Sometime around May I usually
ramble on about the beautiful autumn days, with their deep blue skies and
cooling nights, blazing leaves and subtle sunsets. It is tremendous and I am
convinced that it is the best season in the national capital. But then, after a
hiatus for different seasons in different hemispheres, spring appears and it is
hard to argue against it. For what spring has that autumn lacks is the
encroachment of warmth, the re-emergence of life, the dawning of hope sailing
on an upward curve. Encapsulating this, the daffodils that were just sprouts
when I went overseas are transformed, nature performing its perennial magic
trick from seed to understated wonder.
Coming back to Australia, to
Canberra, at such an opportune time provides an extension of the holiday
feeling, coupled with some comforts of homecoming and familiarity. It helped
that I overcame jetlag very quickly and had little work for a week or so. Blue
skies and comfortable warmth – tempered by a few cold nights to guard against
complacency – offered better conditions than, say, Switzerland. And everywhere,
things coming to life, waking up, bursting into extravagance. Settings made the
more amiable with a good coffee in hand.
Nowhere is nature’s spring
display more evident than at the Australian National Botanic Gardens. Well,
maybe Floriade, with its millions of tulips and thousands of daffodils, is a
contender. But the botanic gardens – as contrived a creation as they are – feel
much more natural, an exhibition of Australia’s wacky fauna in an authentic
bush setting.
Here, plants were flowering
everywhere, colours and fragrance and the buzz of industrious insects pervading
the air. One microscopic bug managed to somehow find itself somewhere within my
camera lenses, occasionally crawling into the frame. It was whilst sat down in
a quiet spot trying to rectify this situation that the king parrots decided to
join me, and to show that it’s not just the flowers that have a monopoly on
springtime colour.
Should sleepy and sedate little
Canberra become a touch crammed with life, the vast wilderness is of course
just around the corner. This, like better quality coffee, is one of those very
obvious differences that become so sharply contrasted following a trip to
Europe. It doesn’t take long to be climbing on a dirt road into the bush,
helping to test drive some friend’s new car, pleased that a four wheel drive is
actually being used properly and not just for picking up the kids from school. Up
on the Mount Franklin Road, very little other than the wild fills the views,
and other roads and tracks tempt for another time.
Indeed, I felt the urge myself to
get in my own car and make a road trip, since it has been quite a while. In the
other direction, the south coast awaits and what better way to see in my
birthday than to drink and eat by the water? I decided, fairly last minute, to
head down towards Merimbula, stop overnight and, well, drink and eat by the
water. It was a route I had not done for some time and, after the very barren plains
of the Monaro, the reward of the South East Forests and Bega Valley is welcome.
More welcome, perhaps, is the Nimmitabel bakery chicken salad roll on the beach
at Tathra, where the south coast is just doing its usual thing of being stunning
under a blue sky.
The rest of the day encompassed
some old favourites, favourites that were last visited on the very early stages
of some much bigger trip I embarked on in 2013. Back then, after camping next
to Ray Mears in Bournda National Park, Merimbula was grey and cool and – later
in the day – rain would pummel Ben Boyd National Park to the extent that the
roads became slush. Today, well, it was good for shorts and the bellbirds were
much happier down on the delightful Pambula River, at the northern edge of the
national park.
Dinner was fish and chips,
obviously. Not as gargantuan as the last time I had fish and chips and not as
English – in this case, unfortunately. However, should one pine for English
food for too long, there is always a chance to savour the saviour that is a
flat white. A flat white the following morning after a gentle walk along
Merimbula’s main beach and into its inlet. A flat white served from a beach hut
by charmingly hipster-leaning youngsters...the type that usually make the best
coffee. A spot in the sun (with a flat white) overlooking the paddle boarders
and swimmers and boat people cutting a course through the opaque sapphire
water. A drink to stimulate taste buds and senses for brunch elsewhere beside
the water. Happy birthday to me, and welcome back.
