1975, MY YEAR IN AUSTRALIA: 2 Grape-picking

In this instalment, I’ve found myself filling gaps in the original piece and turning the story into something different. Whether that works, I’m not sure, but I shall carry on anyway. Heartfelt thanks to Carol and Trish for their encouragement. All comments and commentators welcome.

Bella, my faithful friend, arrived at last - in a pickup truck – and drove us to a shack in the woods where I was greeted by a man with long blond curly hair, wearing nothing but a turquoise-flowered sarong around his waist. I gulped. I’d never seen a man wearing a sarong before. Come to think of it, I’d never seen a sarong either in real life.

    ‘He and his girlfriend were caught in The Darwin Cyclone,’ whispered Bella as she showed me around. ‘They’re very Traumatised. This is the bathroom.’
    She turned on the shower which produced a trickle of rusty water and pointed to the lavatory. ‘Best avoided if you can.’
    ‘I think I’ll go for a walk,’ I said.
    I was finding it hard to keep up. A few days ago I’d been in filthy, grey, strike-ridden London, working in an office. Now I was . . . what?
    ‘Watch out for snakes,’ said Bella, ever thoughtful.
    She was three years older than me and had supported me through the miseries of the last two years.
    Five minutes away I found a river. It was caramel coloured and warm to my hand. Sandy beaches and unfamiliar trees lined its banks. Large black birds, like pterodactyls, swooped and squawked above my head. I felt that I was somewhere very old, somewhere before humans, from another era of Earth’s history.
    I’d completely forgotten about Bella’s warning.

The Murray River

We rose before dawn the next morning and drove to the vineyard in the pickup truck, where I was paired with a middle-aged Italian woman. We worked together down a row, one each side. She was expert and I found it hard to keep up.

 

The vineyard at dawn

On Bella’s advice, I’d brought a scarf from England and she’d shown me how to tie it round my head before we’d left that morning. I needed it. The sun was merciless and we ate our packed lunches in the shade of the vines.

Lunchtime

On our day off, we all swam across the river – the Murray, I now knew – and sunbathed on one of the beaches. The Australians wore nothing. Bella and I wore our bikini bottoms.

A few weeks later, sunburnt, scratched and stained with red grape juice, I headed west with Bella to Streaky Bay to stay with Tom whom she’d met on a bus in South East Asia. He lived in a shed roofed with corrugated iron. He was a gentleman, lonely, bewildered and in love with Bella. Bella and I slept in his bed while he slept on the floor.
    He took us to a nearby beach. It was deserted and thunderous with breakers and stretched as far as the eye could see. We shared the sand with seals and dived into the water to get away from biting flies. I think we might have seen dolphins too.

Seals on the beach near Streaky Bay

Then we went to Adelaide and stayed with some more friends of Bella’s. She’d travelled much of the way to Australia by land and made friends everywhere. These friends were arty and cagey and reminded me of English people.
    ‘What on earth do you want to go to Australia for?’ people had asked me back in England. ‘There’s nothing there.’
    Exactly, I thought. I was sick of it all – culture, class, rules, money.
    I didn’t want to be anywhere or do anything in Australia that reminded me of home.
    Another friend of Bella’s took us lobster fishing on his boat. That was more like it.

 

Lobster fishing with one of Bella's friends

Bella had an offer to fly over Ayers Rock (as it was then known).
    ‘You could come too,’ she said excitedly.
    ‘Thanks but no,’ I said. ‘I need to get another job.’
    My father had been against me going to Australia but had still given me the money for the plane ticket (£600 – a fortune - even though I’d bought it from a ‘bucket shop’). I'd decided to assuage my guilt at going by saving enough money to pay him back.

    Now, I also wanted to set out on my own, away from Bella’s protection. As for leaving her alone to meet up with D, her lover – that didn’t occur to me.

I caught another bus. This time I was heading for mountains – South Australia’s Flinders Ranges.