Final movements of the year
Up the coastline of New South Wales
During the past fortnight I went on a deep-dive, tearing through the writings of an author that died in 2021. Feeling unexpectedly sad that there would be no more words to come, I visited three book shops, without luck, looking for a four decade collection of the author’s best work.
I read her fictional novel, Moral Hazard. A partly autobiographical account of a speech writer on Wall Street in the 90s, who compromises on her left-leaning principles in order to afford her husband’s care home costs, as he degenerates with Alzeimers’s disease.
Then I read her essay for The Quarterly, titled American Revolution: The fall of Wall Street and the rise of Barack Obama. She had me watching Adam McKay’s The Big Short, and googling (again) the definition of derivative. My brain’s hard drive whirring, nineteen tabs open on Chrome, lost (again) in tree diagrams explaining the Global Financial Crisis.
If Kate Jennings were alive I’d email her to thank her for sparking some intellectual curiosity out of nowhere. Every so often it is energising to escape the Browse Now area of Spotify.
With the Christmas break underway, I took this busy mind out of Sydney, beyond the suburbs that my Vodafone global package reaches, where my phone read SOS only. We drove up the Pacific Highway, parallel to the coastline of New South Wales; the bituman appeared to ooze under the sun’s intensity.
Three of us camped in Myall Lakes National Park for two nights, amazed by the stars at night, deafened by the cicadas in the morning.
Our setup looked somewhat different to the one I associate with ultra-light bikepacking. My instinctive preference is to carry and use only what I need, the bare minimum, with a disregard for luxuries, and emphasis on remaining inconspicuous, moving across landscapes at unusual times of the day - but 2024 was a year I began to explore comfort and convenience.
Look here! A van full of activities: a skim board, a surf board, fishing rods; outside we have a marquee, a tarpaulin, a cooler full of ice, stacked with beers; and out of shot are the ingredients for an aubergine, coconut curry.
The days either side of New Years celebrations were spent by the ocean, with a larger group joining us. Occasionally I ventured from the shade of our beach tent to kick a football, dry sand irritating the sunburnt tops of my feet. Or, transfixed by the clear water, I cooled off, floating with my chest to the sky. I started reading Esther Kinksy’s Seeing Further; with each week it becomes easier to think of Europe - longings for countryside or train travel - without it appearing in my dreams the same night.
These are the vignettes of the last eighteen months that appear more clear as time passes, small details adding themselves, coming into focus. Pink hues of sunset across the French Alps, the call to prayer across the Albanian countryside, a real ale festival in a pocket of England.
Now I wonder - when I close my eyes and think of Australia in the future - what will be the image that comforts me?
After two months of being here, it felt like a few days up the coast got me a little closer to an answer. Less choices, more simplicity, space, fewer schedules. An Australian man put it in other words: where else can you sit in a pub garden, take your top off and enjoy a schooner?
I guess he hasn’t been to England on a bank holiday.
