The Only Flat Spot

A date sat on the horizon again, but this time it was far enough away to feel like room rather than pressure. Torrin's trial in Melbourne would end in the first week of October. He would fly home to Gympie to pack up the things he had stored at Grammy's, then fly back for his outpatient visits. After that we would catch the train in from Bairnsdale and bring him out to the bus. Between here and there lay two and a half weeks and the whole of the high country, and we meant to take it slowly.

Slow still had its rules. Wednesdays belonged to Sal's SMART Recovery groups, and on those days the bus stayed put. Any camp near a Wednesday had to give her clean sky for the Starlink and enough sun to keep the batteries up. So the first stop south of Erinn's was chosen as much for what it lacked as for what it had. It was Black Lake, a plain sheet of water in the middle of the Monaro, just east of Bibbenluke and north-east of Bombala, about a hundred and forty kilometres south of Michelago.

We were the only ones there when we pulled up. There was one properly flat place for the bus, and we took it. Over the next days a few others drove in, slowed, looked at where we were, and carried on to a spot further round the shore. Each time we felt a small, unworthy satisfaction, and did not move.

The lake sat inside a sheep paddock, fenced into someone's working land, and there was nothing to do there but look at it. Black swans drifted in pairs along the far side. The Eurasian coots worked the edges in their busy, head-bobbing way, and smaller water birds came and went in the shallows.

Every evening, without fail, the ewes came down to the water. They walked the shoreline in a loose line with their lambs at heel, heads down, grazing and calling to each other as the light went. These lambs were older than the ones we had watched at Michelago, steadier on their legs and bolder, but the bleating was the same. It carried across the flat water to the bus. We would stop whatever we were doing and watch them pass. A ewe called, a lamb answered from too far back and came running, and the swans on the dark water behind them didn't even turn their heads.

On the Wednesday Sal sat at her desk in the cab and ran her groups one after another, headphones on, voice low and steady, the lake framed in the windscreen behind the screen. When the last one finished she closed the laptop and sat for a moment with both hands flat on the lid. The week's work was done. The next six days belonged to nobody but us.

It was a peaceful place, and we were grateful for it. But it was farming country through and through, and the mountains were waiting. We wanted to wind our way through the Gippsland forests with time to spare, and we were drifting closer to the Victorian border again. The last time we crossed it was at Gadds Bend in the winter, with Grammy and a herd of curious cattle. The battery read full. Sal made one more coffee for the road and drank it before it had a chance to cool.

We pulled away from the only flat spot on the lake. In the mirror, the swans hadn't moved.Read more