Lake George

photo from wiki

Heading away from Canberra this morning, we drove north through the southern highlands.  On a warm (hot even) sunny day like today, some weeks after the ten-year drought has broken in spectacularly wet fashion, the trip was a joy.  Everything that was previously brown and sparse is green (in a riot of shades) and lush.  Lake George had water in its south-eastern corner, which is the first time in twenty-two years I’ve seen that.  

Most of the ‘lake’, however, was covered by a thick, luscious carpet of long grass.  Small herds of cattle gathered at water holes just inside the fence that runs along route 23.  Dotted around the centre of the vast area that can be (and has been) a giant expanse of water there were small flocks of sheep, huddled together as the moved like one organism across the fertile plain, nibbling their way from east to west or north to south.  From the summit of the pass that carries the road between Canberra and Goulburn then Sydney, the far-distant, oatmeal-coloured animals made me think of maggots.

As I drove along I took a notion to keep going, to keep driving around the country (with Spike, one hopes, as a willing companion); seeing more of its variety and diversity, meeting people who live in and belong to communities still connected to the immensity of Australia, taking time to find out more about this place I came to live in eleven years ago after 42 years in my Scottish home.

Is it the country and its people that draws me to the idea of keeping going, my boyish desire to see what’s round the bend or complete disillusionment with the job I’ve now been doing for six years?  Maybe it’s a bit of all the above (and more).  Mostly, though, I need / want it to be the first of those.  I do not want to lose my sense of wonder and excitement at all the simple elements of a good life.  I hope never to become tired and cynical.  That way only leads to madness and despair.  Neither of those belongs to me.

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