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Published: November 14th 2011
Our Route
One lap around the beach road! November 13, 2011
Byron Bay to Melbourne
Last Blog...
Dear friends and family,
Six evenings ago in Gippsland we pulled into our campsite, opened out the beds, raised the roof and dropped the feet of our van for the last time this trip!
It was a nice ending, for within 5 minutes we had been invited to join a group of grey nomads and a "young" couple (our age!) for Happy Hour under someone's awning. Next day we headed into Melbourne where we had the relaxing pleasure of knowing exactly where we were going without the help of Elizabeth (the GPS known by that name as she sounds a bit like the Queen!).
So here we are. Home.
And here are some statistics:
Distance travelled: 27, 388km's.
Time taken: 8 months.
States and Territories visited: All but Tassie.
Road Toll: 1 Kangaroo; numerous birds and lizards; 36,167,254 insects.
Tyres repaired/replaced: 4
Fuel cost: Don't wanna know!! Don't even wanna think about it!!
So, at the end of the last blog we left you in Byron Bay…
Byron Bay… a bit touristy but I love it's beaches, river, scenery, and alternative culture (the town fought against a McCrap being built there
and the town won!).
And you know, we took Body Boards with us all the way around Australia and only Sue had used hers once in the South West of WA as I huddled cold under a beach towel! So, BB was going to be it. We were finally going to feel the exhilaration of riding a wave and of feeling that spontaneous laughter emerge from within. Can you guess what is coming?… it was raining and the waves measured about 2mm in height so that even a single-celled amoeba couldn't have surfed those waves. Oh well, such is life. And I can't complain really!
From Byron Bay we headed south and stopped for lunch with a woman with exactly the same name as me!! About 3 years ago, I was playing on Facebook and asked the 5 or so women with my name to be my FB friends! One replied, and we have chatted on FB from time to time ever since! So we visited and it was lovely to meet, though I think the name thing might have confused her 96 year old mum a bit!!
From here we travelled to Wiseman's Ferry - north of Sydney on
the Hawkesbury River. We crossed the river in car and van on an old barge which operates free of charge 24 hours per day (the same sort of barge in the Daintree was $22 return - and against the advice of Chris De Burgh we had to pay the ferryman before he got us to the other side!!). Anyway, we had entered Wiseman's Ferry from the north but after a couple of days there intended to exit south to Sydney. So we asked the ferryman on our way in, which way it was from here to Sydney. He casually said, "Oh, just go over that mountain then follow your nose". I looked at that mountain - which made Mt Everest look like not much more than a mound of ice - and thought he was joking, but he looked back at me with an entirely earnest face!! So we drove that mountain the next day without the van to check it out. Well!!! Imagine numerous very tight hair-pin bends! Imagine the incline of the road being at about 45 degrees! Imagine stalling and having to do a hill-start (or should I say mountain-start) with a van attached!! Imagine falling off
that mountain!! Imagine dying, going to heaven and coming back to haunt that ferryman!! All highly likely had we taken his advice!! No way Joe-zay!! That ferry-man must have thought we were Evel Knievel's gorgeous sisters!! So we exited via the north road and though it took longer, we are still alive to this day!!
And here follows a couple of really interesting stories…
We visited a few cemeteries in the Wiseman's Ferry area and saw graves of first fleet convicts. Whilst browsing the cemeteries I spoke with Dad on the phone who told me that a late colleague of his, Judith Wiseman, was a descendent of the original settler, Solomon Wiseman after whom the area was named. A minute later we spotted his grave! Then while there, Sue and I started reading the novel The Secret River by Kate Grenville about a man called Will Thornhill who settled on the Hawkesbury River who had been a convict sent from England in 1806 on the boat The Alexander with his wife and two small sons after having been caught stealing wood. He was granted ticket-of-leave and then a pardon and was one of the first white settlers on the Hawkesbury.
Solomon Wiseman's Grave
At Wiseman's Ferry, NSW When I got home I googled Solomon Wiseman and discovered that he had been a convict sent from England in 1806 on the boat The Alexander with his wife and two small sons after having been caught stealing wood and was granted ticket-of-leave and then a pardon and was one of the first white settlers on the Hawkesbury!!! It all sounded so familiar!! I then discovered that sure enough, Kate Grenville's novel about Will Thornhill was inspired by the life of Solomon Wiseman who was her great great great grand-father!! Wow!! And not only that, while there we visited an old disused road originally known as the Great North Road built between 1829 and 1832 between Sydney and the Hunter Valley. It is a 264km road built by 550 convicts, some in irons who hacked through massive sandstone blocks to create the retaining wall. And my research tells me that Solomon Wiseman was contracted to supply provisions to the gangs and operated a ferry which transported people and stock across the river. Fascinating!! Though it all seemed to happen in a back-to-front kind of way for us. Normally one visits an area after having read a book that refers to
it. In this case we were reading a book while at Wiseman's Ferry without realising that the main character of that book was based on Mr Wiseman himself, whose grave we had found!!
But now for an even more fascinating, though sad story…
While poking around the cemeteries in the area, Sue called me over to see "the Buddhist grave" with no name or other markings on it. It was beautifully presented with lovely rocks around the border with herbs growing on the top covered in little Buddha statues. As I saw no flags or other Buddhist markings I suggested that rather than it being the grave of a Buddhist, perhaps it was the grave of a person whose nickname was Buddha or who had collected Buddha statues. I then noticed a plastic folder on the grave and on closer inspection saw that inside was a musical score titled, "Missa Sollis. Requiem for Eli" by Nigel Westlake. I gasped, for I know of Nigel Westlake as a well known Australian composer. I wondered whether he may have had a son Eli and whether this was his grave. So later, once again, I googled and found that Eli, was indeed Nigel's
son and at 21 had been killed. And we had happened upon his grave. Google told me that he and his brother and friends had been out late one night in Sydney. Eli had thrown cheese-balls and they had landed on the car of an intoxicated woman who retaliated by driving into the group killing Eli. It was known in the media as the "cheese-ball murder" and I realised that I had heard of it. Later after I returned home I discovered that my choir (The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus) had performed the world premiere of Missa Solis earlier this year just before we had left on our trip and that it is on the schedule again for next year. Amazing to think that next year I may perform the very requiem mass written for the young man whose grave we had stood looking at without knowing whose grave it was. If I am part of this performance, I will have the image of Eli's face as I saw it on the internet and the image of his grave in mind. It will mean so much more than it would have otherwise. I felt that in reading the stories and
family tributes on the internet I was entering a sacred and private place and that Eli, ironically through his grave, was coming alive to me. Once again, it happened all back-to front. Normally, I would have researched information about a requiem mass we were singing and then if in the area, visited the grave. But in this case, I first found the grave and thereby discovered Eli's story and may well sing the requiem mass next year! Amazing that had the score not been there on the grave, even as I sang the Missa Sollis, Requiem for Eli, I would never have known that I had once stood by his grave. Requiescat In Pace, Eli.
Next stop Sydney where a stress-induced stroke was only narrowly averted while Sue tried to drive through Sydney's narrow, hilly, crowded roads in the rain towing a van without knowing exactly where we were going! But as usual the spectacular grandeur and glory of Sydney Harbour from the Manly ferry ensured all of Sydney's sins were forgiven and even the overcast sky created its own beauty as it seemed to wrap itself around the skyline, bridge and opera house and provided a magnificent backdrop!
At
Manly Beach we saw an amazing sand sculpture (see photo) and enjoyed an indulgent ice-cream, for surely, either an ice-cream or fish and chips (or both!) are a must at Manly Beach!!
We also visited the Blue Mountains and stopped at the Jelly Bean swimming hole, a place I used to visit as a child when we stayed with friends in Blaxland (Dal and Ken Mason). I had memories of being young and lithe and of the exhilaration of jumping off the rocks into the river.
Next stop Canberra as we hastened south. I love Canberra for its wide streets, sense of open space, parklands and beautiful gum-trees everywhere. We visited the War Memorial where I found the name of my Great Grandmother's cousin who died in 1915 at Gallipoli. We visited the Portrait Gallery and with my dear friend Jan, attended the Canberra International Film Festival. We saw a great film about Mama Africa - Miriam Mekeba whose full name is so long that once she had spoken it, that was the end of the film (not really!). We heard that due to political activity she was exiled from South Africa for 27 years even being denied attending the
funeral of her mother. She re-entered South Africa at the request of Nelson Mandela and that emotional moment was captured on film. We also saw a wonderful film called Sing your Song about Harry Belafonte. Well, all I knew of him was that he was a bit of an old bloke who used to sing slightly daggy songs. But wow! What an amazing, politically astute and charismatic man! He has been involved in the struggle for human rights all his life along with his friends Martin Luther King, Sydney Poitier and Nelson Mandela. In the 60's he had a TV variety show which caused a huge scandal when Petula Clarke, as a white woman, whilst singing a duet with him, touched his arm! He was then told he couldn't have both black and white artists mixing on the show, so he simply walked away in protest. Even in recent years, in his eighties, in the US, he led a peace march against the US involvement in the Iraq war and organised a national forum for elders and another for youth to discuss the high levels of poverty, imprisonment and hopelessness among much of the youth in the US. WOW! He
deserves a Nobel Peace Prize (or as a postcard I picked up in India once in reference to Mother Teresa called it, the Noble Peace Price!!).
We then headed South through the picturesque Cooma and Nimmitabel to Cann River, then headed west through lush East Gippsland into Melbourne.
We paused in Nimmitabel, where we learned about Ghikas Boulgaris, who, in 1829 was sent to Port Jackson on the convict ship 'Norfolk' with 6 other Greek men after having been convicted in Britain of piracy in the Mediterranean! He became known as "Jigger" and after marrying an Irish girl, settled in Nimmitabel becoming Australia's first Greek-Australian!!
After a few yoo-hoos we crossed the border into Victoria and stopped at St Mary's Church in Bairnsdale. The inside walls are entirely covered by ornate murals painted 70 years ago by Venecian Italian migrant artist, Francesco Floreani who also worked on the Regent, Plaza and State Theatres in Melbourne.The work took more than 4 years of lying, bending, kneeling and balancing on 15 metre scaffolding to complete and I thought I was back in Italy gazing in amazement at the graphic scenes of purgatory, heaven and the fires of hell along with angels galore.
The artistry and the abundance of images was amazing with the artist even depicting himself in one of the murals as an observer at the crucifixion of Jesus!
And that's about it! I won't say we are now back to "real life" as all experiences make up real life, but that part of our life's journey is over and the future stands before us with all its potential promise, joy, confusion, pain, excitement and hope.
Home again after an amazing experience having met many wonderful people, having seen so much breathtaking natural beauty, having breathed in the warm clear air, walked upon the red earth, and stood under clear blue skies in wide open spaces!
What a trip!
What a country!
What a life!
Real life…
Ros (and Sue)
xxx
PS More photos below!
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Lesley
non-member comment
What a wonderful blog!
Hi Ros and Sue.....I just have to tell you how much I have enjoyed reading your blog. Ros, your writing style is wonderful; the way you bring alive the places you have visited, not just in a picturesque way but your research and interest in your subjects is fascinating! We have just purchased our first caravan, being almost grey nomads, and hope to spend the foreseeable future travelling this wonderful land which you have brought so eloquently to life. Well done to you both. Lesley