The Other End of the Line

Bairnsdale on a Sunday had almost everything we needed. The one thing it didn’t have was an open post office. Waiting inside was the new brake rotor for Sal’s bike, ordered after the old one gave out a few metres from Liz and Jeff’s driveway, along with a handful of other bits and pieces. They would have to wait. Tomorrow we would be on the train to Melbourne, and by the time it brought us back on Tuesday the post office would be closed again. Wednesday, then.

The shopping, at least, could be done. Aldi again, because nowhere else came close on price. Then, before leaving town, we drove round to look at where the bus could stay while we were gone. There were only a few long pull-through spaces and end-to-end parks it would fit into, and no way of keeping one. We agreed to come back early in the morning and hope.

Every job we could do now was a job we wouldn’t have to do later, stepping off the train tired with Torrin and his bags. So we filled the water tanks at a spot just ten minutes past the night’s camp. And the bikes, dusty as they always seem to be, got a wash from Anth. They would be riding inside the bus while it sat on its own in a public car park overnight, and they were not coming in the way they were.

With everything ticked off, we headed for Eagle Point and the Gippsland Lakes Reserve, another WikiCamps find, as nearly all our camps are. It served its purpose, and its purpose was simple: fifteen minutes from the station in the morning.

We ate dinner sitting beside the water as the evening came on, then went inside for the night. It had been since winter, and those three nights with him in Melbourne, that we had last seen Torrin. Tomorrow there would be an early start, a car park to win, and the train west.Read more