Chapter 1

My day with Patrick was of great value. I pulled myself together over the next day or two. I spent half a day with our – now, my – lawyer. My will was revised; the titles to the house and our vehicles were amended. I traded Weena’s Lexus for a 2013 Land Rover Defender with manual transmission. It was a four-cylinder turbo-diesel. I had wanted a six, but there wasn’t one for sale and this one had only 33K on it. With the trade, I was only $30K out-of-pocket. I phoned my insurer and added this to my policy and deleted the Lexus. On the way home, I stopped and bought two 10-litre gas cans. I spent enough time outside of the coastal cities not to go far without fuel. I’d get bottled water once I set out, too.

Then I met with the senior staff at the Museum and the Head of the Board of Directors. It wasn’t easy. I’d be eligible for retirement only in 2018. However, I could take all my accrued holiday leave, sick leave and bereavement leave. It came to eight months. We’d work things out. My assistant became acting director.

The next day I went to The Map Centre in North Parramatta. The two ladies there were attentive and informative and I departed with many maps and lighter by several hundred dollars. I ran several pairs of pants and over a dozen shirts through the washer. Rachel offered her assistance, but I rejected it. Winnie called twice to make sure I didn’t want company. I was sure. Patrick snickered the second time, but I pointed out that we we both over 50. He offered Viagra or Cialis.

The Defender is a good-sized vehicle. I decided to take several cartons of books: a lot of fiction, some history and works on entomology and other zoological areas. The fiction was largely Australian, as were the historical works. I put together a large first aid kit. And I treated myself to a fancy satellite phone – a Telstra – and a subscription to the Iridium network.

I wasn’t going to knock myself out, so my first goal was Muswellbrook. I’d been there a few years ago, to view a show of James Clifford’s paintings at the library. I planned to send a card to Rachel of one this time.

I didn’t.

I found that I wasn’t ready to re-visit the sites Weena and I had visited. It was but early afternoon. I had lunch at a Chinese place on Bridge Street and thought about my next port of call. Wollemi National Park came to mind. It had more to do with Patrick.

There are many aboriginal sites within the park including cave paintings, axe grinding grooves and rock carvings. In 2003 the discovery of Eagle’s Reach cave was publicly announced. This site was found by bushwalkers in 1995 but remained unknown to the wider community until a team from the Australian Museum reached the cave in May 2003. The art within this small cave is estimated to be up to 4,000 years old and it consists of up to a dozen layers of imagery depicting a wide variety of motifs rendered in ochre and charcoal. The team who recorded this site counted over 200 separate images, mainly of animals and birds but also stencils of hands, axes and a boomerang.

No. That wasn’t really my route. I got out a map of NSW. Kurrajong! In the midst of parkland. I found myself driving south and west. Two hours later, I was just off Blaxlands Ridge Road on Bells Line of Rd in Kurrajong Heights. The clerk at the Archibald Hotel seemed happy to see me and I was installed in a room with a splendid room. I washed up and went to the bar, where I had an excellent draft served by a cranky barman. The dinner was good, but not five-star. But I slept well, had a large breakfast paid and set out towards Lithgow.

Two hours later, I was in Lithgow, which seemed to have recovered from the brush fires of 2013 and the storms the next year. But that wasn’t true of the Zig Zag Railway, which wasn’t scheduled to re-open for a year or two. I went to see the Small Arms Museum instead.

I was overwhelmed with nostalgia. I suppose that I was inclined to be sensitive to stimuli, but it was unexpected. My first gun, when I was nine or ten, was a Lithgow .22 bolt-action single-shot. Both models, the 1A and the 1B were on display. There was a lot more, too. I spent nearly two hours there, skipping lunch. [For those interested, see Griffiths, Tony (2006). Lithgow’s Small Arms Factory and its People. 2 volumes. Terrey Hills, New South Wales: Toptech Engineering.]

Looking at the books and pamphlets at the Museum, I realized that I was barely an hour from Mudgee, where Henry Lawson went to school. I decided that I’d follow Lawson a bit, just as I’d followed Banjo Peterson 30 years ago. Over a century ago, they were Australia’s most important bush poets; today they’re hardly read, save for a few poems and some of Lawson’s short stories.

Actually, it took about 90 minutes, but I was in no hurry. I drove through Mudgee on the Castlereagh Highway, noting that “Lawson Park” was to my right. Then I saw the Best Western. Well, I’d stayed in a top notch place last night, I’d come down a notch or so. There were a few cars in the lot, but I had no problem in getting a room. On a whim, I took it for two nights.

I found my copy of Australian Bush Poems as well as Upfield’s Madman’s Bend, which takes place on the Darling. I made a mental note to see whether Fluvial Geomorphology of Australia was easily findable in the “science” box. I locked up the car and took the books to my room. I then stopped at the desk to enquire about restaurants. The clerk suggested The Wineglass, “just a few minutes down Market, on Perry.” I thanked him and walked there, had a nice meal and sampled from a fine selection of local wines, and was showered and reading in bed before 23:00.