COME AWAY WITH ME

Author: Jenny Grinlington

  • SIX WEEKS BEFORE WE ARE AWAY

    SIX WEEKS BEFORE WE ARE AWAY

    Lennox Head, Bundjalung Country.

    March 14th 2023.

    The last post was published in August 2021, with the sad news that we’d abandoned the trip completely. We had become victims to Covid regulations which closed borders and instilled fear in everyone that travelling would be risky, that the virus would spread wildly and that it was best to stay home. So we did.

    Now, 17 months later, we are looking at a fresh start. And still there is the possibility that our plans will be thwarted due to floods in the Gulf of Carpentaria at the moment, and earlier floods in the Kimberly around Fitzroy Crossing. I saw an interview with the Mayor of Burketown in the Gulf, where major inundation is occurring, and he said that as soon as the water subsides there will be amazing wildlife to see and the wildflowers should be stunning. He was encouraging travellers not to abandon the area during the dry season, and of course we want to support all those remote communities if we can.

    My grand daughter Sarah is now working in Fitzroy Crossing as a remote area nurse, so we should be able to get local updates from her.

    As you will see, our plan now is to head north from Lennox Head first, get to the tip of Cape York in Qld. Two couples will be joining us on that leg of the journey..Marilyn and Andrew Jeavons and George and Julie Rhodes…good friends who travel well at our pace, are flexible, independent, great fun and love adventures. In Cairns we will join up with Mike Meyers and his friend Steve to continue to the Cape. This first leg will take all of May and half of June we expect. After the Cape, we will be on our own probably…but our flexible friends could change their minds.

    Might as well not get too far ahead of ourselves on this blog though. There are some plan B’s being considered if we fail to cross the Gulf. We won’t even go there.

    Our house sitters are about to leave Karratha. In 3 weeks time they expect to be at Lennox….that’s an almighty journey with a 9 year old and a 14 month old…and 2 dogs. One dog is being left in Perth, the other in Melbourne, until such time as their owners find a suitable house with a yard and a fence. So we are not doing the full house pack up thankfully although much still needs to be done to prepare for 12 months away and to give the sitters an easy house to live in. Pablo pictured here is a fine addition to our house, along with 4 chickens.

    I have done this blog so that I can re-awaken my brain about how to actually navigate WordPress, but also to give those of you on the subscribers list a chance to drop away if you want to. I will be attempting to post to your email once a month if I can, so it shouldn’t be too annoying.

    Best wishes for now. Jenny & Nick

  • Stalled…

    August 3rd 2021. Lennox Head, Bundjalung country.

    Here we are still, stuck at the starting post, all dressed up with no-where to go. We wanted to leave next week. I always knew we had to expect the unexpected, and flexibility was important, but now I find I am shut in at home, isolating because I visited Brisbane last week. Our NSW/Gold Coast bubble is suffering from it’s close proximity to Brisbane where the Delta strain of covid cases is running amuck through the community.

    But I don’t want this blog to be a whinge. It inevitably has to reflect the state of play in our nation, but I am determined to look for the positives and write an uplifting piece.

    So, Swifty sits over-lighted by a brilliant rainbow, in the front garden. She is ready for the big adventure, as are we.

    All borders out of NSW are closed to us. Our aim to reach Victoria by early September looks doubtful, but if a miracle happens, we’ll hook up and get there. Heading south is still our aim, then west to WA. That border seems impenetrable at the moment, but we live in hope.

    In the meantime, we love and enjoy where we live, which truely is paradise. Daily walks along the coastal paths are blessed with whale sitings. The air is feeling more Spring-like. We currently have the Tokyo Olympics to keep us amused if need be and there are plenty of good books to read. Enjoying the company of a few friends, no more than five at a time, lifts our spirits. Cafes and restaurants still make scrumptious food, the shops, cinemas and galleries are open to us, as long as we are masked, sanitised and QR coded. How lucky are we!!

    View north up the coast with Cape Byron in the distance.

    But sitting around wallowing in our lucky life isn’t as satisfying as people imagine, especially when you’ve had plans and they get thwarted. Mind you, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t had to sacrifice a longed for trip…overseas and in Australia. The amount of travel credits tucked into the travel agent’s drawers, must be enormous. Equally, how many of us are now writing off those credits as too hard to fulfil. And now, making future plans seems too risky.

    So we decided on a whim, while we could do it, that we’d hook on Swifty and head for the closest National Park for a few days in the bush. Three other couples joined us.

    BUNDJALUNG NATIONAL PARK. Black Rocks campground & Jerusalem Creek.

    By the saturday morning, we’d gathered food and friends, and headed down the highway, meeting at New Italy for morning tea. The forecast was lovely, the sky was a deep blue and our spirits were high. Arriving at Black Rocks along the Gap Road gravel track, we saw a bushland full of grass-trees, their tall seedy spikes towering above the scrub, their fine leafy skirts and black charred stumps surrounded by banksias, wattles and small flowering shrubs. This was my type of country. I needed to immerse in a flowering, regenerating wilderness, much of it recovering sensationally after the 2019 bushfires. Looking deeper into the scrub, small wildflowers showed themselves, especially the vibrant purple chocolate lilies, named because of their scent, not their taste.

    The camping ground is tucked behind the sand dunes in such dense bush that you could barely see your closest neighbours. But they could be heard. Saturday night was rich with drumming sounds from the many European/South American young people who had gathered to camp together. They respectfully stopped well before midnight. How enjoyable to listen to live music instead of ghetto blasters. On sunday morning they packed up the white vans with their yoga mats, drums, tents and mattresses, leaving no traces of their beautiful night.

    We launched our 8 kayaks into Jerusalem Creek early, before the wind rippled the water and the sun became too hot. It was a glorious 9.2km paddle to the mouth of the creek, where we beached the boats. Thermos’ of tea and homemade cake filled our bellies and souls as we sat perched on a wooden seat overlooking the crystalline topaz blue ocean. It’s the simplest things that are the most enjoyable. And laughing with friends, sharing a campfire, a meal and a few drinks tops off the experience.

    Launch spot at Jerusalem creek.

    Plans were made for the next couple of days. More kayaking at another National Park further south. But by mid-afternoon on sunday, the unexpected happened. Queensland had lost control of it’s covid outbreaks, locking the border and requiring those who’d been there in the past 2 weeks to go into isolation. There were some of us who’d been there recently, visiting grandchildren, taking medical appointments. This camp was dismantling already. By sunday night, only 4 of us were left. Slowly we packed up Swifty on monday morning, feeling a bit deflated, but also invigorated by the 2 days we had managed to grab out of this mess called a pandemic.

    Andrew said to me at the camp: “Can you see how your blog will become a record of the pandemic?” I know he’s right, there’s a sense that our journey, in the early stages at least, will be stop/start, with unforeseen adjustments needing to be made constantly to meet the vagaries of this pandemic.

    Don’t even ask about renting out our house. That’s another stalled episode. It will happen but we don’t know when.

    Who can even guess what the next blog will bring.

    Until then, stay safe everyone.. get vaccinated.. see you soon WA family, we hope.

    Jenny & Nick & Swifty.

  • Haven’t you gone yet?

    July 3rd 2021. Still in Bundjalung Country, at Lennox Head.

    Some friends get confused, easily. They must skim over the blog, presume I’ve left Lennox, then get a shock when I reappear.

    By the way, I have written more under the heading Portraiture which you can see in the menu. It gives some of my thoughts about portrait photography.

    We’re not leaving for another month, but it will be a busy one. Already finding that packing up the house to rent it out is a far bigger chore than I thought. After 11 years of accumulated stuff rises to the surface, I am faced with the inevitable question, keep it or toss it? Be brutal, I’m told, make a fresh start, clear the dross, lighten the load, all great mantras, but for the hoarder of memories and memorabilia, this is not easy.

    • Some of my shells & precious stuff!
    • The office

    I started in my studio/office, only to discover diaries from my teenage years, travel diaries from the 1970’s, aerograms, letters and postcards from another era, slides, photos and negatives, so many memories. Of course they all had to be read, relived, and marvelled at. Hours, days, passed, in fact after a month, still my office was not cleared out. 3 days were spent with a new shredder, tax documents from the ’90’s had to go. Not wanting to waste the bonus of now having a mountain of finely shredded paper, I tossed it onto the compost. Of course, 2 days later the dreaded bush turkey had added his spin to my recycling effort by spreading the shredded paper all over my lawn and garden. It looked like snow.

    Nick’s task of creating space in the garage for 2 tenant’s cars has been a far more onerous task than I faced; a much dirtier job with more stuff than anyone, but an ardent car restorer, could ever imagine. Soon, the little 1953 Series 1 Land Rover will be re-housed in a friend’s shed, the BMW motorbike will squeeze into the back of the garage amongst the boxes of stored things, and my car will take a holiday with a friend, who will keep the hybrid battery charged.

    The garden is not being forgotten. The trees and shrubs are being pruned heavily. Tip runs are a weekly job, bins are stuffed to the hilt. Areas which had been ignored since we moved here 11 years ago have been tackled. A magnificent blue tongue lizard has resided in some old hidden agi pipe for many years in a difficult part of the garden. She came out to greet us briefly, then slid back into her pipe. We will leave her in peace and hope to see her again when we return.

    Precious items are being given to friends and family to mind. Potted plants, an old clock and lamp from my grandfather’s house at Wye River, my jewels (of which there are almost none), and a nest, have all been taken into care. My friend who collects nests was thoroughly overjoyed to babysit mine for 12 months.

    We are witness to a society being buffeted by climate challenges, a covid pandemic, uncertainty, family disruption and separation, heightened fears of all sorts and the mental health stress born by so many people. It is going to be interesting to see what forces push and pull us as we travel around. No doubt many weather factors will impact us, we are prepared for that. And covid issues too might demand we stop at borders. Both of us will be fully vaccinated when we leave. And we will look after each other. I’ll certainly let Nick know if his mental health needs attention……..

    I’ve been reading a wonderful little book in preparation for the trip. It’s called “Wise Women of the Dreamtime” Aboriginal Tales of the Ancestral Powers. Collected by K. Langloh Parker at the turn of the 19th Century. She was one of the first European women to see the significance and spiritual sophisitication of the Aboriginal tribal stories. This book was given to me by my mother, a gift I now gracefully accept.

    I took 3 grandsons on a whale watching trip out of Ballina on a glorious sunny winter day in late June. This was a little parting gift for them. Their birthdays will go by without us being around. Tom (10), James (almost 12) and Jeremy (20) escorted me into the Pacific Ocean where whales were everywhere to be seen. James loved the spray off the boat as we sped over the waves. Tom was masquerading as Al Capone.

    It’s terrific to have so many people coming away with me. I can’t wait to get on the road now. Do keep the comments coming, they brighten my day.

    Best wishes

    Jenny

  • Introducing our Plan.

    Introducing our Plan.

    June 12th 2021. Lennox Head. Bundjalung Country.

    In just 2 months from now my husband, Nick, and I will head south in our little camper van. The van will henceforth be fondly named Swifty. She will provide us shelter most nights for the next 12 months. Swifty is also our supply carrier, wardrobe, ensuite (minus the toilet and shower), lounge room, kitchen and dressing room. She is all of 5 metres long.

    Slowly we will wander down to Wangaratta in Victoria for the first big stopover. This will be early September. Friends and family will join us here in a ritual of days of copious food, drinks, cakes, games, activities and celebration.

    Then we’ll recover with a wander along the Murray River, into South Australia provided the border is open. After exploring the Eyre Peninsular, Swifty will have her first experience of the Nullarbor. In November we will put down roots in Margaret River in WA for another celebration, then head further south to Albany for the summer. But that’s not even half of the trip.

    I plan to take the usual quantity of photos (many!!), perhaps take a few movies, and write about the trip in this blog. But I also plan to do a portraiture/story board project about interesting characters we meet along the way. I want to capture a single, simple, revealing, beautiful portrait of the person, or it could be a couple or family group, and write a paragraph with their story. It’s about time I used my qualification and years of experience as a Portraitist. This I will post on my blog with their permission. It will become a snapshot portfolio of Australians in 2021/2.

    Nick having breakfast at Lake Hart with Swifty, previous trip in 2018.

    I will endeavour to use the local indigenous name for the land we travel on as I write the blog.

    So if you want to follow our journey, add your email to the list.

    Cheers for now

    Jenny and Nick and Swifty