A Month Begins at the Station

Back on the blacktop, we headed due east in a straight line, the landscape unfolding with the particular flatness of Victoria's northern reaches. Our destination—Albury-Wodonga—felt fitting for what lay ahead, a twin city straddling two states where our own paths would temporarily diverge. The border town's dual identity seemed to mirror our approaching separation, two entities functioning as one yet maintaining distinct existence.

Wodonga welcomed us first, Victoria's final offering before the Murray marked state boundaries. We paused briefly to orient ourselves, the town's practical layout revealing its border-town functionality—services clustered for travellers passing between states, infrastructure designed for transit rather than lingering. Then we crossed into New South Wales, leaving Victoria behind as we sought the train station that would serve as tomorrow's departure point.

The station car park initially seemed promising—convenient, well-lit, close to the platform where morning's farewell would unfold. But signs sprouted everywhere like bureaucratic weeds, their warnings of fines and restrictions making our intentions clear: overnight parking was not welcome here. We circled twice, hoping to find some overlooked corner where our presence might pass unnoticed, but the message remained unambiguous.

"Not worth the risk," Anth concluded, already reaching for his phone to consult WikiCamps. "Let's find somewhere proper and come back in the morning."

We left the bus in the station car park temporarily while we ventured into town for dinner, the practical need for food providing excuse to regroup and research alternatives. Over meals eaten with the particular awareness of those facing separation, we scrolled through camping options, seeking something close enough for our early start yet legitimate enough to avoid midnight encounters with parking enforcement.

The solution revealed itself through the generosity of the local RSL, who offered their car park to self-contained vehicles for single-night stays. This arrangement—common enough across Australia but always appreciated—provided exactly what we needed: legitimate sanctuary less than five minutes from the station, close enough for our dawn departure yet removed from the station's prohibitive signage.

We relocated our golden home to the RSL car park as evening settled over Albury-Wodonga, the familiar routine of positioning and levelling carrying different weight knowing this would be our last shared night for a month. The car park's utilitarian surroundings—concrete and line markings, other vehicles coming and going—couldn't diminish the significance of these final hours together.

The alarm pierced through darkness at an hour that felt cruel even by our nomadic standards, though neither of us had truly slept. We'd spent the night in restless tandem—turning, sighing, occasionally reaching across the space between us as if to store the sensation of proximity before its imminent absence. Our bodies had grown so accustomed to shared sleep that even anticipation of separation disrupted our usual rhythms, creating a wakeful vigil where minutes stretched like elastic toward the dawn we simultaneously craved and dreaded.

We'd prepared the bus for travel the previous evening with mechanical precision that masked emotional turbulence. Every system checked twice, every item secured with excessive care—Sal would be navigating solo for the first time on a journey of this magnitude, and our mutual anxiety manifested in obsessive preparation. The golden home that had sheltered our partnership for eighteen months would continue north with only half its usual crew, while the other half disappeared into Melbourne's medical machinery for an entire month.

"Everything's ready," we'd assured each other repeatedly, though we both knew the preparations that mattered couldn't be packed or secured.

The short drive from the RSL to Albury station unfolded in practiced precision despite the emotional weight pressing against our chests. We'd become experts at early morning departures, our movements choreographed through countless pre-dawn starts, but this morning carried different gravity. Each familiar action—securing the cab, checking mirrors, navigating empty streets—felt heightened, as if our bodies were memorising the last moments of togetherness before enforced separation.

The station car park stood mostly empty in the pre-dawn gloom, sodium lights casting everything in that particular amber that makes reality feel suspended. We parked with careful consideration of Sal's return journey—easy exit angles, clear sight lines, nothing to complicate her solo departure after delivering Anth to his train. These small considerations had become our language of care, practical gestures carrying emotional weight words couldn't quite reach.

"You'll be fine," Anth assured as we walked toward the platform, though his hand gripping Sal's suggested he was reassuring himself as much as her. "The bus practically drives itself now, and you're more than ready."

The V-Line train arrived with mechanical inevitability, its headlight cutting through morning mist like fate approaching. Other passengers moved with routine purpose—commuters beginning another ordinary day, travellers continuing ordinary journeys. For us, this train represented fracture in the continuous narrative we'd been writing together, a pause in the shared story that had defined our existence since leaving Brisbane all those months ago.

Standing on the platform, Sal felt the emotional dam she'd carefully maintained begin to crack. Eighteen months of constant companionship, of every decision made together, every challenge faced as a unit, every sunset shared from our golden home—all of it compressed into this moment of necessary parting. The clinical trial that would confine Anth for a month represented essential funding for future adventures, but logic provided cold comfort against the immediate reality of separation.

"It's only a month," Anth whispered, pulling Sal close as the train's doors opened with pneumatic finality. "Christmas Eve, we'll be together again."

But as he stepped aboard, as the doors sealed between them, as the train began its inexorable departure, the tears Sal had been fighting escaped in silent streams down her cheeks. She stood on the empty platform long after the train's lights had vanished into the grey morning, allowing herself this moment of pure feeling before returning to the bus that suddenly seemed enormous in its emptiness.Read more