Easter Sunday

 After nearly two weeks in our new house it's time I tried to relate my feelings having left Gembrook, our home town for the last forty years. 

I'm now a resident of the state of South Australia, but I don't yet feel I'm South Australian. As I sit at the computer writing the overriding notion is that I'm on holiday, similar to our last two annual holidays when we hired an Air B+B house in the suburbs south of Adelaide. The obvious difference is that we have decked out the house with our own furniture and purchased items to our taste, and there's no go home date, but the holiday feeling is strong.

 

Not having to go to work contributes to this I'm sure, and this adjustment to retirement is rather pleasant I must say. The phone does not ring bringing the orders of customers, or people wanting this or that from me, in fact it doesn't ring at all. All those cranks and scammers are not aware of our new phone number and the old landline is no more. One or two a day on the mobile is of no consequence as I just dismiss them when I check it. Mind you I still get dozens of emails from people offering me all manner of riches and warnings and solutions to my health or finances, I haven't yet been able to work out how to stop them. They are easily deleted but it is an annoyance each day.

We went to the Sth Adelaide v Adelaide Crows reserves game on Good Friday. I couldn't help but feel like a tourist when driving and at the game, and I feel the same when exploring the local area and shopping. In an email exchange with my friend Dulcie she said that she and one of her friends who hailed from far off once agreed that they felt like evermore tourists in Australia. Dulcie migrated to Australia in 1972. I think that may well be the case for us in Sth Australia.

Nearly 7 decades as a Victorian, and 4 as Gembrookian, is quite a thing to leave behind. Memories of  childhood, school, adolescence, first love, employment, sport, family ties, all revolve around Melbourne and Victoria. The geography of the place is ingrained. Allegiance can be a strong thing, for example I have always followed the Vics in cricket, and in recent times the only interest I have in the Australian Test team is how the Victorian members are going.  That will have to change. I look forward to next year going to Adelaide and watching the SA team.

As for Melbourne as a city, I went right off it a long time ago. Rat race. Traffic jam, congestion, tollways, speedtraps, I went there only when necessary and disliked doing so. Hell of a place.

And Gembrook. Many fond memories of raising a family in a semi rural relaxed environment with peace and quiet and clean fresh air. A place where trees and gardens thrived. And fine memories of people and friendships and good neighbours. But slowly Gembrook lost its appeal to me over the last years. Busier and busier it became. When the road to Launching Place was bituminized all the way some years ago they started to come. The motorbikes. Somehow the ride to Gembrook and on to Launching Place etc became known as a great ride, promoted by biker magazines, and the bike traffic reached intolerable levels. Every second bike seemed to have loud exhaust and the riders loved screaming through the gears so the noise was horrendous for us all day on weekends and holidays where we lived, despite being a hundred metres or so from the main road.

Then Puffing Billy decided to make Gembrook its "Event Hub". Multiple Thomas Tank days in spring and autumn, bringing crowds and traffic, pollution, noise and congestion. More despoilment of our peace and quiet and beautiful environment.

Added to this humiliating and frustrating loss of our quiet country town, the Cardinia Council and state and federal governments got together with Puffing Billy and built a $20million tourist information centre in Emerald Lake Park which is opening any day. The traffic in Emerald has built up over the years to be most unpleasant with a traffic jam on the main road every day at peak hour. And now a Puffing Billy Tourist Centre! Oh how government at all levels will do anything to be seen to do something, anything to justify their existence and bloated sense of self importance.

 

I'm so glad to be out of there. We are on a quiet road with little noise. Yes we are in a tourist area, but there's so much more room here in Sth Australia. The traffic is unhurried, there's no trouble parking anywhere, and the facilities are excellent. I wake to warbling magpies and chirruping galahs. Our mate Ian Sinclair sent us $150 from Canada for us to buy a bird bath for our new house. It will be a joy to go shopping for it. We have already set up a bath which was Lib's mum's before it was outside our bedroom window in Gembrook for many years but it's for small birds. A bigger one will give the bigger birds something to splash in. Mind you not many birds are visiting our bath I think because he Hindmarsh river is across the road with many pools of water, and the Golf Club has a big dam not far behnd us. Or maybe we haven't had much hot weather yet or the birds haven't yet found ours.

There's a bird watching club here I may join. A neighbour is keen birder and gets around with binos and I chat with him soon. It seems a birder's paradise to me, this whole district.