Unforgettable Scenes

I am forever yearning to travel, to dive into a foreign world and create magical moments. I get so caught up thinking about everything I haven’t yet had the chance to experience, I can forget to be thankful for all the wonderful things I have. Today I am dwelling on a few of these unforgettable scenes.

To the End of Never Never

A photo of nothing, near Broken Hill NSW, April 2014

There’s nothing quite like a road trip in Australia if you want to be reminded of how outside the clamour of our cities, there is still so much empty space. Speeding through inland Australia is a driving experience like no other. Long straight stretches of road reach out to the horizon, with nothing on the left and nothing on the right. You may drive all day, but without the stress of traffic, navigation, roundabouts or traffic lights, you won’t feel tired. Drive away from the coast and you find paradise for the claustrophobic; heaven for those that worry about over-crowding and over-developing.

You don’t actually have to venture very far to feel like the only person in the world. Just an hour away from the local tourist hotspot Coffs Harbour, you can find Dorrigo, situated on the stunning Waterfall Way. We weren’t quite prepared to transverse a long stretch of dirt track, lit only by uninterrupted starlight, when we visited in 2013, although little is paved off the main roads. The cottage we stayed in was pure magic and not a single unnatural sound reached us. We went for a long walk from the appropriately named Never Never Picnic Area and didn’t see or hear another soul.

Into the Shallows

Me swimming in the Scottish Highlands, October 2012

Oh, the joy of swimming outside. I love the weightlessness, the abandon, and the visceral connection with nature.

While living in a cold country, this love pushes me to extremes. In the late autumn of 2012, I was desperate for a swim after having few opportunities while spending the last 9 months on a ‘gap year’ in England, almost as far away as I could be from sunny Australia. On a tour in the Scottish Highlands, I jumped into a river, clothes and all. I’d love to say it was into the depths of a loch, but when the opportunity came, it was in water that only reached up to my knees.

Certainly at first the water bites while you thrash about, most likely swearing your head off. Hardly the picture of elegance. Yet it doesn’t take long for a tingling numbness to take over, letting you glide through the water with skin as smooth as polished slate, exhilarated by a sense of your own strength.

My tour guide didn’t seem at all fazed, he just handed me a bottle of whisky and off we went.

The Romance of the Night

Venice by night, July 2012

Venice is a gorgeous city at any time, but there is something special about staying in central Venice at night. The crowds of tourists filling the streets dissipate as the sun goes down and the murky water now shimmers and glows. Cosy groups crowd into the small outdoor terraces of softly-lit restaurants. When you are filled with luscious food and jugs of house wine, you can meander your way through the silent alleyways. There are no cars here to startle you out of your reverie. It is so easy to get lost, which makes the web of teeny streets feel like an endless maze, but you won’t mind; you will want the night to never end.

The Misty Moors

Exmoor National Park, England, December 2013

Struggling against the bitterly cold wind and mist of the moors, you begin to understand the sense of liberation and mysticism long associated with these landscapes. You can scream and no-one will hear you, but this will exhilarate not scare you. My previous study of the Romantics and Gothicism was made real, Wuthering Heights was no longer just a symbolic title, but an accurate descriptor. In this barren and unforgiving scene, I could believe for a moment that I was the heroine of my own novel. Stumbling across scarcely signposted ancient burial cairns adds to the timelessness of this experience.

In Flanders Fields

Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, Belgium

It is one thing to learn about the world wars, it is quite another to stand on the battlegrounds and breathe in the enormity of it all. The rows of uniform white tombstones, stretching into the distance, are positioned with military precision. This is nothing like the crumbling, haphazardly-placed historic church graveyards which fill me with peace. The strict order of these memorials simply magnifies the terrible loss of life in one fell swoop. Their perfection contrasts jarringly to the chaos of war.

When I visited the Western Front in 2009, while I was in secondary school, I could not cling to any reassuring anonymity of the stones. In my year 9 Elective History class we had each delved into the archives to find out all we could about ‘our’ Australian soldier who was missing from the Battle of Fromelles. Standing at V.C Corner Cemetery, tracing the inscription of Corporal Frederick Fletcher while thinking about his life, felt personal. The connection was significant enough that I celebrate finding out now that Corporal Fletcher is missing no more.

While this sobering scene doesn’t fit into the ‘wonderful’ or ‘magical’ experiences I seek, it was an unforgettable moment that I wouldn’t be without.

The Bright Lights of Home

Sydney city lights

Whenever you return after being away for a while, for a short time you get to see your own home as a foreign place. Coming back from my first trip abroad in 2009 was a bizarre experience. I had spent three weeks in Europe, marvelling at the preservation of history in the buildings. Coming back into Sydney, I was bombarded with shining glass everywhere I looked. Towers of light were replicated in their reflections on the harbour.

Returning from a year in grey England at the end of 2012, this effect was even more pronounced. I was squinting from the moment the dazzling light seared through the plane windows as I landed in Sydney. Moving straight from the middle of an English winter to an Australian summer was shockingly brutal. My family home where I had lived most of my life felt surreal, blurred at the edges, as if I was dreaming. The floorboards were bright orange, the couches a fluorescent blue, the green feature wall glaring impossibly bright in the streams of light coming through the glass front of our home. It took a little while for this cartoon world to feel normal once more.

There is so much of the world that I am yet to see. I hope to live a long life yet, one full of exploring both near and far. However, I should remember that I am already blessed with the diversity of the scenes I have witnessed.