I am leaving Melbourne, Australia and my daughter shortly – another period of travel looms.
I am miserable thinking of leaving. I love the travel I just hate the leaving.
It is almost the end of another family tour. Traveling event. Yearly procession. Whatever we call it – a lot of travel was had and I need to plant a lot of trees for my carbon copay.
Traveling TO is so exciting.
Traveling AWAY is just miserable.
How many of you have accompanied me on these family progressions? Thousands of you I think. We always have such a good time.
I am so glad I can do this every year again. Post bloody covid.
I will be flying through Dallas Fort Worth to San Francisco this time (visiting outliers) then catch a train to Visalia. Which will be many hours traveling but I want to see as many people as I can this time.
I am kind of looking forward to the train.
We saw trees full of bats the other day. Flying Fox bats in the park in Bendigo. We thought they were seed pods!!
When you get to the last frame in this short, look high. There are two bats fighting!
Evidently this is one of the largest public park colonies of this endangered species of bat. Hundreds were dying from heat exhaustion in these extra hot summers and so the park district trialed sprinklers in the trees to cool the bats off – apparently it worked.
I will be back in touch when I am stateside.
Have a lovely day.
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
11 responses to “Travel Days”
I’m glad you’re able to travel to see your family again, without COVID restrictions. The leaving must be hard, being divided between two places. I feel that sometimes, too. My family is not on the other side of the world, like yours, but I would like to be closer to my mum as she’s getting older. I travel each week to see her – I’m lucky to be able to do that, I know. Okay, she isn’t that old (early 70s) but the years pass so quickly. And I want to be there if she needs me (as she has done in the past), I’m the only sibling who steps up!
I heard Ada Limón read her poem Joint Custody recently, and the last few lines stood out. Of course, it’s a different situation – a child of divorced parents being shared between places – but the concept of two different brains, with “one that always misses where I’m not” resonated with me. So much love but bittersweetness with it, too.
Joint Custody
By Ada Limón
Why did I never see it for what it was:
abundance. Two families, two different
kitchen tables, two sets of rules, two
creeks, two highways, two stepparents
with their fish tanks or eight tracks or
cigarette smoke or expertise in recipes or reading skills. I cannot reverse it, the record scratched and stopping to that original chaotic track. But let me say, I was taken back and forth on Sundays and it was not easy but I was loved each place. And so I have two brains now. Two entirely different brains.
The one that always misses where I’m not, the one that is so relieved to finally be home.
Travel safely!
I saw fruit bats in Townsville – there was a mango tree outside the house I was staying in and the bats came to eat mangos at night. They kindly knocked a few off for the humans below! They look amazing in flight.
I noticed the Cornish pasties on the menu down under. They say there’s a Cornish miner in every mine across the world.
Bon voyage!
Kings and Queens used to do this thing called a Progress, moving a temporary household across the countryside to visit loyal subjects at their houses (at sometimes ruinous cost to said subject). I think your Progress to visit your family is a much more friendly thing, since you are giving back to your loved ones instead of taking away, and your path is marked by good memories and trees planted. I hope the fruit bats weren’t too stinky, they have that tendency. I am gnashing my teeth at missing you in Melbourne, so near, and yet so far… Maybe next time. And YES! I strongly agree that road trips should definitely involve pies, it has been and continues to be my mission to find the best meat pie on the east coast. I’m currently inclined to believe that so far the crown goes to the lovely Belinda in my local café. She slow braises local beef before wrapping it in home made, buttery puff pastry. #Pie.To.Die.For. Travel in safety, arrive in health.
Safe travels C!
So wonderful to see the fruit bats, megachiroptera! Amazing flying mammals! When arriving late at night/early morning by bus, I think close to Cairns, my traveling partner and I slept under a huge tree down the beach waiting for our hostel to open in the morning. To our amazement when we awoke we found so many of the amazing fruit bats hanging from the tree limbs waking up themselves! What an experience! Just love going with you on your travels! xo
Safe travels, and enjoy your pies x
Years ago… while the 2000 Olympics were on in Sydney… I took the train from LA to San Diego then back up to San Francisco then part of the way to Yosemite… California train travel was at that time much nicer and efficient than my other more mundane railway experience at home.
I loved seeing the bats! Safe travels and looking forward to the next part of the trip.
I love travelling with you, and I don’t even have to leave my chair.
We are opposites, in that I hate leaving and love to get back home. In my doddering years, it’s an all-day process, even going to the grocery store, but I’m still walking, talking, breathing, and driving, so I’m more fortunate than many other septagenenarians.
I love the bats too !