found myself telling her what I had seen… much to the dismay of my internal pragmatist.

We spent the next half hour trying to coax this furry pet from the thick brambles. He or she had obviously been there a while and a warren of trails disappeared into a virtual guinea pig city. Not a place he or she was going to leave in a hurry. We dug out apples from the esky and tried bribing. All the time I was wondering what ever we would do if we actually caught it! (The nearby house seemed the most likely choice).  Once it became evident this was and impossible mission, I had to convince Amber the guinea pig might actually like living here… and reluctantly, I drag her away.

Then there was the goose…

We were just north of Gympie for that one. A domestic goose with a broken wing had slid down the escarpment onto the edge of the road and was trying desperately to get back up. 

How ever do you save a wounded goose, I hear you ask? Luckily, on that occasion we had a friend travelling with us. We tossed the car blanket over its head and tentatively slid out hands under its belly. I hadn’t quite realised how heavy a goose is! Especially when it’s sitting on your lap in the front seat! While my friend drove, a kept the blanket tight to avoid being pecked to death and we made our way to a local wildlife carer we had tracked down by phone mid-operation!

Sometimes diversion from your chosen path yields rewards and this was such an occasion. We were welcomed into the home of two wonderfully kind people and spent the next hour hand feeding joeys and being followed around by a tame duck!  Not a travel experience we had planned, but one we will always remember!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Peter Pan to the rescue!

I always face Scout camps with excitement and a little trepidation. Last time I put my hand up, I ended up cooking three meals a day for 30 kids on a 10-day drive to Canberra, so you might understand!

This time we were only going for 24 hours, so how bad could it be? Wraps for lunch, burgers for dinner and cake in between sounded like a walk in the park, and it was. And it was an Astronomy camp, so watching the planets sounded like a relaxing way to spend a Saturday night.

Of course, there were plenty of activities planned before dark descended and I always seem to come away with a new bruise or two. This camp was no exception: scrapped knees and elbows from the giant climbing wall, bruises up one arm where my archery bow connected with flesh, and sore hands from showing off my gate vault.

All predicable, but I hadn’t bargained on the GIANT SWING! Picture a telegraph pole standing in the middle of a rainforest clearing. Then imagine cinching down harness straps and clipping in a helmet then locking onto one end of a rope that’s fed through a pulley. ON the other end are 15 kids running as fast as they can away from you, to hoist you to the top of the pole.

The kids count you down “Three, two, one” and, with blind faith, you let go of your safety blanket and drop several metres. The rope tightens and within seconds you are flying through the trees like Superman or Peter Pan! I DID IT, without dirtying my shorts! I wonder what they will throw at me NEXT time?

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Pincushion Island: Father's Day

As Father's Day approaches, I find myself thinking about my Dad, who died a couple of years ago. Yesterday, I posted a few pictures of him on my Facebook site, and the response was so warm hearted, that I wanted to share something I wrote about another Father's Day together. Enjoy... and cherish your Dad while he's there!

Pincushion Island...

With the swing of my mood, I change my desktop image often: from the latest image of Amber, to times long forgotten and people I cherish. This one has been there a while and I can’t seem to let it go. It pokes out below my email panel. Head and bodies are hidden and it’s only the feet that show. 



I knew his feet: Dark and wrinkled as raisins - lumpy yet strong. The heals were gouged with deep cracks bordered by dry dead white scar tissue which often opened and left red dots on the linoleum. There was seldom a day he didn’t support at least one plastic sticky bandage haphazardly on an angle and often scrolled at the edges.

The nails were, more often than not, blackened from long forgotten arguments with the furniture. Nails, hard and thick, had long been trimmed with a clipper because they were too tough for scissors. His feet told the story of his life just as eloquently as his face. Years of barefoot sailing left them bronzed and wide. A youth of high energy gave them a strength not expected in one of his age. The end of a pencil-thin scar started just above his ankle and ended at his hip. From here, doctors harvested veins to keep his heart thumping in his chest.

X closes my email and I click it, to expose the entire image behind. Muscular calves are exposed. His legs are apart and a strong arm flops relaxed between them. The other loosely wrapped around my four-year-old daughter to whom he was the rock on which she then judged all men.

Out of the pocket of his favourite and well-worn collared golf shirt, the pointed tip of an errant feather protrudes. They always found feathers together: Or leaves. I remember bouncing down the boardwalk at Buderim Forest in Autumn. She picked up all the red ones and stacked them in his huge hands. When more space was needed they were shoved in pockets until his clothing bulged and he molted occasional leaves like a parrot dropping its tail feathers.

Behind them the crystal clear skies and sparkling waters of Maroochy River anchor them in the moment. It was one of our adventures in a non-assuming little boat called Tin Lizzie. The picnic had been packed, we launched at Cotton Tree and the three of us ‘put-putted’ across the river to the North Shore. She didn’t go very fast, Tin Lizzie. In fact the engine sometimes didn’t even go at all and we would lock in the oars and make our way at a leisurely pace, time unimportant. We had climbed to the top of Pincushion Island which sat, dejected by its demotion to ‘headland’. So long had it sat in the mouth of the river that the sands had shifted around it. Just as sad, the walk way to the top had long been orange-taped and deemed unsafe. We went anyway. Amber was concerned and we assured her the police were unlikely to follow us.

At the top she stands next to her granddad, barely reaching his shoulders as he sits on the weathered bench. Both delight and uncertainty show on her face. His is relaxed beneath his peaked cap. Spectacle strings dangle and his mouth is slightly parted in an ‘almost-smile’. Beard neatly trimmed and eyes hidden behind dark lenses, his face is welcoming yet proud.

The image captures a time before the holes developed in his memory; before frustration made him less sociable; before his knees and hips refused to carry him up hills. It captures the golden times of old age. Free of work and flushed with spare time, he indulged his granddaughter at a time when she needed him most. Her world was topsy turvey and his constant, reliable presence kept her grounded. No wonder she misses him, and no wonder I prefer to keep him there, wiggling his toes at me, below my email.