Gnylmarung, Dampier Peninsula, Western Australia

Twice now we have stopped for longer periods and stayed with generous friends, once Darwin and now in Broome.

Twice we have spilt from the car, initially with whatever was in hands reach, pillows, keys, books and shoes and then slowly adding more as things are pulled from the trailer. We create little piles of hats, bags, wallets and phones in odd corners of homes, behind doors and under tables. We languish in little luxuries like recharging computers in unused power points behind couches, relishing the speed and potency of mains power.

A typical nook recently colonised by the family.

We have slept in spare rooms, in kid’s rooms, in backyards and in what may be seen as a glorious cliché, on a deck under a giant mango tree in Broome.

We have showered with the frequency of mainstream Australia, pulled cold milk from a fridge whose door isn’t a lid, enjoyed hot water we haven’t boiled ourselves, worn clothes only once before washing again and basked in white, bright light that doesn’t emanate from little torches strapped to the front of our heads.

We have spent time with old friends and reconnected with the tempo of normal life like children going off to school, adults to work, intricate transport logistics of sports, teenagers lazily dropping around during afternoons and the fact there is a difference between a Monday night and a Friday night.

And with this comes a sense off losing some sort of travel fitness, a consciousness that we have become a little stodgy in our movements. When we are on the road, we pack down our little patch of existence every few days, even daily at times, and move on. Soon after we start again somewhere else, another place to learn. We do our diminutive forward-reverse trailer dance at some new site, strategically angling the tent into our preferred spot (with due reverence to the quiet words of my Dad swirling in my head about facing north), and open out into a new space that will be home for another night or two.

It’s not rushed as such – there are times we are left with little to do – but we also have many times when we are deciphering our next move, working on our next shopping list, adding up kilometres until the next fuel station. And of course, we are generally only directly thinking of ourselves, our nomadic group of four and not of whom we might be seeing, where and when.

If anything, humans are great adaptors, evidenced by how we have managed to shape lifestyles in most spots on Earth. From frozen tundras to baking deserts, windswept peaks to unending flatness, cities where we are surrounded by thousands of others to plains where we are surrounded by thousands of kilometres, the planet is divided into billions of places that people call home. It’s wild diversity of what we consider relative normality, an immense miscellany of the immediate sphere of our lives, foreign to those from outside. And yet, we live on.

Of course, adapting to life traveling around the country in a tent is presumably easier than eking out a living as a subsistence farmer in North Korea or negotiating the favelas of Rio. But it is still a daily process of adjustment, as is the existence that we may be tempted to identify as everyday life.

We leave again in a few days, heading down the stretched coast of Western Australia, and farewelling those who have opened their homes and welcomed us. It’ll probably take a few days for that travel vigour to come back as we return to our itinerant normal, but it will.

The biggest adjustment may be when we turn the car off for the final time in the driveway of our home, but that change is for another day.

Broome, Western Australia

Song lyrics keep ringing through my head. There’s the one about six days on the road and making it home tonight, but the main one is from Neil Murray. In his song ‘Good Light in Broome’, he tells the hard-bitten story of a bloke struggling through his life, limping from one disaster to the next as he tries to find answers to his existence of constant sorrow.  Early in the piece he is given the clue that maybe the solution lies in the clear, precise atmosphere of the western town of Broome.

Of course he initially ignores this, and continues to struggle, until finally he succumbs and heads west, where he describes his plans once he reaches the Indian Ocean. 

Well when I get to Cable Beach,

I’ll fall right out of the truck and into the sea,

With my clothes still on I’ll plunge under the waves,

And all the dirt will drain away.

Of course, the dirt in the song has a greater meaning, but for us, it’s literal. The last time any of us have had a shower is close to a week, after travelling from Alice Springs to Halls Creek via the Tanami Track and then on to Purnululu. This amounts to a couple of thousand kilometres, about half of which is on dirt road. The camping is in bowls of swirling dust, where just walking leaves a small cloud of agitated powder that trails on the wind like smoke from a cigarette.

Both Sandi and myself are stained with dirt, ground into our fingers, toes and knees. However, Eddie and Frank are like we have never seen them. Their faces are like the surface of dried clay pans, with crusted circles of dirt scattered uniformly across their cheeks. It’s difficult to tell if it’s burnt skin or a layer of hardened soil. It’s rough to touch as you stroke a finger across their skin, like some sort of oversized brail. Their hair is tangled, with a dead brownness to it. It lays flat on their scalp, except when they wake and it’s standing to attention at random angles, then slowly descends to a matted dullness as the suns warms and the waxy grease melts.

Frank doing a good job of looking like the desert in which he has been living.

If faced with a period of time where showers are scarce, I always think the best thing you can do is at least wash your feet at the end of the day. Of course I have forced this principle onto my family, so each evening after we have set up camp or get back from a day of walking in the heat, we fill a pail with a few litres of precious water and bathe. The water almost immediately turns the colour of weak, watery gravy, darkening seconds after the first foot submerges. At the conclusion, the water is tossed and the bottom of the bucket is left with a dark residue like coffee grains at the bottom of a huge cup.

Frank announces on day five of the shower-drought that he has had shoes on all day and the foot bath is thus redundant. I’m too tired to argue, and more to the point, it’s one less set of disgusting leg-ends that I have to share the priceless cleansing water with.

It’s only on the final leg in the car, a five-hour stint from near Fitzroy Crossing to Broome two day, later that the strategic error of this moment of lax parenting becomes apparent.

Frank removes his shoes.

The smell emerges from the back of the car, creeping like a hungry cheetah gently moving towards the unsuspecting gazelle. It’s a mixture of damp rot and sweat and has an acidic edge that tunnels through the nasal passages like a drill bit through soft wood. The brutal pall takes residence in the cabin and refuses to leave. The combined swirling squall of four open windows means little. The stink just sits, stubborn and unmoving. 

All that dirt will drain away, all that dirt will drain away….

We drive straight through Broome to Gantheaume Point, park the car and run. It’s high tide, the water is a brilliant turquoise and we surge in with splash and foam. The water is soft and cool and folds around us as we plunge under, uncontrollably laughing with elation. We rub our faces, spread our arms and fall backwards, the water swallowing our bodies to the quiet blue beneath.

After some time we slowly walk out, dripping and still stained with the bronzed crust of the desert, but transformed by the brine. We sit on the sand and look back into the endless azure. Diamond drops shimmer in the sun as they drop from earlobes onto the bleached sand, making tiny divots in the grains. There’s nothing to say, it’s a moment to just feel.  

White Gums, Alice Springs

A few moments in time from Alice Springs…

She sits alone in a simple chair. She is outside her home, a grey aluminium oblong with the word ATCO in faded grey letters on the side. It’s raised from the ground by some bricks on each corner. Paint chips away. She has tried to soften the severe right-angled edges of the box by adding little touches, like strings of lights that sparkle in the evening, although some are dead. There are some plants in pots and a cheap metal arbour that has a skeletal shrub struggling to get over it.  When the wind blows, chimes hidden from view sing a quiet song.

Beside her is a table, with a glass, a bottle of wine and another bottle with some sort of pinkish liquid in it. She tops her glass and sips, and then settles back and stares into the mid-distance at nothing obvious. She is smiling and her face has an almost serene look, except the expression barely changes, so the effect is unsettling. She seems alone in an ongoing dream.

In Alice Springs at the moment, the day shifts quickly from warm sunshine to a cold gloaming that adds to that atmosphere of melancholy that can invade the senses as the shadows lengthen. Added to this is the towering red wall of the MacDonnell Ranges that soar behind, a huge pointed curtain that changes from caramel to red to black as the sun descends. The evening settles and she moves a worn blue blanket across her chest, ready for the descending layer of cold. She has sat here before.

Eventually, after dark, she moves inside and turns on the television. It’s muted tones, audience laughter and squarkish advertisement’s can be heard until after midnight and into the early morning. At some point she must turn it off, because as daybreaks and the first shafts of orange yellow sun pushes across the dry creek bed beside which she lives, all is quiet.

He stands in a line in a bottle shop, just after the doors have opened. He has one of those old fashioned trolleys in front of him, with chipped paint on the metal handles and a faded grey vinyl carrier, torn in places. On top of the basket, the purpose of his visit, two bottles of port. They lie side by side like bodies ready for burial.

He is wearing a loose t-shirt, stained tracksuit pants and pair of worn thongs that barely keep shrivelled toes and cracked, blackened heels off the ground. He has the unmistakable smell of those whose soul has been gripped by the talons of booze. It’s a sodden mixture of urine and body grime, a floating miasma. It triggers images of shadows in a kitchen, empty fridges, fly’s floating in fat soaked water, worn carpets and televisions on, but with no sound.

The claws have grabbed and not let go.

Still, his hair has been tended to. It’s white and thinning, although still shoulder length. The white transforms into a tobacco yellow at the end. It has been slicked back over his ears with some sort of liquid that leaves visible furrows from the teeth of his comb.

He chats to people, making jokes he has said before about their drink choices and snorting a throaty, husky laugh. People smile and nod. He hopes he’s a character. At least that’s something. At some point, he gave up and handed over his life to this routine. He walks to the counter, pays with a shaky hand and hobbles off into his never ending tomorrow.

Litchfield National Park, south west of Darwin

Florence Falls in Litchfield National Park are twin cascades that crash into a beautiful pool of dark rippling water, a reservoir of cool relief in the heat of a Territory afternoon. The change in climate from the arid, sun-baked campsite to this green sanctuary is stark. It’s only a short walk, but it’s another world.

I have observed that the gentle slope of a beach, the forgiving angle of the sand, allows the swimmer to enter the surf gracefully. Bathers stroll into the foam, sometimes flicking the water on themselves to acclimatise or jogging before elegantly diving under a roller and surfacing gleaming, rivulets of waters rolling down their backs.

Not so waterfalls.

Here, the sharp jagged rocks lightly coated with a slick, grease-like algae matched with the often frigid temperatures of the inviting waters provide the ultimate test of human agility, a trial that changes in difficulty based on the competitors age and body shape.

At Florence, the addition of a sturdy ladder counts for little. I spend a highly enjoyable hour watching hot tourists flop and crash as they try desperately to enter at a pace their brains and bodies are demanding of them. There’s a glorious incompetence to the entries, a repeating failure that these impervious cascades have witnessed for decades.

And oh, the bodies! Far be it for me to criticise as my middle age begins the inevitable droop and general rounding of the edges. No this not about weight or fat rolls, although it appears anecdotally that in the camping and caravanning community, those few mid-strength beers every afternoon from four might be having an effect. No, this is about the glorious variety that the modern human frame provides. There are shapes that are yet to have descriptors, somewhere between spherical and cubic, folds of skin hanging where anatomy should have been, legs that range from parallel to parenthesis and bums that have completely disappeared, rendered extinct by the march of time.

Florence Falls, with the ladder of constant uncertainty on the right.

‘He’s not allowed to do that.’

I am whisked from my reverie back to the now by the voice of Frank who has swum up behind me and onto the rock on which I’m perched taking in the entertainment. He nods towards some young men, maybe 18 or 19 who have clambered up the cliff face and are clearly doing whatever physics their risk-hungry brains can manage before the certain jump.

‘The sign says no-jumping,’ Frank continues.

‘I know mate,’ I reply with a nod, just in time as the first rule-breaker cracks into the water, feet first but his arms slightly extended, just enough for them to slap against the surface and issue a crack like the first moment a huge tree starts is plunge to the earth after being felled.

The others in the group soon follow.

The jumping boys are just the next example of human’s insatiable need to walk away from the designated track. Throughout the trip there have been endless examples where people have decided that the rule doesn’t apply to them. From climbing mountains and evidence of people snaking off the trail, to hot springs where the source of the water is a small pool, notionally off limits, but of course, next to it is the earth-tramped evidence of those who have illegally plunged.

What makes us do this?

One could argue it’s the drive that has allowed humanity to walk to almost every corner of the earth, descend to the deepest parts of the ocean and bounce across the surface of the moon. A sense of wonder, a sense of possibility… the need to know what is around the next corner.

You could also suggest that it may be the desire for something truly unique in a saturated world of experience, as the ‘frontier’ opens up to air conditioned four wheel drives and microwaves that go ding when that night’s frozen meal is ready.

Or maybe it’s just because the easier rules are broken, the more likely we are to do it.

Whatever the case, Frank gives a reassuring shake of the head and dives off, like only agile, carefree seven-year-olds can, and I am left hoping that he survives the impending moments when he decides to break the rules himself. 

Just south of Gregory, Qld

The first hint of trouble is outside the Hann River Roadhouse where we have stopped for a promised cold drink on the way from Cooktown to Karumba, a drive that will take us a couple of days. Sections of sharp, serrated corrugations have shaken us so much that both Eddie and Frank declare newly wobbly teeth.

After starting without protest all journey, the car turns over dry for several seconds before I stop and release the key. I crank it again, it turns over healthily but sounds like it’s missing something crucial. It’s not starting like this.

Without any real reason other than custom, I slightly shake my head and pop the bonnet. I stare under, and to my untrained eye, there is nothing that would suggest a problem, although what I’m hoping to see I am not sure.

Across the dusty road are a couple of blokes who seem to have stopped primarily for the access to a cold beer from the roadhouse and are drinking thirstily. They saunter over, dusty cracked toes in thongs that have moulded into the wave of their feet, and offer the requisite rhetorical question of ‘problem’?

‘You could pump it a bit’ says one, and presses a little black button several times on top of the fuel filter, a fitting that I have seen before but never realised what it was actually for. I cover this piece of learning with a knowing nod and a ‘give it a crank darl’ to my wife who is in the driving seat. Sandi looks at me confused, wondering why I have suddenly been inhabited by some dry old bushy, but starts the car and boom, she’s away.

We drop the lid (this old bushy is here to stay!), assume we might have a little fuel issue, and head into the dust.

We spend several days in Karumba Point, where I access the local RACQ. The mechanic has an exceptional economy of words, so I clumsily attempt to fill the space with dialogue that further confirms my lack of mechanical nous, but he thinks he may have sorted it. Next time we go to start though, same problem.

Eddie fingers his tooth, a pre-molar and avoids eating apples.

It’s time to do that thing I was hoping to dodge all trip – effectively walk up to a mechanic in a small town and hand them my wallet. I had visions of some little shed, much shaking of head, a complete rebuild of the vehicle from bottom up, a bunch of locals out the back all talking quietly and laughing while glancing my way as I realise I am victim of the week.

What I find is a young mechanic in Normanton who drops whatever he was doing that morning in a bid to get our car back on the road. Deano seems genuine in his attempts and is truly baffled by the intermittent qualities of the issue, so much so that eventually he just stares at the uncooperative motor and exclaims, ‘Why? Why? What the fuck is wrong with you? Why?’

After much of the day has passed, we conclude it’s a fuel problem combined with an electrical issue. Deano magically gets the car going, with a slight hitch. We can’t stop it until we get to someone who can perform some sort of alchemy on a solenoid that will bypass the electrical fault. The only tiny hiccough is that the alchemist is a bloke called Dale in Mt Isa, around six hours away. So, it’s in the car we go and down to the Isa, arriving a few hours before midnight.

Eddie says his tooth is getting even more painful. I should have got Deano to have a look.

Dale the alchemist turns out to be a tremendously nice bloke with a five-month-old baby and an almost compulsive need to offer helpful advice ranging in handy campsites in isolated parts of Queensland to the best butcher in town. He works his magic, we get some new parts for the fuel problem and within a day or so, we are back.

The whole process throws us onto a different route as we head back to where we came from. We are now camped on the Gregory River, about 20km’s south of the dot on the map that says ‘Gregory Downs’.

It’s utterly glorious. We come in covered in dust to an oasis of clear water, teeming with wildlife. Finches, willy-wagtails and wrens flit around chasing each other and the tiny insects they pluck from the air. Small fish that are almost opaque other than the dark stripes that wrap their sides swim in the clear, greenish water. Kangaroos appear on the opposite bank and drink from the river, lazily hop-crawling along the side of the waters edge. They scratch their heads and chests, and seem oblivious to us. The banks are lined with white paper gums, shedding their flaky bark in small sheets like mottled old newspaper, with branches high above us laden with the last floods debris.

Gregory River, an oasis in outback Queensland.

We were planning on staying only a night, after the delays of the vehicle, but we have an unnecessary vote and decide to stay another night. The poll was redundant, we all new we would.

During the morning, Eddies tooth drops out painlessly as he is fiddling with the fire. It sits gleaming in the sunlight on the table, a pearl-like beacon showing that sometimes, what appears to be trouble is just life pushing you down a different track and often a better one.

Cooktown, Qld

I was once told that there is a bit of money in the art of creating names for products, especially pharmaceuticals. Normally a word never seen before, the successful naming of these products appears to lie in the skill of indicating some of what the product can actually do. ‘Panadol’ is often seen as a premier example, as it actually sounds like it dulls pain, a soothing bluntness to the sharp edge of that piercing headache. Meanwhile, ‘Anusol Wipes’ probably gives way a little too much.

It seems that this skill is being applied in strange ways when it comes to the caravan industry and the naming of their particular models. Like cars, caravans generally seem to have a maker name, for instance Jayco, and then a model name. And it’s these model names that are of note.

You can spend a fascinating 30 minutes walking around a caravan park trying to deduce the thinking behind the naming of certain models. But after a while, a certain set of themes emerge.

First, we have what I call the romantic, nostalgic dream style. These include things like ‘Outback, ‘Cruiser’ and ‘Billabong’. The closest bit of ‘outback’ some of these rigs look like they have seen is out back of the very nice five-bedroom home on the north shore of Sydney, but I digress. At least these names give a sense of what may be possible if you choose to hook it to the back of your vehicle. There’s a hint of what lies ahead – not exactly to the level of nicking a sheep and using the waterway to escape conviction, albeit in a fatal way, but at least the idea of pulling up near a river somewhere and having a nice red and that lovely dip Pam makes from celery stalks.

But then things get a bit lateral.

The next theme seems to revolve around the idea of national pride. Examples include ‘Patriot’, complete with an airbrushed Australian flag motif in the background and a sense of you had better fit in or, well, you know the rest. But the winner in this category, in terms of tenuous symbolism, currently goes to the ‘Kokoda’, the word snugly embedded in an almost Anzac insignia on the front of this fearless caravan, bravely trudging through roads of bitumen and into it’s powered site so there’s no missing of Family Feud in the arvo, because, well, it’s silly but Don and I just love it.

Finally, we come to the strangest category of all – the reference to medieval or ancient history category. Starters in this include ‘Knight’, ‘Crusader’ and my favourite of all, ‘Excalibur’.

I mine the deepest tangential word association I can muster, but still come up empty handed as to why these names make any sense whatsoever in terms of being identifiers of small homes on wheels.

Of course, there’s the obvious link to invasion, the stealing of territory, raping, pillaging and destroying, but I am guessing this isn’t exactly the thinking behind it.

I decide the only other explanation is that the occupants of the caravan’s names must have some sort of direct link to the event or people identified. This theory needs to be tested.

I wander over to ‘Crusader’ and knock.

From deep within the shadows of the cavernous domicile, a quiet shuffling emanates, the well oiled door swings gently open, and a older woman appears. She is wearing sensible runners, slacks and a collared t-shirt that has ‘Hells Gate Roadhouse’ embroidered on the upper left.

‘Hello’, she says in a slightly croaky voice, but still grandmotherly sweet.

There’s a pause as I start to think I may be going down a wrong path, but I gamely plough on.

‘I noticed your caravan, and…’ but she interrupts me before I get to the question

‘Oh yes, she’s a beauty isn’t she? Bruce looked high and low and did all sorts of research before settling on this one. It’s been fantastic actually, although a few little screws appeared on the floor the other day and well, Bruce hasn’t got the faintest idea where they came from. But we’ll keep them just in case, I’ve popped them in a bag. But as I was saying, it’s been …’

Now it’s my turn to interrupt.

‘Yep, she’s great. But just quickly, I noticed that it was called the ‘Crusader’ right? So was Bruce actually a Norman Crusader?’

I selected what I thought was the most garden variety of the crusades to maximise the chance of a bullseye. For a second time, there is a pause, but slightly longer. Her face changes from brightly optimistic to deeply suspicious.

Without taking her eyes from me, she leans her head back and moves it slightly to the right, I assume in the general direction of Bruce, and calls in a louder, voice ‘Bruuuuuce, there’s a chap here who wants to know if you go for the Storm or the Crusaders… I think,’ her voice trailing off so that the ‘ink’ finishes on the upward inflective.

‘No, no’, I quickly correct ‘was he a part of the Norman Crusades?’

“Bruuuuuce, he actually wants to know if you were a part of the Norman Crusades?’

I can’t distinguish exactly what Bruce mutters from the glooms of Crusader, but it sounds very much like, ‘he farkin’ what?’

An embarrassed red flashes across the face of grandma, and the heavy, far more determined footfalls of Bruce approach.

Blinking into the sunlight, he stares at me.

‘What?’ he asks.

“Actually, it’s fine,’ I mutter as I chicken out. Maybe my theory needs more work.

However, as I am walking back to our campsite, a bloke sporting a big white cowboy hat walks out of another van. Across the front, in stylised Western script and surrounded by rope, shines ‘Alamo’, so maybe I am onto something after all.

Cape Tribulation, Qld

Thanks to the modern vernacular, the word awesome has been slightly diluted in its meaning so now it can describe a reasonably warm afternoon in the middle of winter, a good run from a champion filly, a new single from Beyoncé or if my kids are to be believed, Cristiano Ronaldo’s hair.

But it’s only when you are lucky enough to start approaching the edges of the Daintree Rainforest does the word starts to manifest its true meaning.

Rising from the coast as a giant sheet of green, shadowy navy and black, the forest-clad mountains dominate the skyline, at their peak leaving a jagged line along the blue that looks like a piece of chipped stone lying abruptly against the cobalt. It’s sharp on the horizon, particularly as the day closes and the shapes take on an ominous, serrated darkness.

A thin band of coastline, at times only as wide as the narrow road that takes us into the forest proper, somehow retains the mass of land and keeps it from sliding into the twinkling Coral Sea.

Camped just within the threshold of the forest at Cape Tribulation, it’s not so much the sights or the smells that are notable, but the sounds. This forest still wakes up with a bang, a cacophony of squawks, screams and whistles as the remaining natural residents welcome another sun.

Oh, to have been here before us – to hear the shrieking dissonance of this place when it was teeming with life and truly untouched. But that moment has passed.

Despite the protections, or possibly because of the endless signs warning of the dangers of human contact in the form of litter, fire, scraping coral with flippers and cassowary versus car there is a strong sense of impact of human contact here.

Of course, I am a part of this, along with the family. There’s just no way humans can be somewhere and not have an effect – the only true method of environmental protection is for us to stay the hell out. But that isn’t the human way. All along the coast of Queensland we have been reminded of the sheer determination of those who decided to see what was over that next mountain, and the associated progress and suffering that has resulted.

Eddie on his bike at sunrise on Noah Beach, Cape Tribulation.

Adding to this sense is the fact that we had prepared for something a little less, well, convenient. In reading about the Cape online and in brochures, we had been constantly reminded that we were about to go ‘off the grid’, there was no mobile coverage and to be ready.

With a Burke and Wills zeal, we had meticulously planned for the five days we would be in and around Cape Trib, including all meals, water and charging up our little satellite text message gadget so we could alert the authorities of our whereabouts at any stage.

I bought extra beer.

I considered filling the extra diesel jerry cans, which would have given us fuel to drive the length and breadth of the Daintree several times over, and then most of the way back to Brisbane, but decided against. 

But overall, we were ready.

However, the idea of this remoteness was somewhat crushed when the boys breathlessly returned to the camp to inform us that they had uncovered a very reasonably priced Paddle Pop at the general store across the road. They were proven correct and the sticky, dripping treat made a lovely accompaniment to the walk along the beach. Wrappers in the bin, of course.

Between Edmonton and Gordonvale, Qld

Change comes in all forms.

We are told that we are resistant to it, it can be unsettling, we crave routine while there are some who thrive with or that we need change to grow. We actually live within change – we can pretend we have order and control but often in life it’s the major change events that shape the ultimate path that we are not necessarily forging but laying behind us.

When I was talking to a friend about this trip before we left, I mentioned the nagging desire of not wanting the process to be some search for a meaning as I tried to stumble through my middle years. I didn’t want to spend the time waiting for some epiphany that would help me make sense of it all. Of course, this was just a weak self-protective verbal insurance policy to make sure this ultimately selfish desire didn’t overtake my enjoyment of what is an extraordinary privilege.

She said that whatever happened, that I would be different at the end of it no matter what. It was comforting and best of all, likely to manifest with little to no effort on my behalf, which is exactly the style of life epiphany I can get used to.

Already I have noticed some changes, mainly physical. I haven’t shaved, so a speckled brown, grey stubble covers my face. I haven’t washed my hair, so it stays in the position I last left it, like a faithful dog. I’ve been wearing thongs, so my shins and feet are dotted with small scratches and healing wounds.

But the main point of change is my hands. They have become someone else’s. No surprises as they suddenly contend with trailer hitches, fires, dirt and grime compared to keyboard and mouse.

Cracks have appeared near the nails, and on the sides of my pointing finger. Not cuts, but cracks. There are lines of dirt in these cracks. Your thumb and pointing finger of your preferred hand (in my case, the right) are the workhorse digits – easily dirtiest. On the flipside, my little pinky on the left still looks like it’s just stepped out of a half hour shower and treatment, pink and soft, almost embarrassingly naked.

My hands are changing. This picture shows them almost at their cleanest since leaving, which is a bit disappointing in terms of dramatic impact.

Hands and fingers are a fascinating storyteller of their owners, unique in what they reveal. I can immediately think of my parent’s hands, especially my Dad’s. A farmer, his were often dirty and wounded, occasionally spotted with small thorns and splinters but also, surprisingly soft on the underside. They were also reassuringly dry. Mum was also often working outside, but maintained her nails and skin so they were always essentially feminine, something that not all women who work physically manage.

The hands of my wife are beautiful. They are a wonderful shape and there’s a certain implied dexterity to them. I know that the boys will also remember them, as they get older.

And it’s these hands, those of the two boys, hands that still search for mine as we cross streets or walk through crowds, that I notice most now. They still fit easily within my palm, but they are changing, like us all. Their hands will continue to grow and continue to tell the stories that will shape the form of their lives.

Near Watsonville, Qld

We find ourselves camped on a private property near the tiny hamlet of Watsonville on the Atherton Tableland. It’s beautiful, jagged granite country with white, dusty soil mixed with an assortment of rocks and boulders that dominate the landscape.

The rocks are everywhere, including angrily jutting through the surface of the ground, the perfect unexpected stopping point for the full stride, misdirected toe. They drop grown men and create a wound that leaves the skin flapping. But the true champions are the boulders – enormous, heavy statues that lay all over.

I am sitting on one of these protruding boulders overlooking a stream, healthily running with ice cold water through tight rapids into large, rippling pools. The water is clear however the brown of the algae on the bottom gives it a colour of deep green, depending on whether the sun is behind cloud or shining directly through.

The stream is part of a wider riverbed, which in full flood would be awesome. It must have been these kind of flows that has placed some of the boulders, bigger than buses, precariously on what seems little to no purchase, grimly overhanging the water with a constant threat of collapse. They sit with intent.

Scrubby grey trees – eucalypts, she-oaks, wiry native bushes and dead skeletons rise out of the bed, some holding the remains of the last flood bent around the base of their trunks. They are a white grey that glows when moonlit.

Grey dominates, but there are other colours apparent after time spent staring. Caramels, whites, light greens, small yellow blossom and an unexpected flourish of red from a tiny shrub that has small, vivid flowers the shape of bells.

The sound is that of the flowing water, that constant soundscape that is the symphony of the combined rapids in earshot. Birdsong also emerges, pretty chirrups and tweets that come from small darting wrens that flicker in and out of view.

The friendly boulder beside which I wrote this.

Overall, this bush has a great sense of weight. It sits heavily. The flowing water runs through a presence of permanence, stability and strength. There is a feeling of great age to this place, an ancient experience that continues to exist through fire, storms, drought and flood. There’s a raw honesty to it all.

Days pass through here, as opposed to it being a part of the time scape. It’s a fixed space in the ongoing movement of time.

The idea of the Australian bush conjures multiple images, the outback, the ranges, the desert and more. But this is one of the defining images for me. There’s a raw honesty to it. It makes you sit profoundly and just exist. The strength and permanence is likely an illusion – there is an old tin mine not far from here that is being looked at as it may have copper now. But right now, if you get yourself into a quiet spot, surrounded by the imposing boulders, you can pretend you are absolutely and utterly, alone. What a gift.

Hideaway Bay, Qld

We are staying in our first caravan park of the trip.

The park is small – you can walk around it in about four minutes and has the distinct feel of the good old days. No kids club, no big waterslides, no silly wi-fi.

It’s lovely actually.

Looking around the parks population, I think statisticians may consider us an outlier. I didn’t see any particular deal for people born in 1940’s, but maybe there was something in the fine print.

Interestingly, our assigned location in the park helps propagate this sense of difference – closest to the front of the park with a thin band of tropical garden between the main road and us. Luckily it’s quiet road, with little traffic. On the other side, there is a large area of vacant spots, nice and grassy, before a road that represents some sort of border because above it are closely parked caravans, beautifully aligned, almost uniformly white and shining in the early morning sun. It awakes slowly, each resident dealing with some level of incapacitation in their own unique way – the hobble, the shoulder hunch, the walking stick, the bandy leg – as they make their way to the ablutions.

I am not sure what the most complicated form of music is – maybe something like avant-garde jazz, but for an aural mixture of intense complexity, pop yourself in the caravan park ablutions block from sun-up. It’s hard to work out exactly which part of the body is eliminating what piece of waste. The most intriguing part is the involuntary groans and sighs amongst the uncontrolled farts, burps and gurgles as last nights apricot chicken splashes down. Of course, it is peak hour, so often each of the cubicles will be used, so you find yourself waiting. Sure enough, the door unlocks and out emerges the victor from what has sounded like some kind of violent dispute between mind and body. There’s a simple raised eyebrow, and small shake of the head, occasionally the understatement ‘that’s better’.

I’m not sure why, but of all the accommodation types, it seems that caravan park inhabitants need the most reminding of what can and can’t be done. It’s almost impossible not to turn one way or another and have some small, laminated sign, usually made up of a variety of mismatching fonts, directing you to not dump this, not leave this, not drink this or not eat this.

Yep, Formaldehyde.

But the most heinous of crimes, based on frequency of sign, urgency of font and number of exclamation marks is dumping anything other than toilet paper in the dunnies. I’d hate to see what actually happens to someone caught trying to surreptitiously slip a non-toilet paper item down the john in one of these places. Water boarding would be a good start, if only you were actually allowed to use the water for torture, but nope, there’s a sign for that as well.