Going down south

West Australians have a ritual we like to call, “going down south” and I love every part of it.  

It begins with a Friday afternoon flurry at the office, when urgent files manifest and I begin to eye the clock with the desperation of a contestant on The Amazing Race.  We jam suitcases in between saucepans and stockpots and tumble into the car.  The traffic is always bad and the freeway is as clogged as a fat man’s arteries.  We belt out power ballads by Mariah and Whitney for a few hours until we make a pit stop at Hungry Jacks.  The car becomes musty with the smell of grease and Angus beef. Flaccid lettuce falls behind the accelerator and the giggling becomes more hysterical the further south we get. 

When we reach the house, the night air is spicy with eucalyptus.  Frogs murmur while we unload the boot.  If we’re lucky, someone has arrived before us to turn on the heater and to welcome us with wine and cheese.  Our toes curl up as bare feet touch floorboards.  I wash my hands and feel grateful that the downlights are flattering.  The bath beckons in incandescent splendour. 

In the mornings, I run on empty roads framed by trees so tall that my neck aches when I look at them.  I like watching the speckled sunlight on the path and hearing my Asics crunching on gumnuts and pebbles.  When I reach the ocean, my hair whips onto my face and sticks like a mass of seaweed on a rock.  I squint at the expanse of blue and hear Regina Spektor singing, “the sea is just a wetter version of the skies”.  I feel like I am running in slow motion when my feet sink into the powdery sand.  The wind whisks away the sound of my panting.  When I return to the house, there is bacon hissing in a frypan and eggs are slipping in puddles of vinegary water on a plate.  Tracksuit pants and tousled hair greet me. 

The colours are brighter down south and I don’t know enough synonyms for green.  We eat lunch wearing sunglasses and smiling like Buddha onto grapevines.  I close my eyes in the backseat as we drive back to the house and the shadows of the bush flash like a strobe light through my eyelids.

Dinner down south is always my favourite time.  We coax corks out of newly bought bottles of shiraz. I pour cream on steaming Royal Blue potatoes with my right hand and hold a gin and tonic in my left.  We eat too much meat, drink too much wine and I laugh so hard that I have to hunch over, Quasimodo style.  I walk out onto the balcony and my neck hurts again when I look at the stars. 

I love going down south.  When I am there, the frenzied beehive inside my head quietens and my heart and stomach ache with fullness.