FCT #14: leaving (the coast)

Ah, poor neglected Cha Cha. Too much focus on fun and not enough on capturing the fun. I'm gonna attempt some backtracking over the next week or so, in order to fill in a few holes. I'm also gonna attempt to get through a zillion assessments and not squander thousands of dollars in uni fees due to general distraction. So advance apologies if the next couple of weeks are sporadic in nature!

There’s a flurry of leaving and arriving going on right now. Not a great deal of focus on Canberra itself, but I think that’s a good thing. Larger forces are at play and I feel as though I’m building a sense of home that isn’t contingent on physical space. 

Physical spaces can’t be overlooked though – not while they exist to be explored with a heart full of awe and wonder. 

Easter found me in the sublime space of Mimosa Rocks National Park, camping at Aragunnu. It’s been one of Adi’s favourite places for years and years, so I felt blessed to share in its glories with her. I also felt blessed to be tackling my first camping trip in a zillion years with good, rugged, outdoors types. Adi and Ben are healthy living poster children. They’re campers and hikers extraordinaire. They even met atop a snow-peaked mountain! How’s that for a love that was meant to be?!

Their fine company was supplemented by Adi's old mate Josie and her hubbie Andrew, who rocked up in a cool 80s campervan decked out with everything one could possibly need for a spot of camping. Red wine and choc chip bikkies for instance. The kidlets topped it off, with Noah, Leo and Mr N also in attendance. We did a lot more singing as a result. And we were kept well entertained by Leo's dolphin-laugh, as beautifully depicted by Adi here.

It was a treat to bring Mr N along for fun, eight-year-old styley. It’s the most independent big-sis-+-little-bro time we’ve had together and it was a roaring success. He’s such a good kid. Politeness and sunshiney smiles to an almost ridiculous extent. I asked him if he wanted a treat during one of our stop-offs and he said that he was happy with the bottle of water in the car. I mean seriously, your big sis is offering you anything you want and you go for warm, stale water? Where does that kid get it from?!? As AZ commented, at his age I would have been making myself sick on fizzy drink if I had the chance! I've got such a lotta lotta love for my little man.

In spite of my immense camping trepidation – Will I freeze? Will I get eaten by possums? Just how stinky will the pit toilets be? – it was a gorgeous, gorgeous coupla days. We basked in the sunshine, swam and strolled, fished, toasted marshmallows, sang songs, practiced our creative swearing, slept to the sounds of the sea, hunted eggs, ate corn chowder and drank scotch, soaked up smoky mornings in a lush green grove. And I rolled back out on that dirt road thinking "When can I do that again?"