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Authors: Niall Griffiths
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hand at trout fishing in pristine streams, fossicking for gemstones, playing a round or two of golf.’ Once is great; twice is a bit irritating. It’s had the arse ripped out of it, now. And ‘imagine playing a round of golf’? Why on earth would I want to do that? The desperately grasping nature of guidebooks never fails to divert and entertain. Imagine playing a round of golf. If I can’t sleep, or if I require a vision of wasted time, then maybe I will.
We drive into Tamworth. This is the ‘Country Music Capital of Australia’; more Billy Ray Cyrus than Hank Williams, I’ll wager. It’s also the ‘Tidy Town Winner 1999’, as was Llandinam, between Llanidloes and Newtown, back home. We stop for petrol in Tamworth and I eat a Golden Rough, which is a large coin of chocolate stippled with bits of roasted coconut, and the taste of it unleashes a torrent of associative memory, the force of which knocks me back a bit; I remember eating these when I was here last, in Australia, I mean. When the world was nine years old.
THEN
The family groups together under the sign that says ‘LIVERPOOL RANGE’. The father takes two photographs whichwill be sent home, accompanying postcards, to both grandmothers . Behind the family are hills and to the right is a wall of thick and scrubby bush which, the boy feels, must go on forever. These things on the other side of the world; echoes of Wales and a place called Liverpool Ranges. And the road atlas says there’s a town called Liverpool, too, outside Sydney. These familiar things on the other side of the planet but familiar in name only so that in fact they only underline the essential unfamiliarity of where the boy now is. Like looking at a pair of favourite shoes at the bottom of a fishtank. Confusing. They’re only a couple of days into the journey, they’ve only nibbled at the continent. It stretches before the boy, too vast to imagine; not even his childhood talent of living almost entirely in the moment can prevent the thought of that distance from dizzying his head.
NOW
–There it is, look. It’s still there.
–Not the same sign though, is it?
–No, but it’s in the same place.
–We park up and get out. I dig out the old photo of us standing by the signpost and we hold it up next to the new sign. There’s the steeply sloping hill in the background, and is that the same tree? We try to align the vegetation and the geographical features but even allowing for thirty years’ growth and weathering we can’t. Except the hill looks familiar, the main big hill. And why would a new sign have been erected in a different place? This, after all, is where the Liverpool Range begins.
–Look at that.
A giant eagle sits in a nearby tree. It watches us watching it then launches itself off the branch and soars low over us, casting a shadow across our upturned faces as it checks us out then returns to its branch again, a thick branch which bends under the bird’s weight. It’s a huge bird. My heart thumped as it swooped low over my face. I’m sure that it was only ascertaining what we are, us two strange creatures in the alpha predator’s territory, but I can’t shake the feeling that the event is laden with some kind of spiritual significance. I feel slightly unsettled but thrilled; not merely at the pure magnificence of the bird but at the hint of a meaning that I can’t quite grasp. Maybe it’s no accident that, as my brother and I get back in the van, we simultaneously mention our paternal grandfather, nearly two decades dead. I don’t know. But how mysterious this world is.
We drive through mountains. Low mountains, unspectacular as yet – they’re not Welsh – but by God they go on. And on and on and on. The road to Colo River goes on forever and we’re still on it when night has fallen and all we can see are the packed trees that densely line either side of the road. Just trees, and clotted black shadows beyond the reach of the headlights. Then some
We drive into Tamworth. This is the ‘Country Music Capital of Australia’; more Billy Ray Cyrus than Hank Williams, I’ll wager. It’s also the ‘Tidy Town Winner 1999’, as was Llandinam, between Llanidloes and Newtown, back home. We stop for petrol in Tamworth and I eat a Golden Rough, which is a large coin of chocolate stippled with bits of roasted coconut, and the taste of it unleashes a torrent of associative memory, the force of which knocks me back a bit; I remember eating these when I was here last, in Australia, I mean. When the world was nine years old.
THEN
The family groups together under the sign that says ‘LIVERPOOL RANGE’. The father takes two photographs whichwill be sent home, accompanying postcards, to both grandmothers . Behind the family are hills and to the right is a wall of thick and scrubby bush which, the boy feels, must go on forever. These things on the other side of the world; echoes of Wales and a place called Liverpool Ranges. And the road atlas says there’s a town called Liverpool, too, outside Sydney. These familiar things on the other side of the planet but familiar in name only so that in fact they only underline the essential unfamiliarity of where the boy now is. Like looking at a pair of favourite shoes at the bottom of a fishtank. Confusing. They’re only a couple of days into the journey, they’ve only nibbled at the continent. It stretches before the boy, too vast to imagine; not even his childhood talent of living almost entirely in the moment can prevent the thought of that distance from dizzying his head.
NOW
–There it is, look. It’s still there.
–Not the same sign though, is it?
–No, but it’s in the same place.
–We park up and get out. I dig out the old photo of us standing by the signpost and we hold it up next to the new sign. There’s the steeply sloping hill in the background, and is that the same tree? We try to align the vegetation and the geographical features but even allowing for thirty years’ growth and weathering we can’t. Except the hill looks familiar, the main big hill. And why would a new sign have been erected in a different place? This, after all, is where the Liverpool Range begins.
–Look at that.
A giant eagle sits in a nearby tree. It watches us watching it then launches itself off the branch and soars low over us, casting a shadow across our upturned faces as it checks us out then returns to its branch again, a thick branch which bends under the bird’s weight. It’s a huge bird. My heart thumped as it swooped low over my face. I’m sure that it was only ascertaining what we are, us two strange creatures in the alpha predator’s territory, but I can’t shake the feeling that the event is laden with some kind of spiritual significance. I feel slightly unsettled but thrilled; not merely at the pure magnificence of the bird but at the hint of a meaning that I can’t quite grasp. Maybe it’s no accident that, as my brother and I get back in the van, we simultaneously mention our paternal grandfather, nearly two decades dead. I don’t know. But how mysterious this world is.
We drive through mountains. Low mountains, unspectacular as yet – they’re not Welsh – but by God they go on. And on and on and on. The road to Colo River goes on forever and we’re still on it when night has fallen and all we can see are the packed trees that densely line either side of the road. Just trees, and clotted black shadows beyond the reach of the headlights. Then some
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