I am a long way from Byron Bay.
My intention to provide regular vanlife updates fell by the wayside, muted by uncertainty, and one seriously should-have-know-better error in judgment, as Bay City Lola and I took a detour from the road.
There was a dude, an over-the-border invitation, a huge piece of land with a creek, greenhouses, free recycled water, self-sufficiency potential, love. A happy little life was proffered, a garden and puppies offered as the lure to loll me into this lifestyle and put an end to my vanlife adventures … a potential happy ever after.
As is my nature I approached this new path open to the possibilities, fearless with my faith in the universe, solid in my work ethic, wearing my abundantly loving heart on my sleeve, longing to be with him, longing to make the dream a reality. I wanted our happy little life on the land, toiling together, harvesting the labours of love, with frequent Honey Birdette opportunities, sunset wines on the veranda, open fires, dogs at our feet.
Despite our jagged history I lived in hope. Should his promises prove empty I was still employed and my baby bus could carry me away to another brilliant beach sunset anywhere I chose on my epic adventure.
With border pass in hand, and weeks to go before the property settlement, Lola and I became intimately acquainted with The Bruce, travelling 1000s of kilometres, doing 110kms with the music blaring, windows down, singing heartily, ready for some happy adventuring heading as far north as time allowed, from Byron to Brisbane, to Kings Scrub, to Hervey Bay, Noosa, Gladstone, Mackay, lushing at Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday islands, before we would retrace our path for the farmhand morphing to begin. There are tales of these travels I am yet to tell (the swimming cat that lives on a boat, the 80 year old widowed grey nomad professing his lust in awkward texts, the high profile opportunity to sail down the length of the Murray River and save the world …).
Finally it was time, he wanted me there without delay and with a last, excited-nervous pack of Lola, some personal jushjing (there’s that black hair dye again!), and the most spectacular black leather Honey B to-date, adorned with shiny gold buckles, complete with suspenders and cigar stockings ready for housewarming, alea iacta est and I turned Lola south on The Bruce for the 2 day drive to meet my destiny.
I arrived on the eve of the new moon.
Taking my hand in his as dusk encroached on the last light, I was given a tour of our ever-after ‘home’.
I viewed the shattered wasteland of derelict greenhouses that were mine to provide our farm income (with the use of the free recycled water), each more broken and neglected than the last, overgrown with weeds, white plastic sheets in shreds flapping against their tortured, twisted metal structures.
I walked the wide swathe of the barren treeless corridor running through the middle of the property, lined with monstrous power poles that provide half the bay with their electricity, an unescapable eyesore from every direction, and a serious privacy limiter as the power company had easement rights and unrestricted access to the heart of the property, anytime they wanted (and they used it, often, on the last visit proclaiming another 30 metres of trees would be felled on this already bleak land).
The creek was a fetid, stagnant, weed infested swamp, without redemption.
The drinking water was contaminated, the tanks heavily infested with frogs. No mains water was connected.
To the left of the homestead, a dilapidated house with broken windows and holes in the floor, relocated from elsewhere and propped on concrete stumps, sat the rubbish heap 8 metres long and still growing, piled high with an old oven, cupboards, tiles, pipes, timber, scrap metal. A deep fryer filled with festering oil was left sitting in the middle of the front garden, old mattresses lay discarded against the front of the house.
A broken hills hoist formed a triangle with the hard dry soil; there were few flowering plants, even fewer birds, aside from a multitude of pigeons, and a monotony of self-suckered trees and livestock killing weeds.
The mouse-infested kitchen had no means of cooking, no fridge, just a sink.
Bed was a mattress on a plastic sheet on the floor with the mice.
Drinking a glass of the wine he requested I supply on arrival (despite his new alcohol ‘rules’) on the tiny 2 person veranda, the 100 km an hour traffic from the abutting main road amplified up the long, disintegrating rutted driveway, destroying every skerrick of the longed for rural serenity, with 24/7 constancy, set to worsen with the construction of a new roundabout.
In the final damnation of this unparadisical property the free recycled water is deemed toxic to humans and pets, unsuitable for livestock, unusable for crops.
There’s so much bad ju ju on this property the mother of all smudge sticks wouldn’t be able to fix it.
But I had committed, to him, to us, to this forever-after property, despite my despondent dying dreams this flip and run tragedy would ever be a home.
I swallowed my disappointment pill, popped the rose coloured glasses on, swapped my heels for blundstones, and gave up every freedom I had come to enjoy. Love would conquer all, right?
Then he came home with anxiety dog and gradually, sadly, I came to accept that we would never be able to leave the house together or have any social life together outside of Shithole Swamp.
Instead, I was the caretaker he needed to engage in his social activities away from the property, to care for his dog, to provide the means for him to travel interstate for weeks at a time. I was just a convenient prisoner who couldn’t even get the time of day from him.
The only bright spot in each day was my morning shower despite the frogshit water, until my puppies arrived.
Eight weeks later I had an unloving drunk for a housemate, a garden I could not grow, puppies I could not keep (he took them to the pound in an act so cruel it is unredeemable), a ban on blogging. When you think it couldn’t get worse he managed to up the filthy squalor of our living environment, leaving his dog’s shit wrapped in a tarp beside the bedroom door for days.
One predictable Brisbane bender later his vein-popping rabid psychosis rage spewed forth, his dog so frightened by the ranting she ran away …. and I followed suit as quickly as my frantic repack allowed. I didn’t sign up for this.
It didn’t hurt, there was no hand wringing, no heart bleeding, because in the end it just didn’t matter anymore, he had already diminished my love to a worthless puddle of annoyance, and in truth I just didn’t care, for him or for the life of lies he had built his world on. I was building my own adventure story and his narrative didn’t fit. My path with him ended here. No regrets. It’s his prison now.
And though I escaped this poorly judged folly unscathed, just financially bruised after paying for everything since my arrival, my lady Lola was not so lucky. The damage sustained by the disintegrating pot holed driveway had viciously torn her undercarriage (mine, on the other hand had been woefully neglected by drunken inability).
Driving away from the tatters of this unforgivable mess, parking up on a beach campsite, my life stacked in haphazardly thrown together boxes filling Lola’s cabin, I went for my first swim since I had arrived for the ever-after farce, watched the sunset from the beach, showered the frogshit out of my hair, wore my pretty frocks – wasted on the go-nowhere-ever farmlife – went out for dinner. It was glorious. I was free. It was my second great escape and I cracked open the good champers.
A couple of days later my remaining belongings were in storage and I opened myself to the endless opportunities of this hard earned freedom. I only had to collect my mail and I could put this entire episode down as as nothing more than a sidetrack to my epic journey.
I had a far north birthday party week on the islands to attend, a visit with my Bearchild now he had completed his non participatory Covid-safe passing out parade for the army, family to visit in Perth, a jaunt back to Melbourne to hug the life out of my closest friends when border restrictions lifted, and a rendezvous with Vaughan (Lusty Nipples, he of the chin-bruising kisses) who calls me his Miss Moneypenny. Though he is still a little miffed that I chose the Bloke over him at the end of last year, he wants to meet me in Brisbane, introduce me to extended family before we holiday in Port Douglas and, further down the track, move to the island he plans to buy in the Pacific. I’m open to the possibilities, again. A decade younger than the Bloke, 10 inches taller, and with a PHD or two, it’s definitely trading up . All the neglected Honey B’s will come out to play for this trip.
Luck, the universe, and the beauty of long held friendships has provided me with a permanent base in Brisbane and another in Mackay, every day is a new adventure without a timeline, a chance to explore, and a welcome relief from Shithole Swamp. Once my poor Lola has been fixed.
At liberty with my words again I shall fill in the blanks from Byron Bay until now, and tell the tales of this wondrously mad new life. This shall be the last time the Bloke, or Shithole Swamp, ever rate a mention.
There is magic in the air, I have my sparkle on, the days are filled with sunshine and I intend to take full advantage of it. Life is indeed grand.
Charlie x
And Then Some (members only)
Finally Ready (Extended Mix) – The Shapeshifters featuring Billy Porter
Bay City Lola 