Seventeen Days at Opposite Ends

The last night with Grammy and Fran had been at the caves, and the morning after carried the weight of everything that was about to change. We drove from Mole Creek to Deloraine to fill the water tanks, a practical stop that took longer than it needed to, as though the errands themselves might slow what was coming. From there we looped back to Launceston, to Old Mac's Farm Stay, where the three weeks of convoy travel with Grammy had begun. It felt right to close the circle at the place we had opened it.

That evening the four of us gathered in Grammy's hired Hiace van, crowded around delivered pizza, and the conversation ran the way it does when people know they are measuring their last hours together. Every story from the past three weeks surfaced: the wombats on Maria Island, the one-degree frost at Derwent Bridge, the Gordon River cruise and the actors bringing Sarah Island's convict history to life in the rain. Grammy laughed until her eyes ran. Fran kept topping up everyone's drink. Between the retellings, quieter things were said, plans made with more feeling than detail: next time, somewhere warm, perhaps the mainland. The promises mattered less for their specifics than for the fact of making them, the four of us still choosing forward.

Nobody stayed up late. There was no need to; the warmth of the evening said what it needed to.

Morning was a double parting, and the sharper of the two caught us off guard. Grammy and Fran were always going home; that farewell had been approaching for weeks and had softened with rehearsal. But Sal and Anth separating, the first time on the entire journey one of them would stay while the other left, had not been rehearsed at all. Grammy and Fran drove toward the airport to return the Hiace and fly north. Anth went with them, bound for Adelaide and a seventeen-day clinical trial at CMAX, the same pathway that had funded much of the bus build and now needed to top up the Japan fund. Which left Sal at Old Mac's with the bus, the quiet falling around her like something she could hear.

She settled into it gradually. The days took on a rhythm that belonged entirely to her: online work each morning, a former gym client she kept in touch with, sessions that covered the groceries and the diesel and the small costs that accumulate when your house has wheels. The farm stay was green and unhurried, the kind of place that demanded nothing and offered time. Sal used it. But there were mornings when the bus felt larger than it should have, and she would catch herself glancing at the passenger seat the way you check a clock you already know the time on.

In Adelaide, Anth found himself in one of the more social trials he had done. The clinic had its own closed world, a mix of nationalities thrown together for the same odd transaction: a fortnight of your schedule and your blood in exchange for a lump sum and three meals a day. The days passed quickly, which was not always the case. Among the other participants was Andy, a bloke who went out of his way to make Anth feel welcome and, toward the end of the trial, offered his spare room for the days before Anth's return flight. It was the kind of gesture that sticks. Andy would later come to Tasmania himself and become a regular presence in the months ahead, though neither of them knew that yet, sitting in a shared kitchen in suburban Adelaide.

Three weeks apart, then Launceston again. The reunion was quieter than expected, less a scene and more a settling, as though the bus itself exhaled when both seats were occupied. The savings account was healthier. There was talk of pushing their online work harder. But what mattered more was the morning coffee made for two again, the small shared language of a life that runs on routine rather than spectacle.

The final days in Launceston were practical. Parcels collected from the post office, provisions loaded, a mechanic booked to give the bus some overdue attention before the next run south. Town days had their uses, but they came with a ceiling; after a few nights of streetlights and traffic, the preference for quieter ground always reasserted itself. It was not dramatic. It was just the pull that had put them on the road in the first place, still there, still patient, waiting for them to finish their errands and go.

By the time the bus was stocked and the list was done, we were ready. South, probably, into the colder country, whatever the apps turned up. The plan would sort itself out. It always did.Read more