We're just back, Jing and I, from ten days down in Australia. Mainly to see my Mum who turned 105 last Tuesday. Imagine! And still going. Still putting on lippie, a very nice dress and pearls. Our dear Mutti.
And family. And old friends.
It's spring in the antipodes; spring was springing and singing everywhere. On the train from Sydney to Canberra, a tootle and a pleasantly slow doddle at four hours for the 300 km, we watch the bush brush past, on either side, yellow with wattle.
Choo-choo, choo-choo. Past Yerrinbool, Bingara, Mittagong, Bowral, Burradoo. All bloomin' wattle. And bloomin' lovely indigenous names too, aren't they?
South of Goulburn, Wollogorang, another lovely name, flows off the tongue, then Lake George, for decades dry, sheep grazing on its bed, now flows itself, full of water. The land is green. Usually khaki, olive, grey, now lime-greens, shot through with the everywhere wattle.
The crabapple too is out:
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| My sister Anne’s Crabapple, Ainslie, Canberra |
In the mornings, Magpies sing and chuckle, prancing around in their dinner suits and bow ties, for titbits on the lawn. Afternoons, the Eastern and the Crimson Rosellas reach for a worm, and hold it to eat. Sulphur-crested Cockatoos crack seeds, loudly. The Galahs come shouting through -- "makeway... makeway...". What a cacophony, the delightful ever-changing noise of the Aussie bush.
The people we find -- after an absence of nearly a decade -- friendly, open, helpful. Smiling. It's not just Thailand that's the "Land of Smiles". We reckon Australia is too.
When I'm back in Hong Kong, I mention this to a Thai friend. Who says "well, yeah, of course, but you're Aussie". I say, not but it's also my wife, from China originally, who feels it. She used to feel "like a foreigner" when she first came to Oz, thirty some years ago. Today, not. She's just an Aussie, too.
There's so many now from all over, and especially from Asia. Being asianised myself, now, after 40+ years in China and Hong Kong, I feel it too, and it's comfortable.
We arrive at our rented apartment in Kirribilli, on the north shore of Sydney. It's on the top floor with no lift. We've got a 25kg suitcase, and me 77 yo.
There's a young guy doing some reno. He offers to help. I don't ask; he offers. Thanks mate, that's much appreciated. He's from Fiji, name of Jerry, looks like a rugby forward. I say this. Yeah, he replies, I used to play footy... in New Zealand. Picks up the suitcase like it's a rugby ball, and marches up five flights of stairs. Doesn't expect anything. Thanks, mate, you're a champ, I say. No worries. 'Ave a good one. And he's off, back to work.
Same at departure. This time it's a young bloke, name of Spike, who says No Worries, I used to do removals. And picks up the case to march it down the steps. Again, expecting nothing but a "thanks mate", to which he's: "no worries. Have a good trip".
"No worries". The best of Oz.
The land. The flora. The fauna. The people. The friends. The family. The beauty of it all.
We're loving it. All over again.
