Summertime
‘Summertime, and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good-lookin’
So hush little baby, don’t you cry …’
George Gershwin’s lyrics to Summertime
On the island chorusing cicadas are marking the arrival of summer weather in my neck of the woods. We’re a month into summer so the hot weather is a little late. Much needed rain took up much of Spring, leaving the plants and trees lush and green.
My earliest recollection of summertime as a kid was a long trip to Adelaide from Melbourne with my parents and older sister in summer. We were having a house stay with a lovely English couple and their young daughter, whom my parents had met on the P&O ship coming out to Australia.
I was about six years old and it was all terribly exciting. Our family of four were crammed in a tiny car and traveling for what appeared to a long distance. It was.
Melbourne to Adelaide is approximately 730kms but it depends which way you go. I can’t recall the route but the Morris wasn’t exactly a speedster. And on the way home it had a nervous breakdown and refused to go any further.
My father had been headhunted by the Australian government. He was a highly skilled British chemical engineer specializing in explosives. He liked to blow things up. At a later date this would include his first marriage followed by another two marriages. We were his first family.
He fancied himself as an intrepid adventurer, so everything in his kit had to have a purpose. My father saw himself as a Hemingway-style hunter. He’d purchased a lot of camping equipment so he could go wild boar hunting in New South Wales. His buddies were macho males and they shared an obsession with red wine, retro muzzle loaders, expensive firearms and explosives.
We slept along the route to Adelaide in a couple of two-man tents. For the first time I experienced just how magnificent the sky can be when you’re away from city lights. Everything was wild and beguiling. The night felt deeply mysterious and incomprehensible in its magnitude. I was awed by the constellations and the strange noises made by nocturnal animals going about their business.
The food seemed exotic because it was being cooked over a campfire in oblong aluminum pans with folding metal handles. There were a lot of eggs, tomatoes and sausages and unusual but tasty concoctions served up on tin plates.
It was the sort of food we never had at home. My mother was a wonderful cook and prided herself on her elegant European cuisine and spicy Indian curries. But I’d had it to the back teeth with Pork Vindaloo and Coq au Vin. Hot cheese jaffles, fish and chips and scrambled eggs on slightly burnt buttered toast became my thing. Everything tasted of the smoky campfire. It was great.
But the biggest thrill was when we camped in the dunes overlooking a magnificent surf beach. All night I could hear the surf breaking on the shore and the wildlife creeping, slithering and sneaking through the long grasses. Night birds cackled and swore and unknown animals screeched, howled and partied. I wasn’t scared – I was thrilled.
My parents had fancy camp beds but I was happy as a clam with a narrow inflatable bed and a musty sleeping bag. I didn’t know at that stage the inflatable had a tiny puncture and I’d end up at 3.00am on the hard cold ground. It didn’t particularly bother me.
Well before the sun rose over the sea I was wide awake and prepped. Barefoot and wearing only my new Xmas shortie pyjamas, I quietly slipped out of the tent and took off. I knew neither parent would bother trying to find me. Being obsessed with domestic dramas of their own making, ensured I became a free-range child.
I ran down a dune and there it was – the beach I’d dreamt of. It was a wild deserted beach that didn’t remotely resemble a Melbourne city beach. It looked just the way it had in my picture story books and I was enraptured. I ran and ran along the shallows before collapsing in a heap. And still the surf raged, seagulls screeched, the sea sparkled and the sun warmed my bare legs and sandy toes.
Nothing could ruin my joy – not even when I became aware some unknown insect was sinking its vicious fangs into my bare flesh. It was the first of many outdoorsy Australian summers and I was hooked.
When our trusty Morris broke down my parents decided we’d return to Melbourne by bus. To my mother’s horror, she had to return home on a speeding express bus with the cream of New South Wales farming communities onboard.
She couldn’t fail to notice that many passengers had coolers of booze under their feet or stashed in the luggage racks. Seeking distraction from the boredom of the endless highway most folk ate, drank, smoked and cackled all the way.
In the midnight hours the passengers fell out of the bus and refueled with fried fast food, coffee and icy cold milkshakes bought from truckie’s refuel & rest stops. I loved the bus and its wacky, cursing, swearing, half-cut passengers. They were friendly and well-disposed to small children.
Our Adelaide adventure became one of one of the best summer’s I’ve ever had.
photo: a warm summer’s night on the Australian coast – by Lesley Truffle.