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October 2009 
Fifth Day on the Road
Posted on Sep 5th, 2008
by 
Fearless
Fearless
AFTER LEAVING MELBOURNE at 3am on Monday, 1st September I had a very easy and uneventful journey down to the south coast of Victoria.
Mum had always wanted to spend time at Port Fairy, Port Lincoln and to swim with the dolphins at Monkey Mia in Western Australia, so they are three things I will doing in tribute to her memory.
My relationship with my father appears to have taken a terrible turn for the worst - I have been told my several relatives that he blames me for my mother's death. He believes that worry about my trip caused her fatal heart attack. (Not the 60 years of abuse and criticism that he'd levelled at her or her congenital heart disease).
I feel rather philosophical about this. It's his way to have to blame. He told me many years ago that when he was little and did something wrong, he always blamed his older brother, so I guess he has developed a life long habit of blaming others for things that go wrong in his life.
But that is him and I hope to leave him and his anger and hatred behind me.
This trip, is without doubt, the best decision I could have made. I needed to make this move in my life - to move it forward.
The first four days were absolutely idyllic - I went to bed deliriously happy, content that I was on the right path. But now, the purging begins - all the insecurities, unhappiness, limitations I have are all coming out in a 'spooky visitation'. I think it's natural - and I'm grateful that my mind and body are shaking off all that might be putrid and unhealthy.
Marlo is a wonderful canine companion. She's a thinker. The other late afternoon, she gave a low growl and stared off into the bush. I went to investigate and not seeing anything, sat down on a tree stump to smoke the last third of a joint someone had given me as a farewell present. As I smoked and gazed around me, I came face to face (literally) with a small koala, straddling a tree trunk at my eye level about four or five feet away.
We just looked at one another ... looking, looking, looking ... and for the first of what I'm sure will be five hundred times I think it, I thought, "I should have brought my camera with me!" But by the time I had returned with it, the little koala had made his or her way off into the deeper bush.
My next discovery was a lovely little echidna (a spiny ant-eater) snuggled up in its hollowed out log, fast asleep. A couple of days later I came across a much bigger relation on a walking track to a lookout. This time I did have my camera, but as I angled for a better shot, the echidna started burrowing down into the earth.
The general store, near to where I am staying, said there was an "old recluse" living wild in the bush near where I have been camping and one day, coming back from town, I came across him on the road in. I offered him a lift and found that he was only 53 years old, and had been hiding out in the bush since last Easter. His face was so fascinating that I wanted to take a photo, but he said he was wanted by the "Americans" for fighting against them and so a photo was out of the question.
He was quite harmless, and I think that drink is his biggest enemy (rather than the Americans). He was very hospitable, offering me a slug of his whisky and coke and enquiring whether I had enough blankets for this cold weather. "I have six or seven, and even that's not enough on these cold nights," he advised. No wonder! He's been sleeping rough in a tent all winter. Still, I think his concern about whether I was going to be warm enough, was more an opening gambit for perhaps me offering HIM some hospitality in my warm caravan for the night.
I'm all for experiencing what life has to offer, but taking an old derro from the bush to my bed, is quite another thing!
Actually, that brings me to another big issue when you're on the road - keeping clean!
I am what I usually refer to as a 'domestic dud' - i.e. I can't really see the point in putting in a lot of effort and energy into things that as soon as you do them, you just have to do them again - like sweep the floor, do dishes, laundry etc. That's not to say, that I don't do them, I just don't give them much priority.
But when you're living in a tent or a caravan and you're so close to nature, you find that 'nature' (i.e. dirt, leaves, grime, mud, smears etc) are MAGNETICALLY ATTRACTED to every surface known to man!
I've laid out an artificial turf mat at my caravan door, and have also got a piece of carpet at my step so there are two layers of 'dirt grippers' to catch debris before it comes into the caravan, but it still finds it way in! I stand on one foot, taking each shoe off in turn, making sure that no atom of dirt gets from the outside, but still my socks seem to attract dirt flying in the air and bring it in to my sancto sanctorum.
I'm either going to have to get more neurotic about cleanliness or give up entirely. I'll let you know how I go.
Lots of love to you all,
Grace
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Hi Grace! Good on you! I wish you the beeeest on your journey and I so appreciate your sharing through your blog. Having lived out in the wild abit myself, I can say that it all comes together after a while, and you find ways to keep things tidy and clean. Keep experimenting!
Max/Porena and the other guy!