This is an autobiographical event that occurred back in the fifties when my family went camping every school holidays. The exercise that I am currently teaching is that this anecdote of being "nearly" caught in flood waters will be turned into fiction/ art!
Our Victorian Trip
When I was seven, my family was on a camping trip to Melbourne. We had left the calm August shores of Broken Bay with the sun spreading its warmth over the foothills. Heading south along the Hume Highway, we had camped at several places like Bowral and in Goulburn. Dad was a little pressured to get to Melbourne as we only had two weeks in the school holidays. This was the longest trip the family had ever taken.
Along the highway and heading to Wagga Wagga, storm clouds moulded a dark and foreboding sky. My father, an experienced country driver, kept up a great speed in our station-wagon. My older brother and I were pigeoned in the back seat, beside my baby brother harnessed to his. We played eye-spy until all we could see in front of us was "R" for rain. A deluge battered the vehicle. We rocked as lightning flashed its craggy yellow line on the passenger's side window. My mother's side. We needed petrol. We all needed to pee. And so we headed to a roadhouse restaurant. My father kept up the humour about the worst storm he had ever rowed in, and blamed the school holidays for the usual crappy weather. But by the time we arrived his mirth had turned to one of concern. We watched as four cars were pulled by the swirling waters, and continued to watch in amazement as they travelled down the river, then sank. We were ordered to stay inside the car as the Murrumbidgee River's edges had collapsed on the other side. I remember holding in my stomach, as if my own water was about to burst its banks. My older brother Robert wanted a pie and sauce and Dennis (the baby) cried snot over his own hunger. I can still remember the image of all the people behind the plate glass licking their ice-cream cones and looking out at us in our station-wagon, a parking lot that was full of cars, yet ours was the only one that had people in it.
Dad yelled. "Hold on tight." I'll never forget his grit, and that determined look on his face, when he did a quick handbrake turn and we headed across the highway, ploughing through field after field of harvested wheat or barley. I really can't remember which, but Dad planted his foot that day and headed to high ground. He steered us away from a raging river, a greatly reported flood that now lies archived as one of the worst to hit the south west of New South Wales in forty years.
In hindsight, the farm trip was the highlight of the school holidays. We sailed past astounded cows, horses, fir trees and yelping dog until we finally came to an abrupt stop outside a loading shed. The farmer was very kind and gave us some fresh milk. We also go to use the farm's toilet and the family allowed us to bed down for the night in their hay barn. We huddled together that night, safe and dry and you could hear Dad telling us over and over, 'You might take the wrong road out of town, but you always come to a right stop.'
