Sunday, February 20, 2011

Febnicity

In England I remember February as just about being the bleakest month, tempered only by its relative briefness and the promise of a changing of season around the corner. Here, while the February days and nights are the very antithesis of those gloom-filled memories, the same impending feeling of change gnaws its way at the back of the mind. The temperatures have (probably) peaked, the full green burst of summer leaves have fulfilled their ambition, the next step a flaming and browning and fall, the sunsets – a steady 8pm for many weeks – drastically hasten their shades on the day, and the awfulness of Australian politics returns in full swing. It’s not all doom and gloom though, since the delights of March and April are naturally delightful in themselves, but it’s a time to take opportunities before they depart until next spring.

Opportunities such as total and utter immersion in cooling ocean swells, perfect antidote a couple of weeks ago to the peaking temperatures. Following an absolute stinker of a week – hot and abnormally humid days and sweaty Darwin style oppression, occasionally broken by ferocious storms – the thought of an air conditioned car journey and sustained dips in the sea was a no brainer. Almost immediately upon hitting the east coast I was in it, the shallow and calm water of Long Beach a good way to work up an appetite of fish and no chips but greasy potato scallops with salt instead.

While Long Beach was a necessary coolant it wasn’t the absolute idyll. That came further up the coast, courtesy of Washerwoman’s Beach at a random place called Bendalong. Blink, and you’ll miss the turning off the highway. Stare wild-eyed like a drug induced maniac instead and you’ll find yourself at a wonderful beach, the calm clear water lapping the sparsely populated mass of bushland fringed white sand. I’m not sure if it’s like it all the time, but the ultimate blessing was the waves, which were very much of the non-scary variety, breaking gently close to shore and leaving a placid pool of clear water from which to scout for sharks.





Some aspects of Australian society would be particularly comfortable with the sand here, being all white and lacking non-stop boatloads of scary foreign terrorists set on conquering the Australian way of life. Canberra is one of the whiter places, but unlike others, full of bleeding heart wannabe lefties like me. It is also, somewhat bizarrely given its homogeneity of comfortably middle class public servants, the home of the national multicultural festival. This basically means you get to eat some food from anywhere in the world and see some particularly fancy dancing in funny costumes, which is surely as good a way of promoting multiculturalism as any. It is without doubt fantastic, mainly because Canberra city centre – a place with the soul of Watford in the style of Milton Keynes – comes alive, thronged with people bustling for a chance to shake their booty to the smooth Latin rhythms of some golden thong clad princesses. And here for once I mean thong in the non-Australian sense.

Despite the hordes of scary immigrants with their funny ways – surely this sentiment now being thrown around willy-nilly by brainless politicians was alive and well when Aboriginals spotted Captain Cook and co – Australia actually does remain a land of vast open space and untouched bushland. The open space is too much sometimes, like the drive up the Hume Highway which gets increasingly more boring on each journey, but it does deviate into some spectacular spots. One of those is now renamed Old Faithful, as it’s a place where I can head when I want guaranteed bushland surroundings and everything that comes with it – fragrant eucalyptus mixed with lemons and frangipanes and tea trees, cycles of black cockatoo shrieks and lyrebird mimicry, spider webs and snake potential, sheer sandstone and deep ravines. And Ol’ faithful itself, Fitzroy Falls, whose white veil never dries and consistently offers nice accessible bushwalking and lookouts.





While the falls plunge and force their way through the dense bushland visible for miles on end, eventually the escarpment gives way to a more cultivated and tamed land. Nowhere more tamed and cultivated than Kangaroo Valley, billed as Australia’s loveliest valley and who am I to disagree? What distinguishes this place – especially in years more usual than the last – is its very greenness, European-style with lush pastures and creamy cows. The narrow, winding, hilly road across to Berry the closest this place gets to Devon.

At Berry the landscape remains fairly lush as it nears the coast, the small town providing a good spot for people to graze, my particular cud being a quite yummy baguette with cheese and prosciutto only ruined slightly by the overpowering lumps of pesto. And with a baguette in hand, the feet finally hit the coast around Gerroa and Seven Mile Beach. Very less white but still no scary boatpeople.

It’s a big day trip, but this is the land for big day trips. Especially in February, while the going is good and opportunities are there to be grabbed. For who knows what is round the corner... cyclones, floods, bushfires, earthquakes, martians landing in the Brindabellas? Or more likely, probably just calm fine golden days as we slowly creep into a changing season.

No comments: