ROAD TRIPPING - Starting Out

I have been less courageous since the first lockdowns in 2020, less excited to see the world, to explore possibilities, to be thrilled by the opportunities afforded by the unknown (and the known). I have become stale, straightened and physically less able. Saddest of all, I have lost my laughter. In an attempt at reinvigoration, to escape the depths of winter and in preparation for an overseas sojourn in the next year, I am driving to the Glass House Mountains in Queensland where hopefully an oasis of rainforest charm will work its magic.

After packing my very small red car with several months' essentials for a life anticipated to be not close to retail outlets, (something which further internet research indicates is not the case!) I take to the road. On this first day, it is a road often travelled in the hope that it will ease me into the journey and quell my anxiety about...well... everything.

On this clear Winters Day, Central Victoria heading to the Murray and the Riverland is glorious. Images by Eugene von Gerard, the colonial landscape painter who painted the southwest and central parts of Victoria before it was significantly altered by vegetation, come to mind. The music of Mitch Tambo heavy on the didgeridoo, is playing on the radio, and it is possible to imagine First Nations people in the landscape. In fact, it is hard not to imagine them on this country, a feeling reinforced as I pass through fading rural hamlets. There are hoardings and boardings, thick coverings of tan dust and the barely visible lettering of signs advertising goods and services no longer existing. Date palms, huge and old, are scattered across the skylines of the more prosperous townships but on closer inspection, these places too, have seen fire or flood, or both.

Roadworks, high wheelers and high Viz are ubiquitous, and gradually the little red car is being shadowed by vehicles of much greater sizes, although thankfully not the large transports which seem to be careering in the opposite direction or lined up in rows sleeping at immaculate petrol stations. The petrol attendant looking out at my small vehicle, sandwiched between two behemoths, noted that I must be paying for the " Little Red Beast. "

I reach my Murray River destination as the shadows lengthen and am welcomed to a lovely old, revamped coaching inn. A wander through the central business district does nothing to dispel my sense that post pandemic, towns have come to rely on Tradies and Tat. And old people like me. Grey Nomads too are ubiquitous. There is a sense of tiredness on the gentle wind but in all my encounters, people are kind and warm. We are all trying hard.