Salt Creek, November 2001

The wind is angry. It carries smatterings of rain and the salty smell of the Coorong. I
fast trek the rollercoaster hills of the hinterland. A black cloud chases me, overtakes
me to the east. When I turn around I can see dunes, white placid on a tormented sky.
Behind the dunes an ocean I cannot see, water vastness reaching places and people I
love.

Calanque de Morgiou, South of France, 1979

Brigitte, did you know that a girl who enjoys eating fresh oysters is supposed to be
good at fellatio? My 18 YO jaw drops, still I swallow and blush. I hadn’t known. I
am a novice at the art of loving. Camille pulls hungrily at his cigarette. He laughs a
fat laugh, Camille. I think he enjoys shocking me, my older climbing partner.
We are having breakfast in the port of Morgiou. Oysters, brown bread, pink
grapefruit, sweet tea. The sun suddenly pouring molten heat into the morning cold.
Camille’s Peugeot is parked in front of Jojo’s Bar, at the edge of the small harbor.
The sea is intensely turquoise, the fishing boats a rainbow on the water, the limestone
cliffs too white. It is early in the day, still the crickets are already cricketing.

It will be hot work, the walk up to our chosen objective, a route traversing the ‘cret
Saint Michel’, high above the blue red green of the Calanque . As well as my pack, I
lug around an apprehensive mood. Butterflies are colliding in my belly. My palms are
sweaty with anticipative fear. Why the hell do I do this to myself? Ah but the feeling
of complete elation, the being an integral part of the planet’s reality. Everything else
pales in comparison.

A few climbers lured by the possibility of a spectacular plummet have gathered in the
shade of a small pine a hundred meters below the start of our climb. Camille has
already scrambled to our first belay. He is preparing to bring in the rope with me
climbing attached to the end of it. If I fall, I will only go a short distance down as
long as I climb vertically up to the belay. Not so in a traverse. Especially a traverse
such as the one I am ogling suspiciously now that I have joined Camille at his belay
stance. At the edge of the stance, the opponent: three metres of blank wall, then ten
meters of easy horizontal climbing to the left and another belay stance. Camille, who
always macho-leads, will be all right: if he falls in the first difficult three metres I’ll
be holding him from the belay. He will not go far. On the other hand, if I blow it
before the easy ground, I’ll go for a screaming pendulum to end up below Camille,
having followed an adrenaline blasting 13 metres arc. Whoopee.

It is not something I am willing to contemplate, even at the best of times. I am a

whimp you see. I prepare for a potential double disaster: wet pants and lost face.

Camille delicately dances across the crux of the climb. He howls gaily, quickly
traverses the easy ground to establish the next belay. I look dubiously at the
unforgiving white bulge. Blast. A quick peep down at the small crowd of onlookers.
Still there the bastards. Salivating in anticipation, no doubt. Did I look that clumsy on
the way to here? Camille calls climb when ready. I will never feel ready to willingly
step across the gap. A tug on the rope. Right. Two tiny holds for my fingertips,
nothing for the feet to stand on. I swallow, try to anyway. My throat is dry. Deflating
sigh, quick breath intake. I hang onto the small holds, rubbersoled feet flush with the

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smooth rock. Shiiit! That’s it says Camille,’ now take your right foot and cross over
onto that embedded pebble, throw your weight behind your left hand, and dyno for
the three fingers hole up there. Et voila! Yeah. Right. I whimper back to my stance,
deafened by fear. I turn angry with myself, you chicken liver you bumbly you
moron. The anger quietens my heart, cools my head. I take a deep, deep breath.
Peripheral vision ceases to exist. The halo of total concentration surrounds my vision
and brain. I step on the rock face, I allow my feet and hands to do their stuff without
interference from this fearful mind. By the time I let my breath out, I am on the other
side, on easy ground, finding it hard to control my mounting excitement while still at
risk of tripping over and out. I have done it! I feel like crying my invincibility to the
world. My little no- drama side step has taken me above fear, above my self imposed
limitations. I am starting on the next journey, the next challenge. I will face up to
anything and win or lose, I’ll at least confront the fear.

Southern Ocean Beach, Australia, 1994

The waves are trashing the rocks, sending upside down waterfalls to the sky. The
ocean is a dimension I cannot enter. Yet. I tried, but my plimsol line is about knee
high. I don’t push it.

Jon and my father are somewhere fishing ‘stupid fish’. ( Ha-ha my father exclaimed
the night before when Jon brought in a snapper. Un poisson stupide!) . Or perhaps
they are tearing abalone from their underwater bliss.

Having my dad around sends me spinning into my European past. The ocean and the
rocks land me there. What a different world I live in now: there is no one on the
beach, just the ocean and the dark grey rocks, the driftwood driftplastic driftbottles
and the wind blowing salt over my memories. In the South of France there would
have been an anchorage here. A white washed bungalow overlooking the natural
harbour. A café most likely. A sun bleached terrace and umbrella flowers over the
tables.

Instead I am sitting on wet sand crunch between my toes. I hold my skirt in the wind,
I breathe in the Southern Ocean’s soul. Jon and Dad are squatting in the spray over in
the rock pools. They are looking at something in the very spot people are sipping
their rose wine on another continent. Melting two continents, two lives into one is not
always easy. No wonder I enjoy going away, exploring the world outside my two
homes. It is a way of fitting together the pieces of my dual personality. Away from
Belgium and Australia, I am not a Belgian who moved to Australia, I am not an
Australian born and bred in Belgium. I am me, a happy melting pot of two cultures.

Dad and Jon are coming back, holding a bag full of something. Dad looks younger,
excited. Jon is wearing his seaside smile under a drenched moustache. We got some
abalone! Great! When are we going to have them? In Nati, OK?
Sure. Ca va papa? Oui. OOUUI!” Papa slept on his own in one of our little tents last
night. Well…papa did not sleep. The sound of the waves on the wind made him think
that crashing water would soon pull him to sea, oulala and us oblivious of the drama,
happily asleep in the tent next door.
Got some stupid fish too says Jon, shall we have them for dinner?

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The fish charcoaled skin smokes away as Jon expertly taps it out of the fire to a spot
in front of me. I curl my fingers, dive into the black mess. Explosion of white, juicy
flesh. Saucy perfume fills my nose and already opened mouth.

The Mountains above Manali, Northern India, September 1996.

I grin contently. Pass the water pipe to Paul the baba assistant. He pulls on the locally
grown tobacco with gusto. Rudy politely gives it a go.
We are sitting in a holy man’s cave, a hole up a cliff near the newly built heliski
chalet. A valley in the clouds, echoes of the river, cliffs, eagles sweeping, days away
from the India of crowds and life clamours.

Tomorrow we go up, towards the head of the valley and its crown of peaks.

The tent sits on the crest of a ridge. I walk away from it, to better take my position
under the sky. At home. Utterly comfortable. Seeds explode in the fire of my
improvised pipe. High life.

On the way down. By the river, another baba. An English one. He wishes us
soulmates a safe journey. Down the grassy slopes, the river in such a hurry of violent
water. Crops of dope plants behind barbed wire at the little huts along the path . In the
village below, the vroom vroom of Italian hippies on Indian motorbikes.
The road back to the hotel is long and windy. A child beggar darts around us. He has
the face and arms of an angel, the body of a squashed gargoyle. His eyes reach me
from knee high. He moves like the wind, white smile flashing by. I love him.

We feel like food. Mountain trout and chips. None to be had at any of the famed trout
restaurants of Manali. Nobody caught any today. We walk past another beggars patch,
a smile a few words a few rupees. In a walled garden where goats munch flowers, an
Italian hippie family has opened a, well, Italian restaurant. Bruschetta, enchanting
pizzas, beer and a coffee for Rudy. Up there, a baba in a cave, a mouth around a
pipe.

Isla del Sol, Bolivia, April 2000

I yawn. My bum is getting cold on the stone parapet. It is that time of day. The sun is
coming down, the air is tingling cold inside the nostrils. The mountains of the
Cordillera Real are gold orange dark purple. Lake Titicaca frozen silver blue.

A beam touches the edge of the island, spotlights a woman and her child. Rainments
of colours dance on a still background.
Tu viens? Says Thibeault, le diner est pret. This is a working trip. My assistant guide
is half- Bolivian half- French. At the moment, he is French. Earlier today, sitting in
our white and blue fishing boat, he was Bolivian.

We slice through the cold of the dark blue lake, coming ashore at a small village.
Walk through it. Packed lunch on the steps of the footy ground. Behind us, the
perfect curve of a sheltered cove. Thibeault and his friends - our cooks Jorge and his
niece Marta - are taking our small Adventure Plus group to the ruins of a pre -
Aymara village, high above the lake azure. It is hot. The path is rock and dust,

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trekking poles tinkle the rough ground. We walk and talk. We puff in the rarefied
atmosphere of the Altiplano.
This is the birthplace of corn, they say proudly. We take photos. Gaze at the stone
maze. The lake everywhere.

In the darkness, we descend towards the house where we will eat. Talking about God
and man, as we usually do. Rocks are shooting underneath our feet, women are
walking up from the village tap with full jerrycans swaying their heavy skirts. They
look at us with contempt on their mouths. Until we say hola.

Candles burn in glass bottles, dithering in the wind. Australian laughs and voices
bounce on the island’s indifference.
Fragrant trout steaks,
huge and steamy
fill our bowls and smiles.

20 kms out of Burketown, Northern Australia, 19 September 2001.

I can see him. He is hunched under the shade of a scrawny gum. Picking at bits in his
eating bowl. He moved to look up at the car, but only just. My love. He is shattered
and focused. Where is the map of the tides, have I reached tidal water yet? He has. He
walked unassisted from tidal water at Port Augusta to tidal water near Burketown.
Lost his partner Jack Russell Seraphine Snupesen to a dingo bait 10 days ago. His
eyes are infinitely lost.

Tomorrow, he will officially arrive in Burketown, on the Albert River, at the edge of
the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Tonight is ours. We drive to a creek nearby. Green, lush. A place for a fire. Clear
water and palms.

Janet, at the caravan park, has given me barramundi steaks. I bought some beer at the
pub, and ready made meals at the café. Lemons from home. O really says Jon. He
holds one, smells it, looks at it. His fingers take him home. To the sunset lit cliffs in
front of the windows. To the emus and swamp wallabies grazing the paddocks, to the
birds and the wind and the waving trees.

He has not stopped eating since I picked him up. Salt and vinegar chips, chocolate,
bars, jelly beans, Marion’s fruit cake, Korry’s cookies, snakes, salt and vinegar chips..
He tells me lives of his great mission. The good ones, the hard ones, the terrible one,
the desperate ones. The beauty of being out there. Fish flesh sticks to his fingers, to
his beard. My eyes find his, and I am an Australian in Australia. We are all from
somewhere else.