Finally Finis!

Tonight is New Years Eve. There is still half an hour left in 2016, and as I lay awake sweltering in this unusually warm summer temperature, I realised that I really need to finish the old chapter of our life, so that a new one can begin.

So back in time to our last days in France. We took another road trip to Baux-au-Provence, just because we were bored out of our skulls sitting in our little apartment in Port Saint Louis. I'd already seen the incredible art presentation at Lumieres, and Megan wasn't inclined to go, so we clambered up to the village instead.

Limestone cliffs around Baux au Provence

View over the valley from the town

Megan posing in front of fake snow.

Village views

Just another unbearably cute village

Anyway, enough faffing around, the day of our departure arrived. We piled our remaining belongings into our little rental Citroen, and drove to Marseille airport. I was dreading having to check my precious guitar into baggage, but was most pleased when i was told i could take it on as carry on luggage. I won't bore you with the details of that long and interminable flight, except to say it was long.... and interminable....

Different style of church at Baux

Square in the town opens into empty space

Eventually we arrived, after 4 flights, 2 car rides, and the odd bus ride, back to Ballina. We were in a kind of shock. The world as we knew it had changed radically. Not to disparage Australia, but it seemed to be inhabited by a strange species of bogons.... we were in culture shock.

A view up the valley of Baux

Loving these winter pastel colours. 

The reality took a while to sink in, but it was over. Our life as rambunctious sea explorers was ended, and now we're living in small town Australia. In reflection, its not the tourist sites or the great cities or all the wondrous things that we saw that I miss. We'd both really had enough of being tourists.

Rather, it was the gentle swell of the boat on an evening tide, the security of our little floating womb, walking up the companionway and being overwhelmed by the beauty of what surrounded us. It was the joy of entering a strange harbour, filled with naval vessels and cranes and all manner of strange things, and feeling like we had a right to be there. It was our finely practiced skills as we docked the boat in yet another demanding anchorage or narrow little port. It was being surrounded by wildness as the weather worsened, trusting to our little Rocna to keep us secured to the planet. It was feeling a bond with fellow mariners, and knowing that we could meet new and interesting people in just the next dock. It was a whole life package.

A panorama of the Baux hills

It was also the license to write this blog, feeling like I had a point of view that others might find interesting. Its difficult to lose that sense, to feel that I now have no legitimacy to write about my life.

Megan and I have set about re-acquring the trapping of 'civilized' life, those things that make you feel 'rooted' in both the literal and Australian vernacular sense. We now own a lovely old Holden Commodore with only 160,000 km on the clock. We aspire to seniors cards, pension forms, superannuation accounts, and heaven forbid, a firmly anchored house. At the moment, I'm feeling a softly growing sense of entrapment and a slow suffocating strangulation. Maybe its just the heat. Everyone keeps telling me that new life will spring from the ashes.

We shall see. I'm open to whatever comes. I'm enjoying resurrecting patterns and habits that were hard to keep at sea. We're back in the pool every second day, doing laps. Two days a week are thin days (thanks, Carol, we're keeping it up). Life is evolving a structure..... but is it the one I want? 

So, I guess I should formally close this blog. It would be too soul-destroying to blog about suburban rural Australian life. Thanks for following this blog, its been accessed 30,000 times, so some-one is reading! And in the immortal words of the dolphins escaping an earth about to be demolished for a hyperspace by-pass, 'So long, and thanks for all the fish!'