Ahh, The Serenity...

-

"It's so nice to be out of the city!" sighed Roger as he settled into his camping chair and sipped a glass plastic cup of mineral water.  A gentle breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees and corellas (both little and long-billed, if you're interested) wheeled like confetti over head. "Listen to the birds!"

"Much more melodious than cockatoos!" I agreed, as I watched a herd of caravans circle, looking for a spot for the night.

We were in Geelong Showgrounds after a pleasant day spent saying farewell to BD, having allowed her to wheedle a final cup of coffee out of us before we went.

We ambled down to Geelong along the coastline, stopping regularly to sniff the sea breeze and to take photos of the last view of Melbourne.

Last view of Melbourne from Williamstown. 


No, this is the last view of Melbourne, from Williamstown.

Trust me, this was the last view of Melbourne, from Point Cook Coastal Park.

We drove right past the new embarkation point for the Spirit of Tasmania, and it was soon apparent that the Geelong Showgrounds were the new stopping point for grey nomads to overnight before catching the Spirit at uncivilised hours of the morning.

"I'll be really quiet" promised neighbour Dave, when he realised that he would have to unplug from the power pole beside our tent at 0400.  We ate our peanut butter rolls for dinner and lolled in our new camp chairs, listening to the corella chorus as they descended into the gum trees in the paddock behind our tent. 

Enjoying their dinner before bedding down in our gum tree.

At 10pm the corella chorus died down and we went happily to bed, looking forward to a good night's sleep in our cosy tent.  Alas, this was not to be. All night long the corellas squabbled and mumbled and swore at each other, the muttering occasionally flaring into outright Corella warfare. Neighbour Dave packing up his power cord was mouse-quiet by comparison. When the sun rose and I crawled blearily from the tent to wander to the toilet, the corellas met the day with wild calls of glee and a skyward explosion of birds. A drift of feathers settled slowly over the campground as the flock headed off to annoy someone else for the day.

View from our tent, home for the next couple of nights. Birds being deceptively peaceful. 

Roger made himself a breakfast cup of tea and settled into his chair, reaching for matchsticks to prop open his eyes. "I love being out of the city", he mumbled. A train roared past, bound for Melbourne. He shut his eyes.

"It's so peaceful..." 

And it was, kind of.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

23/12/21 The Dinosaurs of Newtown

-
Image
Some time in the months before Christmas, somewhere near Newtown, a shop had a sale of inflatable Christmas dinosaurs. Lots of people thought that a large inflatable dinosaur was just what they needed for their 2021 outdoor festive decor, so they bought the dinosaurs and then discovered that, once inflated, they were very big. Not as big as a real dinosaur would have been, obviously, but certainly big enough to be inconvenient if you happen to live in a trendy little terrace house with a handkerchief of front lawn and second story verandah almost the size of half a vegemite sandwich.   Dinosaur #1: taking up all the available verandah space I imagine that at this stage the dinosaur purchasers may have considered the size of the dinosaur (inflated or otherwise) in relation to their rubbish bin, but were likely prevented from this course of action by children who, enamoured of dinosaurs, had welcomed the creature into the Christmas fold and called it something festive like Rudolph, o...
Read more

Minor Adventures on Quiet Days

-
Image
 Roger took himself off on the train to South Australia for a week, so BD and I decided to have some adventures of our own, albeit not as exciting as riding the interstate train to Adelaide and getting to have an up-close stickybeak at the flooded Murray River. We took ourselves off to the Ormond Lookout to watch the sun set instead. As did rather more people than what we had anticipated. Mobs, in fact. We found a patch of dirt grass and settled in.  "I'm gonna come back here!" declared BD.  She wriggled around a bit: our patch of grass was on quite a slope and she kept sliding out of her shorts.  "With a chair," she added. In between admiring other people's dogs and taking observational lessons in 101 Ways To Take A Selfie, we watched the sun trundle slowly toward the horizon. No sunset is complete without a picnic. There she goes. Further down the beach, a container ship puttered across the horizon under the gaze of a lone beach-sitter.  And us, of course...
Read more

Quiet Life with Cat

-
Image
 After all the excitement of hospital stays, Emergency Department visits, and trying to balance the cost-benefit ratio of hospital cafeteria food, life became a little more settled.  After a week of blessedly boring drug levels BD was given a reprieve from daily blood tests and we, therefore, were released from daily drives to the nearest Melbourne Pathology lab.  We did some laundry and did some cleaning and I hopped on my bicycle and went for a ride or two.  Not that the weather was very conducive to enjoyable and relaxing bike riding, but I went anyway. All was fine at Albert Park, where the swans put on a good show, playing happy families all across the playing fields.  But that didn't last for long. Back at home the new cat let his crazy out to play.  He zoomed up and down the hallway in the middle of the night; scared the bejeebers out of us by jumping on the sound bar and blasting us with high volume TV; hid under chairs and batted at our ankles as w...
Read more