The view from the top
Thursday, 15 May, 2008
Thursday 24/4/08
Back at work—the only full day I would do this week. I was very busy with You things (just when you think you're done with a project, it comes back to bite you), Briefing things for June (compile and clean) and the usually stuff I will now refer to as “foo” for want of a better term—dealing with emails, fixing little coding things, little editing jobs, etc. etc.
After work, I drove into the University of New South Wales and actually found some metered parking. I met Elsie at the UNSW Bookfair. We wandered for about an hour or so, and I managed to bag some great finds, including:
- Possession by A.S. Byatt in hardcover. (“Don't you already own this book?” I hear you ask. Yes, I do, but it's always a good idea to have multiple copies of your favourite books in case you lose one and in case your friends lose yours [this actually happened to my original copy of Possession but the friend in question managed to obtain another with the same cover]. Plus it means you now have a lending copy. And besides, the hardcover edition of Possession has that gorgeous painting of Merlin and Nimue on the front—the one by Edward Burne-Jones. Who can resist Pre-Raphaelite art?) And it was $7 which is pretty good for a secondhand hardcover book;
- Poems by Robert Frost;
- My Brilliant Career and My Career Goes Bung by Miles Franklin (which I feel obligated to read);
- The Children's Bach by Helen Garner (Tony's recommendation);
- The Riders by Tim Winton (I've never read any Tim Winton);
- A stack of very cheap Tanith Lee paperbacks.
All up, it was about $40 for a box of books (the box being the size that they use for wine bottles).
I drove home. I can't remember if Ben or myself made dinner. I finished off my master packing list and finished as much of the packing as I could do, then procrastinated about going to bed. We ended up going to bed at 1 which was way too late.
Friday 25/4/08
We were up at 7:30 which was way too early. We had breakfast and finished the packing, and were ready when Fish turned up. He helped us load his swanky new car, and we drove to Kensington to pick up Jess G. She and I shared the backseat while Ben rode shotgun. I navigated us to the M5 and then we were on our way south.
We were listening to some of Fish's music—REM, I think?—and then he said he felt like banjo music so he put on the Avett Brothers (I think it was them). Ben then started to make a banjo playlist (with my input)—including the bluegrass version of Green Day's American Idiot (I should have used that for MM Spicks & Specks!), Sufjan Stevens, The White Stripes (though, technically, I think Jack White uses a mandolin on “Little Ghost”), Travis and Okkervil River.
Once we had exhausted the banjo playlist, he moved onto cows (as we were half-heartedly playing “Hey cow!” when we saw cows which wasn't often on the Federal Highway). I berated him for including cowboy songs in the cow playlist and he said it still counted because cowboys are called cowboys becuse of cows.
On our approach to Canberra, I asked if we could stop at Lake George because I've always wanted to stop there—ever since Year 7 when we went to Canberra for an excursion and the lake was full. Now it is quite empty, and there are grasslands for miles with the occasional sheep.
It's really more of a floodplain than a lake. But I still found it lovely, and it reminded me of Holes by Louis Sachar which reads like an old American yarn: “Holes is the story of Stanley Yelnats who, like his male predecessors, is called ‘Stanley’ because ‘Stanley’ is ‘Yelnats’ backwards. Anyway, Stanley Yelnats came from a poor family and his father was trying to find a cure for foot odour, so kept stinking up their flat with old running shoes. One day, when Stanley was walking home from school, this pair of shoes came from nowhere—they fell out of the sky—and hit him on the head, and he thought it must be a sign and so started running home with them to show his dad. Unfortunately then he got pulled over by the cops who arrested him for stealing the shoes as they belonged to ‘Sweet Feet’ Johnson, this famous basketball player, who had donated them to a local orphanage to be auctioned off to raise money for charity. Before the judge, Stanley was given a choice: he could go to jail, or he could go to Camp Green Lake, which is not green and there is no lake, and every day the boys there have to get up at four in the morning, take a shovel and go out and dig a hole five feet deep and five feet in diameter ...”
With Stanley Yelnats in my head, I got back in the car and we drove on to Canberra. We parked in Canberra Central and remembered it was ANZAC Day so all the shops were shut. They would open halfway through the day though, so we wandered around, taking careful note of Koko Black's location—
—and stopping in the shopping centre to do essential things like withdraw money and visit the amenities.
(These were hanging from the ceiling in the shopping centre.)
Outside it's quite a lovely day.
The shops started to open but we still needed to kill time and wait for Gary so we poked in around the shops. There was a discount bookstore, a fairly decent music store called Landspeed Records which had a pretty decent indie collection, and a very good comic book store called Impact Comics where there was a yellow beanie which looked like the back of Homer Simpsons head, and where I picked up another copy of Fray for Bec (only to find out later that she got herself another in Oxford. Oh well).
While we were in Impact Comics, Ben found a figurine of Mr Eko from Lost on sale and decided to buy it. I said to him, “You are now officially a nerd.”
Then Gary turned up and we went to lunch (and Mr Eko came out of the box and glowered at us on the table. The waitress must have thought we were all a bit nutty).
(NB: There are no photos of Fish, Gary or Jess in this lot because I can't be bothered emailing them and asking their permission, and of course I won't put them online without their permission.)
The service was pretty bad but the food was all right (I had the risotto; the others had club sandwiches). Then we went to Koko Black for dessert.
I bought some chocolate for Emma T (who was at a stage in her life when she really needed it!). We managed to get ourselves a table inside and ordered ourselves hot chocolate/ice chocolate.
Ben got a chili chocolate which he found a little overpowering.
I got a light hot chocolate which wasn't as good as the full cow but still pretty good for low fat.
Then we went our separate ways—Gary to his car, us to Fish's—nearly getting lost in the maze that is Canberra Central in the process. But we did stumble across one of those face cream and lotion shops that had free samples outside (which we all took advantage of so the car smelled of vanilla and citrus when we got back into it).
We resumed the drive south. I was failing rapidly then and so I fell asleep which was probably pretty rude but I was so exhausted by then. I woke up as we hit Jindabyne (which made me think of that dreadful Abbie Cornish film Somersault). We stopped at the visitor's centre, got out and walked around while waiting for Gary.
It was very cold and I felt somewhat ill-equipped for this kind of weather. I certainly wasn't sporting the latest gear that we saw hanging in the ski shop. I wondered that if I had been better equipped, would I like the great outdoors more? At least there are no flies and mosquitoes in the cold.
Gary showed up and we went to the supermarket and I bought tissues (because I was worried about getting sick. Again) and some junk food, including a packet of Burger Rings which had been pumped full of air and sealed.
We resumed the drive into the national park, and as the car climbed the road to higher altitudes, all of a sudden the packet of Burger Rings popped open because of the difference in air pressure, so I passed them around and we ate some.
We passed the booths at the entrance to the national park. The sun had set well and truly by then, so it was very dark. We noted with interest that the cat's eyes were located on poles on either side of the road—probably so that they could still be seen in heavy snow.
We drove to Charlotte's Pass and into the little village there, but then Fish realised that that wasn't where we needed to go. So we headed back to Perisher—which felt like a ghost town because there was no one to be soon—and soon found our accommodation: The Stables. We let ourselves in for the key was in our door. We had the space of a little town house: three bedrooms (one double, two twins), two bathrooms and a lounge/dining area with television, DVD player and a fairly decent sound system. Linen and towels were provided. (Bother! If I had known, I wouldn't have brought them and our luggage wouldn't have been so heavy.)
We brought everything in and put stuff away, then Gary started cooking. He made us spaghetti bolognaise for dinner, then Jess, Ben and I washed up, and we spent the evening playing a card game called Backpacker.
Ben also worked out how to open the battery compartment of Mr Eko's island, and Fish just happened to have some batteries, so we managed to make Mr Eko talk.
Fish told us to be up early so we all went to bed at around 11.
Saturday 26/4/08
We were up reasonably early but Fish and Gary had beat us and were organising the food for the day's walk: trail mix, cookies, fruit cake, teabags, soup mix, muesli bars, lollipops all in ziplock plastic bags. I was glad they were taking care of it; I had no idea what to bring on a walk like the one we were going to attempt. We had Crunchy Nut cereal and crumpets with jam for breakfast, then went to get ready. At one point Fish called down the stairs, “Are you guys going to make sandwiches?” which was a bit weird because he hadn't told us anything about the lunch arrangements, so we came back upstairs to the kitchen to make sandwiches.
Here's the view from our window:
We set off a bit later than planned. I've never climbed a mountain before and had no idea what to expect. I was wearing thermals, a T-shirt, a jumper, a duffle coat, my hat and gloves. Oh, and Ben's raincoat. I'd also brought extra gloves for Ben and Jess. Ben had forgotten to bring his hat, but he was wearing Drizabone with a polar fleece lining.
This is the village at Charlotte's Pass:
We got there at 10 and a ranger met us to find out our plans. We said we were going to do the ridge walk (which would take around 9 hours), but he cautioned us against it because there was a 3-4 day storm on the horizon and we needed to be sensible. So we decided to stick to the normal track (which would take around 7 hours but I didn't know that at the time).
The trail was really a dirt road so the ranger could drive his car along it. We started walking through the barren countryside which I actually found to be quite beautiful in its own way:
The track wound around the hills and then down onto the plain.
We paused at the Snowy River (more of a trickle than a river) to take a photo.
Ben had, of course, brought Mr Eko along.
We were going to continue but then Fish broke away from the road towards the banks of the river. Ben put his knapsack on the ground and followed him. We didn't know what they were doing. Gary told us to keep going so Jess and I did.
The track wasn't especially steep but then I wasn't especially fit either and had a bit of a trouble. I would think, “I'm going to walk to the next rise and then I'm going to have a rest” and I would pause for a few seconds and breathe, then keep going. Halfway up, Ben and Fish caught up with us.
“Where's your knapsack?” I said, horrified.
“Oh,” he said, and raced back down the hill to get it where he'd left it by the side of the road.
I was kicking myself for not taking it with me. The others said things like, “He's a big boy; he can take care of himself” but I'm his wife and that's what being a helper is about. Fish said there was no point in waiting for him in the cold, so I kept climbing, shielding my face against the sleet (which was falling sharply and stinging our faces at that stage) and worried about Ben.
We reached Seamans Hut at the top of the hill and went inside. It was built by the family of Laurie Seaman after Laurie got lost in a blizzard and died from exposure.
It was nice to get out of the wind and the sleet, and we sat down on the benches around the inner room and ate some morning tea. There was a guy there (we later found out his name was Kasper). He was hanging out in the hut all day, and he started telling us about how he was hauling up food on his sled and stashing in various food caches around the place to prepare for a two to three-week trip he was going to make into the mountains once it snowed. Gary and Fish questioned him about it; Jess and I just listened. Eventually Ben stumbled in with his knapsack and took a breather, and then we continued.
(As we were leaving, Kasper said to me, “Nice hat” but in that way that Australians have where you're not sure they're complimenting you or taking the mickey out of you. It was probably the latter.)
The next stop was at the highest toilet in the world.
Lots of people stopped there not just to go to the loo but to get out of the cold. Because it was continually filled with people, it always looked like there was a queue but there really wasn't; people were just taking a breather before heading on their way.
But we did use the amenities (which were waterless) and they had some of that hygienic gel that you rub all over your hands to clean them—but you don't wash it off, you just wait for it to dry.
Moving on from there, we found ourselves at Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia (which isn't saying much; it's 2,228m above sea level whereas Everest is 8,848m).
The others powered on ahead but I was struggling a bit with the uphill trek. Ben stayed with me and I kept doing the thing where I would go for a little while and then stop and breathe, and then keep going. I had to keep my head down because of the wind and the sleet so I couldn't see much. And then eventually we reached the top.
We sat for a while at the summit, nibbling away at some of our food. And then we started the descent which, of course, was way easier than the ascent (but it was still raining sleet).
Once again we stopped at the toilets, and then at the Seamans Hut which was where we ate our lunch. Gary had brought a portable cookstove, and he boiled water so we could have soup and tea. Kasper was still there and told us stories about his time in Sweden and trekking out in the wilderness, and the aurora borealis he saw and how everything else faded into insignificance once faced with the realities of survival in the middle of nowhere (aided by some very friendly Swedes—complete strangers). We showed him the Mr Eko doll and he showed us his Swedish Chef doll. He tried to guess where we were all from, based on our accents (I was impossible, of course). And then we said goodbye to him and continued on our merry way.
This reminded me of The Lord of the Rings:
And the Snow River was so blue coming from this angle:
On the last leg we were all so tired and sore (and in need of a bathroom!) but we all kept going to the very end and finally made it back to Charlotte's Pass. It was about 4 or 5 by this stage. We piled back into Gary's car and drove back to Perisher, and took turns having showers, then rested in the lounge room. Gary made us burritos for dinner and we played some more Backpacker. Then Fish and Gary headed out for a bit. The rest of us were too lazy to do anything so we switched on the TV and watched Fawlty Towers and The Vicar of Dibley and bits of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (with me complaining about Emma Watson's acting) until the ballroom scene when we decided it was time to turn in for the night.
Sunday 27/4/08
I slept really badly but I think that's because I turned the thermostat up too high. I felt absolutely feral in the morning. Gary had outdone himself by making us a lovely cooked breakfast with all the leftovers. We cleaned up and packed, took out the garbage and loaded all the gear into the car. And then we set off.
We stopped in Jindabyne for petrol and I bought Butter Menthol and more tissues, thinking I was well and truly sick and worrying that I would infect everyone in the car. I think I fell asleep again because the next thing I knew, we were in Canberra.
Once again we parked in Canberra Central and wandered around in the open air mall to wait for Gary. Ben went into Impact Comics and found a Jin doll on sale so bought that to accompany his Mr Eko doll. He also bought two CDs in Landspeed records: the new one by Crowded House and Vespertine by Björk.
We met up with Gary and decided to go for lunch at Gus's Café. We sat in the covered outdoor area which was quite pleasant. I wasn't hugely hungry so just ordered toasted sandwiches. Gary and Fish's meals were really quite something though:
After lunch, we said goodbye to Gary for good, hopped in the car and continued north. We made a toilet stop at Sutton Forrest where Ben snapped this pic of Jin on the dashboard (he looks like he's running screaming with terror from Burger King):
Once we hit Sydney, I navigated Fish to my mum's house where I picked up the keys to her car. She was in Europe and requested that I drive her car around for a while. So we parted ways—I took Jess home to Kensington in my mum's car, and Fish dropped Ben and the rest of the luggage off at home.
I felt too sick to go to church so I stayed home, but Ben went and played piano for me.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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