Selfie vs Country

  A selfie? Of gnarly feet!  But check out my campsite.

Spending time in spaces of incredible natural beauty with handfuls of other tourists this week, I’ve intersected with lots of selfie-takers. I find the world of selfies cringe-worthy! It really grates.  Maybe it’s a boomer thing, the relative absence of technology in the era I grew up, a valorisation of the past.   Don’t get me wrong, faces are fascinating, their shape, contours, creases, the eyes, everything. I understand the arguments that selfies express personal agency and identity, its fluidity, construction.  Everyone needs to be seen, and heard, and selfies excel at this. Images are a language too. But a selfie foregrounds the self, fails to show the spaces we inhabit, the wonder of nature.  In the vacuum of climate change, a condition largely a result of human greed and disregard for the living earth that sustains us, it feels critical to direct attention away from the self, and focus on service, care and respect for country.

So you won’t be seeing selfies from me.  If you do, know I’ve been kidnapped, maybe even dead, and someone’s hacked my computer.  I'm making an exception for the selfie of the feet!

It’s my last day on Kangaroo Island (KI).  I love how locals welcome you on the road with that raised finger signal. No, not that one! The one that smiles, says hello, having a good day?  I remember a similar gesture in the early days in Mullumbimby.  Drivers raising their pointers from the steering wheel in salutation. It’s probably a rural or remote thing.

 

I’m disappointed not to have seen a koala. During the devastating fires in Adelaide and Kangaroo Island a little over a year ago, over three-quarters of the koala population perished.  We all saw images on TV and social media during the 2019/20 bushfires of the effect wrought on species like the koala.  It breaks my heart. I recently read an article that explores why humans are so emotionally charmed by the koala.  Apparently we attribute human qualities to them, that is, they share characteristics with babies.  I did give birth to one relatively hairy baby, but I'm not sure she'd appreciate being likened to a gumleaf-eating tree-dweller!  Anyhow, locals assure me the koala residents are being well cared for by the wellspring of adorers all over the country, nurturing and rehabilitating them in specially dedicated koala hospitals in three Australian states. 

 

The bush is recovering too, parading extraordinary resilience (see pics below), bursting with brilliance.  This happens in spite of a seemingly universal common indifference to country, multispecies and diversity.

 

Kangaroo Island weather’s been Melbournesque.  Cloudy, rainy, sunny, windy, warm, and really fucking cold.  I’ve fished out the thermals. Congratulated myself a couple of times for having the foresight to pack the sheep!

 

Disclaimer! In my time on the road, I’ve attempted the selfie twice.  The result revealed my arm was way too short, my face occupying two-thirds of the frame.  The camera must also be faulty! Hear me when I say I’m doing you a favour by abstaining from the selfie. 

 

Enjoy the images of our beautiful, rich, fascinating country.

Stokes Bay campground, I prefer gnarly trees to feet. 

 

These images are taken in Flinders Chase National Park @ Cape de Couedic in the far west of the island.  Over 90% of the park burnt. The wild beauty of destruction and despair.  Such resilience.

Sunbaking seals at Cape de Couedic

 

Admiral's Arch, the seal's hood

 

 

I see a deranged dinosaur

 And a sad pig

The 'Remarkable Rocks', by no other name. At Flinders Chase Nat Park as well.   Seeing and feeling the energy and symbology and strength of Uluru here.

 

  

Curlew doing a tap dance

 

At the Raptor Domain. The masked owl.  I swear he was eyeballing me. 

 

Magnificent coastline @ Weir's Cove

 

I'd driven 30 kms on a gravel, heavily corrugated road and had just turned onto the bitumen.  I think I was tired! I did a double take.  Thinking I might have seen a ghost, I stopped, and reversed.  

 

Back to the road now

 

By the C

 

Despite leaving home a month ago, my solo journey began only a little over a week ago.  Although I've travelled solo before, the strength of the learning journey I’m on is Everest to my mind.

I’m writing this in the library of the Meningie Public School.  It also serves as a community/tourist library. Greeting me somewhat cautiously at first, the librarian informed me:

“It’ll be noisy in about half an hour, it’s lunchtime”.

Hmmm! I can cope with that. I’m a mother, it could be entertaining.

“… then it’ll be noisy again a bit later when the fire drill happens”.

Right! Maybe I’ll be gone by then …

 

Where to begin? 

 

The first three weeks I spent with family and friends in and around Melbourne, a spirited time of conversation, film and wine. When I reflect on those weeks I see faces, and food. The faces of family, of long-time friends, engaged and engaging, active, loved.  Sisters, their familiar ways, the comfort, and old restlessness.   Old friends - past work colleagues and travelling companions, memories of Iceland, of raising children, of growing old.  A goodbye gift of eggs, passionfruit and tomatoes sweet. You know who you are.  My love for you endures.

 

A couple of weeks with Raf my son, and his beloved Maraya, their cat Tilly, and brand new Cavoodle pup, Rupert. Rupi for short. I had to zip my unease re naming rights! Rupert be damned! Raf forfeited his spare time, bless his heart, fitting out my rig, installing an inverter, shelves, bed frame, awning, the works. Vroom Vroom is now ready for the long road ahead. Figs also characterise this time.  Kilos upon kilos from the tree on the pavement, ripe, stout, juicy teardrops of gods that I ate with gusto. As their oversupply threatened to spoil, we slowly dry-roasted their sweet flesh. OMFG!

Another highpoint, albeit bittersweet, was revisiting Pelligrini’s, Melbourne’s iconic Italian café.  The face of Sisto, one of its previous co-owners is like a tattoo on my body.  His smile a million hearts of welcome, I was regularly one of its recipients during my 25-year working life in Melbourne’s CBD from the early 70s.  He embodied hospitality and warmth, and flirted like a peacock. He was killed a couple of years ago in a senseless act of violence in Bourke Street. I miss his joie de vivre.

 

Bye for now Melbourne.

During the past week since leaving the city, I’ve clung to the coastline like age spots to the face.  The Great Ocean Road on Victoria’s southern coastline runs from Torquay in the east to Allandale, near Warrnambool in the west. Sometimes called the world’s greatest war memorial, work began on its construction in 1919 and was the effort of over 3,000 returned soldiers in remembrance of their fallen comrades during WW1. Driving along its 245 km stretch of coastline, famous for its great southerly winds, breathtaking views, rugged cliffs, snake-like curves and narrow lanes is a work of serious concentration.  For a 67-year old driving an old landcruiser that’s had a very gendered (sorry men) lift, the act of steering requires inflexible concentration. The centre of gravity is all wrong, the steering hyper sensitive.  I find myself thinking death, I’m legendary for it. It’s a brute of a vehicle and I’m still warming to its singular rhythm and style.

 

a view from my camp at Bay of Martyrs

Along a stretch of The Great Ocean Road between Cape Otway and Port Fairy, hundreds of shipwrecks lay to rest on the seabed, although only a small percentage of them have been discovered.  This expanse is home to the Twelve Apostles, limestone stacks which over the years have been falling victim to the seas and erosion.   Only seven Apostles remain, the stubborn, perverse ones, but I’m fortunate to have witnessed their happy dozen standing during my childhood.  

nup, not my pic!

Occasionally, I succumb to anxiety.  Leaving home to travel solo comes with a host of niggling little apprehensions.  Yesterday, for no reason other than curiosity, I discovered scum floating on the surface of the coolant, a milky layer that screamed problem to my overactive imagination. It shouldn’t look like that, I mused.  I began googling.  Cracked head gasket! A woman with her bonnet up attracts lots of blokes, and it was those blokes, who, furrowed brow, smiling blue eyes n all, assured me it probably wasn’t all that serious.  24 hours later, I’ve relaxed a little and because I’m close to Adelaide, will get it checked.  Motto: don’t trust Mr Google.  

bush camping, Mt Richmond Nat Park

I’m beginning to find my tempo, getting into the groove of the road. Solo travellers to this point have been very few on my radar.  Occasionally when I strike up a conversation with couples, I have to bite my tongue when the refrains ‘you’re travelling alone?’ in feigned worry, or ‘it’s not safe’, or ‘don’t go to Tenant Creek … Katherine …’, threaten to destabilise my reverie.  They're fear-based narratives I refuse to invite into my thinking. Trust the universe, but tie up your camel! My everyday routine of the past five years, sitting behind a computer for long hours studying is no longer, a new everyday occupies my lens.  I’m generally at my most content behind the wheel and camped in nature. I’m up with birdcall, down by dark. Travelling ultra-slowly through space and time, feeling Country, eyes attuned to the natural world, the coastal heath, pink-barked gum, salt lakes, and the insanity of pine plantation monocultures.  My camps in the past week, mainly in the Great Otways National Parks, remind me rich ecosystems, home to a multidiversity of species, are the soul of Country. 

 

Botanic gardens, Warrnambool

Cape Bridgewater 

Blue Lake, Mt Gambier

 

The magnificent Umpherstone Sinkhole, Mt Gambier

 

Despite the occasional unease, I'm content, the road beckoning. I see people from home in the faces I encounter, their body language and visage a reminder I'm never far from the community of the Northern Rivers I call home.