Sydney (Chapter 10 - Melbourne to Canberra)
Two months and one week after arriving in Melbourne, we were ready and eager to leave again on the next lap-the penultimate one-towards that elusive goal, the Northern Territory. For these two months we had lived among the Dandenongs, the blue-black range of hills that encircle the outskirts of the big city, and they welcomed us back after each long day's work in the heart of Melbourne.
We had become very attached to the Dandenongs and the people who lived among them-generous, hospitable folk who had made our Christmas such a happy one, and who guided us with advice on some of the pitfalls which might face us on the long haul north. Dick Bush (manager of our publishers' Melbourne office) and his wife, Joan, smiled encouragingly and brushed aside our thanks for their hospitality during our stay. There should, he said, be plenty to write about when we reached the Never-Never Land. But first things first. Sydney was the next stop, just on six hundred miles distant. With a good road ahead, we were not expecting any misadventures on the way.
We had accumulated something like fifty Australian pounds to carry us towards the north. Optimistic though we were, it was obvious that this comparatively trifling sum would not take us all the way. We felt, however, that it would be quite enough to get us to Sydney, but after the second day I began to have serious doubts; the cash was disappearing at an alarming rate.
The scooter seemed to drink petrol, and food and other provisions we bought at the little townships cost infinitely more than the same commodities in the cities. At one of the roadside stops, we left behind the ground-sheet which had been our camping companion since leaving England, and a new one, smaller and of inferior quality, cost five pounds. Whereas in Melbourne, we had been talking blithely about a couple of days' stay in Sydney before pressing on into the bush, we now began to realize that another working spell was imminent.
The recognized route from Melbourne to Sydney is along the Hume Highway, but this trunk road (which has really been outgrown in the last decade by the tremendous volume of freight trucks which ply back and forth between the two state capitals) offers only overcrowding and a surface which has been punished unmercifully by these huge articulated vehicles. So we decided to take the more leisurely and less frequented coastal route and go up the dirt-surfaced Orbost Highway to Canberra, eventually joining the Hume Highway for the last few miles into Sydney. And we chose well.
One hundred and sixty miles from the Dandenongs on the south coast is a delightful, expensive resort called Lakes Entrance. Picturesque in a modern manner, with brightly painted ice-cream parlours along the promenade and the natural bay filled with equally colourful little boats bobbing about on their moorings, it is a heavily populated Mecca during the holiday season for the outdoor-loving Australian. Lakes Entrance was the last we saw of such partly Americanized communities until we reached Canberra.
Although the Orbost Highway is a dirt road, the scenery is magnificent. For two days we rode through the cathedral-like silence between the forest giants, gums and ghost gums, stretching their smooth trunks for anything up to a hundred and fifty feet into the air. We camped, slightly apprehensive of the almost solid silence of the forest, grateful for the glow of the camp-fire and lulled to sleep by restless kookaburras; their strange, haunting cries are quite startling until one gets used to them.
After the cool, dark forest came the cattle country and sheep land, treeless, save for the occasional twisted stump, where the sun blazed and the road always disappeared into infinity. Unbelievably, on the last part of the road to Canberra, we found it almost impossible to locate a camping spot for the night. High wire fences ran flush with the road, discouraging the use of woods and valleys as overnight stopping places.
'Wait till you get north,' said the few people to whom we spoke on this lonely highway. 'You'll have all the space you need and then some; and don't forget to watch for the snakes.' Thus we heard our first mention of the enormous reptile population of the north. Not that the south is entirely devoid of natural menaces. Melbourne has her tiger snake; Sydney, her trapdoor and funnel-web spiders; not to mention the sharks in the waters around both capitals. Farther north in Brisbane and beyond there is the dreaded taipan snake and the death adder, together with the equally horrific sea-wasp which leaves its victims to die writhing in agony. The land of Waltzing Matilda may not boast any dangerous big game, but their little pests make up in potency for their lack in size.
Fortunately, however, we had no brushes with any of these unpleasant fauna during our journey from Melbourne to Sydney. Our pests were flies; flies, and the gigantic bull ants which bit ferociously whenever they could during our camping spells. The flies were with us all during the day, except in the depths of the forests. We never really became used to them, they were so pestiferous, especially when they tried to crawl into our mouths and noses. The only way to gain relief was to whirl our handkerchiefs constantly around our heads and pray for dusk, when our tormentors would magically disappear. As yet there had been no mosquitoes, but we were positively assured by our casual acquaintances that they would come.
Canberra must be the most dispersed city in all Australia; its very modern buildings and groups of buildings are scattered over a wide area. The shopping centre is quite cosmopolitan-for of course Canberra is the home of all the foreign Embassies as well as the seat of Australian Government-and it is quite a separate community from that of the Government offices or the residential area. All parts are connected by wide avenues, where young trees had been planted to bring shade to this originally barren site in the centre of a plain. We spent only one day in the federal capital, being so alarmed at the rapid disappearance of our cash that our only thought was to reach Sydney quickly and put an end to the financial rot.
We had become very attached to the Dandenongs and the people who lived among them-generous, hospitable folk who had made our Christmas such a happy one, and who guided us with advice on some of the pitfalls which might face us on the long haul north. Dick Bush (manager of our publishers' Melbourne office) and his wife, Joan, smiled encouragingly and brushed aside our thanks for their hospitality during our stay. There should, he said, be plenty to write about when we reached the Never-Never Land. But first things first. Sydney was the next stop, just on six hundred miles distant. With a good road ahead, we were not expecting any misadventures on the way.
We had accumulated something like fifty Australian pounds to carry us towards the north. Optimistic though we were, it was obvious that this comparatively trifling sum would not take us all the way. We felt, however, that it would be quite enough to get us to Sydney, but after the second day I began to have serious doubts; the cash was disappearing at an alarming rate.
The scooter seemed to drink petrol, and food and other provisions we bought at the little townships cost infinitely more than the same commodities in the cities. At one of the roadside stops, we left behind the ground-sheet which had been our camping companion since leaving England, and a new one, smaller and of inferior quality, cost five pounds. Whereas in Melbourne, we had been talking blithely about a couple of days' stay in Sydney before pressing on into the bush, we now began to realize that another working spell was imminent.
The recognized route from Melbourne to Sydney is along the Hume Highway, but this trunk road (which has really been outgrown in the last decade by the tremendous volume of freight trucks which ply back and forth between the two state capitals) offers only overcrowding and a surface which has been punished unmercifully by these huge articulated vehicles. So we decided to take the more leisurely and less frequented coastal route and go up the dirt-surfaced Orbost Highway to Canberra, eventually joining the Hume Highway for the last few miles into Sydney. And we chose well.
One hundred and sixty miles from the Dandenongs on the south coast is a delightful, expensive resort called Lakes Entrance. Picturesque in a modern manner, with brightly painted ice-cream parlours along the promenade and the natural bay filled with equally colourful little boats bobbing about on their moorings, it is a heavily populated Mecca during the holiday season for the outdoor-loving Australian. Lakes Entrance was the last we saw of such partly Americanized communities until we reached Canberra.
Although the Orbost Highway is a dirt road, the scenery is magnificent. For two days we rode through the cathedral-like silence between the forest giants, gums and ghost gums, stretching their smooth trunks for anything up to a hundred and fifty feet into the air. We camped, slightly apprehensive of the almost solid silence of the forest, grateful for the glow of the camp-fire and lulled to sleep by restless kookaburras; their strange, haunting cries are quite startling until one gets used to them.
After the cool, dark forest came the cattle country and sheep land, treeless, save for the occasional twisted stump, where the sun blazed and the road always disappeared into infinity. Unbelievably, on the last part of the road to Canberra, we found it almost impossible to locate a camping spot for the night. High wire fences ran flush with the road, discouraging the use of woods and valleys as overnight stopping places.
'Wait till you get north,' said the few people to whom we spoke on this lonely highway. 'You'll have all the space you need and then some; and don't forget to watch for the snakes.' Thus we heard our first mention of the enormous reptile population of the north. Not that the south is entirely devoid of natural menaces. Melbourne has her tiger snake; Sydney, her trapdoor and funnel-web spiders; not to mention the sharks in the waters around both capitals. Farther north in Brisbane and beyond there is the dreaded taipan snake and the death adder, together with the equally horrific sea-wasp which leaves its victims to die writhing in agony. The land of Waltzing Matilda may not boast any dangerous big game, but their little pests make up in potency for their lack in size.
Fortunately, however, we had no brushes with any of these unpleasant fauna during our journey from Melbourne to Sydney. Our pests were flies; flies, and the gigantic bull ants which bit ferociously whenever they could during our camping spells. The flies were with us all during the day, except in the depths of the forests. We never really became used to them, they were so pestiferous, especially when they tried to crawl into our mouths and noses. The only way to gain relief was to whirl our handkerchiefs constantly around our heads and pray for dusk, when our tormentors would magically disappear. As yet there had been no mosquitoes, but we were positively assured by our casual acquaintances that they would come.
Canberra must be the most dispersed city in all Australia; its very modern buildings and groups of buildings are scattered over a wide area. The shopping centre is quite cosmopolitan-for of course Canberra is the home of all the foreign Embassies as well as the seat of Australian Government-and it is quite a separate community from that of the Government offices or the residential area. All parts are connected by wide avenues, where young trees had been planted to bring shade to this originally barren site in the centre of a plain. We spent only one day in the federal capital, being so alarmed at the rapid disappearance of our cash that our only thought was to reach Sydney quickly and put an end to the financial rot.
posted by Michael Marriott (c/o P McIntosh) at
14:56
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