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Published: August 4th 2013
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I am sitting by a small canal in Carcasone, France. An Otter swims past creating V shape ripples in the water as he goes by. I can already feel the heat in the sun touching my shoulders and knees, a promise of another heat weave.
If I look to my right I can see a little houseboat gently bobbing up and down. There are four bikes tied to the front of it, leaking the secret that there is a family aboard. The curtains are still tightly shut against the morning sun, even though it is 9 o'clock.
Turning my head I gaze down the canal to my left and see strong tall trees standing silently on the waters edge, the roots of trees and grass drinking deep of the water below. Following the canal with my eyes I can see it stretch off into the distance gently turning a corner out of sight, hiding it's beauty from my inquisitive eyes.
Ben is still asleep in the car behind me. The little Toyota has been our home for the past week and a half. Folding down the seats at night and pulling out our sleeping bags (just in case it gets
cold) has become a well oiled routine and I find myself looking forward to the evenings of laying my head down to rest knowing that all is well and there is nothing of consequence to worry about.
In the mornings we take it in turns to pack up the car before moving on to our next destination. It is a funny feeling moving from place to place leaving no trace that we were ever there. Nobody knows but my love and me.
We eat simply, live simply, taking each day as it happens. Stopping at rest stops for showers as we drive from town to town. There is nothing more that we need.
We have no idea of what day it is or even the hour. There is a day some time in the future that we have to be in Paris but it is such a long way off that we feel no obligation to keep a track of time.
Driving on every day leaves us with a constant feeling of homelessness and this is tiring but there is also a pull to keep going to see what is around the corner.
Tears and
tantrums have been present in our trip; finding our deepest souls in the moments of despair. Keeping a hold on each other when our hands are slipping. What do you do when you only have the space of a small car to hold the anger of two?
Through moments of anger we have found solutions to problems that have popped up from time to time. I take the wheel when we head into towns and cities as my sense of direction is not of any help to us. Ben directs us through the maze of inner cities like he has a foresight of what is to come. Oh how lost I would be without him in so many ways.
As I look back on our adventures, I see the little fortified town of Monteriggioni. It’s tall walls guarding its people within. I remember jumping the barriers at sunset and climbing to the top of the high walls to watch the sun sink behind the cloudless horizon. From this vantage point, perched high above the land we spied a little bar down the road and we could hear the faint sound of Tracy Chapman’s Revolution hanging on the wind, inviting us
to dine there – so we did. We wondered home in the moonlight, guided by flickering tails of Fireflies. We woke amongst olive trees and dragonflies – the smell of the grassy fields warming in the morning sun.
My mind moves to the sunny beaches in glorious technicolour linked along the coast of Italy. Cinque Terre (5 Towns) was a hidden heaven where time and modernity had not tarnished the old ways of Italian life. With only one way of getting in and out we climbed aboard the train, crammed with people wanting to witness the quiet life that they had traded in for a mortgage and car. We could have settled down here in this wonderful part of the world forever, but we drove on with the Italian radio belching out the over sung tunes of ABBA, Beach Boys + The Bee Gees as we headed towards the Tower of Pisa, then over the French border and into Nice where there was a carnivale atmosphere, crazy circus bikes, free give-aways and floats charging thru the crowded streets; Tour de France was upon us….
And so I find myself sitting by this little canal and I feel my heart fill with joy
at the thought of all I have seen, all that I have learnt. There is nowhere at home that I could have obtained all this priceless information that cannot be bought or taken but must be experienced.
I have only just realised how cut off Australia is! We are truly an island with closed boarders. How sad it makes me. There is so much to learn from differences; nation-hopping has made this very clear. Why are we so closed to others?....
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