A few months ago, I became curious about the genealogical origins of my interest in art. Was the Trudinger line responsible? Or was it another branch of the family? I did find a few Trudinger relatives with artistic talent; some were architects, others were actual artists of note. But the surprising discovery was my third cousin, the late Pierre Trüdinger who was an artist and a Marquis (French partisan) during World War II. You can read his story from the Italian Online Newsletter, Il Tirreno, here.
In the following re-blog of our European adventures of 2014, enjoy our exploration of the much-fought-over territory between the Germans and French, the Alsace, and the battle we endured with our car’s Sat-Nav.
We parked in the car park of a closed service station, which also served as a garage for car repairs. By this time, Cordelia’s request for a doctor had been forgotten. She remained silent and didn’t remind us. I wasn’t going to mention her need. She looked well enough to me when we extracted ourselves from the car and stretched our legs. She was upright and not running off to the nearest public toilet.
After a brief stamp of our legs and rubbing of our arms, Rick said, ‘We’ll need to get some sleep.’
‘How are we going to do that?’ asked Jack.
‘In the car, I guess,’ Rick replied.
Mitch herded us back into the car. ‘Come on, in we go.’
Again, we piled in. Again, Mitch crammed in the middle of us girls, while Rick and Jack reclined in semi-luxury in the front seats.
I observed that Cordelia had no complaints, and her need for a doctor remained a non-urgent issue. For now. She snuggled up to Mitch, who also made no drama of the arrangement. No sleep for me, though. I squashed myself up against the side, putting as much space between my cousin and me as humanly possible. All through the hours of darkness, I sat upright trying to sleep while Mitch twitched, and my brother snored.
In the grey light of pre-dawn, I spied Mitch pacing the gravelly clearing of the car park. How did he get out? The Charger is only a two-door car. On the other side of the back seat, Cordelia slept soundly. Rick snorted and shifted his weight in the driver’s seat while Jack lay stock still. Looked like a corpse. Then he moved.
In an effort not to disturb the three sleepers, I slowly, gingerly, silently, crawled over Rick. My brother snorted as I landed on his knees.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered. ‘Have to answer the call of nature.’
‘Why didn’t you say so,’ Rick said, smacking his lips and continuing to snore.
I pushed open the car door and crept out.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked my cousin.
‘Stretching my legs,’ he said.
‘Weren’t you comfortable?’
‘No,’ Mitch said, ‘sleeping upright and squashed up next to … next to,’ he jerked his head in the direction of the car, ‘I found it very—very … uncomfortable.’
I glanced at Cordelia sleeping like a kitten but decided not to comment on the arrangement. ‘Well, it wasn’t a Sunday School picnic for me, either. I didn’t sleep a wink.’
‘Oh, yes, you did,’ Mitch said. ‘You were snoring.’
‘No, I wasn’t, that was Rick. He always snores. Anyway, I was awake all night.’
But Mitch was adamant that I snored. Just like Rick.
‘What do we do for breakfast?’ I asked.
Mitch shrugged.
‘Perhaps there’s a roadhouse around here somewhere,’ I said. ‘I’m starving.’
Mitch, though, advised that we must wait until the others had risen before we venture into town to find a place to eat.
I gazed in the direction of the main street with the shabby buildings all monochrome, the sun’s rays yet to burst over the horizon. I hoped that there was a place to eat in this sleepy town.
‘Is this Dubbo?’ I asked.
Mitch again shrugged.
‘Looks awfully small for Dubbo.’ I remembered when our family had visited Dubbo on the way back from Canberra three years earlier. We had toured the zoo there at that time. Didn’t take much time to tour the zoo. Rather small, actually, and I went away disappointed. Still, my memory of Dubbo was that it was much bigger than this tiny collection of real estate.
‘I think so,’ Mitch replied. ‘We’re on the outskirts.’
‘Lucky, I found this garage,’ Rick said while strolling up to us.
Mitch smiled. ‘Well, that’s an answer to prayer. We won’t have to go looking for one.’
By the time the sun had peeped over the horizon, Jack and Cordelia had woken and piled out of the Charger.
While Rick commenced preparatory work on the Charger, the rest of us four ventured down the main street in search of a roadhouse. We figured that at this early hour of the day, nothing much else would be open. However, the roadhouse remained elusive, and we returned to the Charger at the garage hungry.
Upon our return, we noticed Rick and a man standing under the raised bonnet of the car. They were deep in discussion.
As we approached, the man waved at Rick and walked away towards the garage, now open.
[In 2013, the T-Team, Next Generation, embarked on their pilgrimage to Central Australia. Purpose: to scatter Dad’s ashes in his beloved Central Australia, in Ormiston Gorge.
Over the next few weeks, I will take you on a virtual trip to the Centre, reliving memories of that unforgettable holiday in 2013 with my brother and his family, the T-Team Next Generation.
This time, the T-K Team continues their venture out West of Hermannsburg to explore Tnorala (Gosse Bluff).]
T-Team Next Generation—
Tnorala (Gosse Bluff) Conservation Reserve
—Revisited
[In 2013, the T-Team, Next Generation, embarked on their pilgrimage to Central Australia. Purpose: to scatter Dad’s ashes in his beloved Central Australia, in Ormiston Gorge.
Over the next few weeks, I will take you on a virtual trip to the Centre, reliving memories of that unforgettable holiday in 2013 with my brother and his family, the T-Team Next Generation.
This time, the T-K Team continues their venture out West of Hermannsburg to explore Tnorala (Gosse Bluff).]
Big Day Out West (2)
Afternoon
After eating a snack, we walked the designated paths, taking care not to stray from the designated paths. Off track, the land was reserved for revegetation, and it certainly had revegetated since 1977. Then, the crater had been a barren wasteland. In 2013, green and full of native bushes and trees.
Upon completing the various walking tracks in the crater, we trekked back to the Ford and then trundled out and off the unsealed part of the Mereenie Loop Road, continuing north along it towards the road to Glen Helen.
But not for long. Roadworks rendered the road unsealed, so more crawling. Until we reached the Gosse Range lookout. Hence, in the mellowing sunlight of mid-afternoon, we supped on our cheese and gherkin sandwiches, which we had bought from the store while feasting our eyes on the panoramic view of the Gosse Ranges and the MacDonnell Ranges.
I snapped a few more photos and climbed into the Ford. Hubby was drumming the steering wheel. After I’d fastened the seatbelt, Hubby turned the ignition.
Nothing.
‘O-oh!’ Hubby muttered and tried the ignition again.
The Ford started, then shook and shuddered.
‘Oh, shoot!’ Hubby snapped.
He turned off the protesting Ford. Extracted himself from the car. And looked under the bonnet. While I sat like the queen in the car, he spent some time “working” and exclaiming at intervals, “We’re stuffed!”
I jumped out and joined him in the under-the-bonnet examinations. By this time, Hubby was in the process of reattaching the air filter hose to the air filter. ‘We’ll see if that works,’ he said.
We resumed our positions in the Ford, sent up an arrow-prayer, and Hubby turned the ignition. The engine ticked over smoothly, and we breathed out our sighs of thanks to God. Hubby then climbed out of the car again to close the bonnet.
Just at this particular time, a pair of tourists in a utility truck drove into the viewing area. They noticed the bonnet up on our car and called out, ‘You need some help?’
Hubby, with a tone of pride in his voice, replied, ‘Nah, we are fine. All good.’
They waved, then drove past us to find a park and take in the view of the Gosses.
Late Afternoon
On our return, we passed a group of stranded owners of the land, kids waving. But Hubby kept driving. I guess he wasn’t going to push his luck with mechanical prowess too far. In that way, he was different from Dad, who would’ve stopped and bantered in Aranda with them. And back then, in 1981, we had Richard, our mechanic.
By the time we reached Glen Helen, the fuel needle sank to less than a quarter of a tank, the gas-guzzler that the Ford is. We filled the tank there and then, now that we were on bitumen road, glided along, enjoying the golden and purple hues of the MacDonnell Ranges in late afternoon. These I captured on my camera, with frequent stops, some with Hubby’s prompting.
Ellery Creek languished in the shade when we arrived there. In the cooling shadows, we walked down the path leading to the water’s edge. Just as I remembered, Ellery Creek offered a big pool of water in which to swim. In fact, it’s the go-to place for swimming for the locals. And, as we walked the track to the pool, we passed a German tourist clad in bathers and hair wet from a dip.
Later, as we drove westward to Hermannsburg, Hubby squinted at the setting sun glaring through the windscreen and whined, ‘I can’t see a thing!’
‘Do you want me to drive?’ I asked.
‘No, no, I’ll be right.’
Just then, a kangaroo darted across the road. Hubby slowed, and we watched the kangaroo and its joey tagging behind her, skitter over the verge, and disappear into the bush.
We arrived back in Hermannsburg at around 7 pm. I rang mum while waiting for tea. After a tasty meal of Chow Mein, we relaxed watching a video and enjoying fellowship with our friends.
The highway, so straight, never curving to the right nor the left, was hypnotic. Again, in the late afternoon, the burning sun on the back of my neck, now sinking in the West, and the rushing of air from the open window, lulled me into a state of semi-sleep.
By increments, as sunset turned to dusk, the air cooled. I trusted Rick to keep us safe on the highway to Sydney. I noted Cordelia resting her head on Mitch’s shoulder, and then I sank into a deep, satisfying sleep.
The car slowed to a stop by the side of the road, again. Groggy from sleep and the hypnotic effect of the endless highway, we piled out of the Charger and milled around the non-functioning headlights.
Mitch peered at the offending lights. ‘Are you able to fix them, Rick?’
Rick pulled up the hood and, in the dim light, examined the engine. He poked around in the dark nether regions of the Charger’s insides.
Mitch hovered over Rick’s back while he prodded and poked at the parts in the dimness. ‘Do you need a torch?’
‘Do you have one, Mitch?’
Mitch shrugged. ‘I don’t…didn’t think…would you have one in the glove box?’
‘Might have, but the battery’s gone flat,’ all mumbled to the engine.
Mitch had already left to torch-hunt in the Charger’s glove box. At this time, I watched Jack busy himself sorting through luggage at the rear of the vehicle.
Cordelia sat all hunched over on her duffel bag. ‘I still don’t feel well,’ she said.
‘Are you carsick?’ I asked.
‘No, it’s worse than that,’ she answered. ‘I think I need to see a doctor.’
I gazed around the silent, darkened landscape. ‘Maybe at the next town, we can try to find one.’
Jack called, ‘Hey, I’ve found another torch.’
The feeble light of Rick’s torch wandered over the car engine.
‘It’s the alternator, it’s cactus. Needs replacing,’ Rick said. ‘We’ll need to park here for the night, and in the morning, I’ll fix it at the next town.’
Cordelia, clutching her stomach, walked up to the lads. ‘I need to see a doctor; I’m not feeling at all well.’
Mitch glanced at the girl, his eyes wide and brow furrowed. ‘Perhaps we’d better push on and find a doctor—hospital—something.’
‘How can we?’ Jack said. ‘We have no headlights. It’d be dangerous.’
‘I’m not driving without headlights,’ Rick said.
‘How far to the nearest town?’ Mitch raised his voice. ‘The girl needs help.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘How far is it to Dubbo?’
Mitch grabbed the RAA strip map, Jack handed him the torch, and with the stronger light, Mitch flipped the pages and then studied the relevant page.
At Mitch’s insistence to save this damsel in distress, we piled back in the car and crawled down the highway, torches flashing back and forth from the rear windows.
After a few minutes, Rick shook his head, his curls flopping about his damp forehead. ‘It’s not working.’
‘What about,’ Mitch sighed, ‘what about, if I sit in the front and you and I shine the torches from the front.’
‘If you think it’ll make a difference,’ Rick muttered.
Mitch changed places with Rick, who was driving, and Rick moved into the front passenger seat where Jack had been sitting. Jack then bumped Cordelia into the middle and sat behind Mitch.
The car crawled a few metres with Rick and Mitch waving torches from their front positions.
I looked behind me at the expanse of the dark landscape, and the sky was filled with the Milky Way.
‘I hope the cops don’t catch us,’ I murmured.
‘What cops?’ Jack said.
The Charger slowed and then stopped.
‘It’s not working,’ Rick said.
‘But we’ve hardly moved,’ Mitch said.
‘I think it’ll be better if we don’t use the torches and I drive by the starlight.’ Rick sniffed. ‘I think my eyes will adjust. And we’ll take it slowly.’
‘I can do that,’ Mitch said.
‘No, I’ll drive.’ Rick pushed open his door and marched over to the driver’s side. ‘It’s my car. I know how to handle it.’
Mitch breathed in and out with an emphasised sigh. ‘If you insist.’
Rick forged ahead on the highway to Dubbo at a leisurely twenty miles an hour. I know it was twenty miles (not kilometres) an hour as it took us an hour to reach the outskirts of Dubbo. Mitch couldn’t resist the urge to hang his arm out with Jack’s torch, offering slim beams of light to guide Rick as he drove. Fortunately, we met no police on patrol.
[In 2013, the T-Team Next Generation, embarked on their pilgrimage to Central Australia. Purpose: to scatter Dad’s ashes in his beloved Central Australia, in Ormiston Gorge.
Once every month on a Friday, I will take you on a virtual trip to the Centre and memories of that unforgettable holiday in 2013, with my brother and his family, the T-Team Next Generation.
This time, the T-K Team ventured out West of Hermannsburg to explore Tnorala (Gosse Bluff).]
Big Day Out West
Night
An alarm wailed.
I sat up and nudged Anthony. ‘What’s that about?’
Anthony snorted, smacked his lips and mumbled. ‘I don’t know. An alarm, I think.’
‘Shouldn’t we tell P? It might be their shop.’
Anthony snorted, turned over and recommenced snoring.
For some time, I lay in bed. Sleepless. The alarm was bleating with lights flashing through our window. I assumed that, like car alarms in the city, a cat or dog had set the thing off and the owners would sort out the problem … eventually.
Eventually, the alarm stopped and somehow, I fell into a good, deep sleep.
I stretched and then yawned. ‘Good morning, Anthony, did you have a good sleep?’
‘No,’ he grumbled. ‘You snored!’
Breakfast
After a shower, getting dressed while Anthony caught up on the sleep he apparently missed out on while I snored (nothing about the alarm, I might add), I chatted with K over breakfast.
‘The store was broken into last night,’ she said.
‘So, that’s what the alarm last night was all about,’ I remarked.
‘Yep, happens on a regular basis. One of the windows needs replacing, again.’
P joined us. Leaning on the kitchen table, he added, ‘If you want anything at the shop, you’ll have to wait until it opens. The store was broken into.’ He chuckled. ‘One lady has tried to impress the cops with her tracking skills.’
‘Who tried to break in? Do the police have any idea?’
After a slow morning, mooching, chatting with P (K had gone to work), Bible study and then preparing some lunch, Anthony and I commenced our day trip to the Gosse Range. After some twenty kilometres of bitumen, we took the turn onto the Mereenie Loop and the road deteriorated. The Ford suffered the juddering of corrugations and slipping and sliding on silty red sand. Anthony slowed the car and crawled at a tense 20 km per hour.
I clutched the handhold of the door. ‘Is the car going to survive? I feel like the car’s going to fall apart.’
‘Why do you think I’m driving so slow?’ Anthony snapped.
The truck powered past us, leaving us behind in a cloud of bulldust. Thankfully, the Ford, with its windows wound up, shielded us from the red menace, and we continued to judder along the corrugations for what seemed an eternity.
Then we rounded a bend in the road and, there, the Gosse Range spread out before us.
We stopped and captured the range, dressed in a soft mauve in the midday sun. As we prepared to jump in the car, another vehicle came roaring up the road towards us. This time, I caught the car with my camera as it sped up the road as if it were a racing track.
After the cattle were caught on camera, we crawled our way to the Gosse Range turn-off. By this time, the jiggling and juggling along the route must have rattled Anthony’s senses and he had become quite cavalier. ‘What the heck, the road doesn’t look too bad.’
I stared at the two-tyre rutted track. I knew, having been there some 36 years before, that the track would not be much of a track further on. ‘Better to park the car just off the side of the road and hike to the Gosse Range, actually.’
‘Looks alright to me.’
‘Okay, if you must. We’ll drive as far as we can and then walk the rest of the way.’
This we did. Our trusty old Ford lumped and “harrumphed” over the rocks and ruts until we decided to spare the Ford any further risk and indignity to its undercarriage and suspension. Then we hiked the final kilometre through the gap and into the pound.
‘I’m so glad we were able to walk through the gap,’ I said while marvelling at the cliffs and boulders on each side. ‘If we’d been able to drive through, as we did in the Rover in 1977, I would’ve missed the beauty of these formations.’
[Travellers to Australia often overlook Adelaide, South Australia, as the poor cousin to the eastern states. Situated in an unfashionable corner of the globe, the city and its surrounds have the reputation of being too hot, too dry, and too awkward to visit.
Welcome to my home city and state.]
T-K Team Take on the Barossa Valley
Shortly before the Swiss relatives arrived, panic among the brothers-K set in. Yes, we were going to the Barossa Valley. But where?
My husband and his brother, P1, cobbled together a plan of the day: wine-tasting, sightseeing, a bakery for lunch, and of course, toilet stops at regular intervals.
We converged as the formidable family of ten at Williamstown, eventually in the car park next to, yes, you guessed it, after a scenic drive through the city and hills, the toilets. Most of the group needed a coffee, and although we’d been warned that on Sundays, many bakeries are closed, we found a most accommodating bakery-come-art gallery, where cappuccinos and chai teas revived us.
Stuffed dummies, one of whom was named Cyril, waited by the stone wall of the car park. The sign touted that they were part of a scarecrow trail that weekend. I guess they were doing their bit for tourism.
Energised, and with the help of a most cooperative mobile phone navigation app, the K-Team whisked over to the Whispering Wall, a dam holding Adelaide’s water supply. I wandered over to the wall while the others raced to the other side. My husband’s voice sounded as clear as if he were standing next to me. Eerie.
Next stop, and most important, Chateau Yaldara Winery, where we commenced our wine-sampling tour. Our Swiss visitors enjoyed their “schlucks” of Shiraz hosted by a salesgirl with a broad Barossa-Australian accent. I relished the photographic delights of the historic mansion and the feature fountain.
Every road or laneway around here leads to a winery. The Barossa produces some of the best wine in the world. Nineteenth-century migrants from Prussia-Silesia (now eastern Germany and Poland) came to South Australia and settled in the Barossa around Tanunda. Some were my ancestors.
My husband told our visitors, ‘The Barossa has some of the oldest Shiraz vines in the world, having been planted as early as 1847 by Johann Friedrich August Fiedler.’
The K-Team arrived at a tourist-crowded Jacobs Creek winery. This popular winery permitted five free tastings before paying for more. Happy with five small samples, the K-Team admired the view of vineyards, leaves turning autumnal gold, and rows of vines stretching to the hills, plus a meander along the trails around the winery. Not to be outdone, scarecrows lounged in the lawns by the tennis court that sported oversized tennis balls and racquets.
After purchasing supplies for Tuesday night’s party, we tested our breath with the complimentary breathalyser. All the K-team drivers were deemed safe to drive.
So, a jolly, but not too jolly, K-Team progressed to Tanunda in search of a bakery. I spotted the Red Door Café and led the team there. A waitress guided the K-Team of 10 to the courtyard garden out the back, as inside was full. We sat at separate tables, my husband and I with our younger Swiss cousin and boyfriend next to the Kids’ corner. Most of the K-Team supped on the Café’s specialty burger. Excellent choice, as it was a late lunch that would tide us over for tea.
Satisfied with this most welcome and tasty lunch, the K-Team set off for Seppeltsfield Winery. After driving through kilometres of road lined with giant date palms, the K-Team arrived at the grand estate. The hall, a massive shed, actually, teemed with tasters. After more sampling and marvelling at the beautiful grounds, complete with vintage cars, we picked up our ordered wines at the designated shop.
As one of the oldest wineries, the Seppelts family was so rich, they built their own family mausoleum that presided over their estate. The K-Team made an impromptu stop to climb the steps to the family monument and then absorb the breathtaking view. The sun broke through the clouds, so completing the magical scene.
Peter Lehmann’s Winery was not far. Plenty of time, so we thought. But when we arrived, the car park appeared deserted. The owners emerged and informed the disappointed K-Team that they were closed for the day. The toilets, though, weren’t, and the K-Team made effective use of them while I took photographic advantage of the mellow tones of Peter Lehmann’s garden.
The K-Team reserved the late afternoon for Mengler’s Hill, which features an assortment of sculptures. We puzzled over the meaning of some of the international artistic offerings, but the collection seemed happy to be presiding over the Barossa. I observed that by this time, the scarecrows had slunk away and were nowhere to be seen.
While our Swiss guests hunted for wildlife, I caught the sunlight on eucalyptus trees and the gnarled forms of branches and trunks with my camera; future subjects for paintings, I hope.
It had been a long and full day, and my husband’s mobile phone, drained of battery power and starved of tower transmissions, was by this time grumpy. As revenge for being deprived of its usual mobile-phone fixes, it became intent on leading us astray. In Angaston, when we finally arrived there after the phone’s GPS took us on a meandering scenic route, the phone demanded in a passive-aggressive voice, ‘Take the next right.’ Then, ‘Take the next right.’ Then again, ‘After thirty metres, take the next right.’
‘Hey, it’s taking us in circles,’ I said. ‘Ignore it and go straight ahead.’
The phone cut in. ‘Take the next right,’
I pointed at the sign to Adelaide. ‘No, follow the sign.’
As we drove down the highway to Gawler, the phone bleated, ‘At the first opportunity, make a U-turn.’
‘No!’ we shouted.
The phone insisted. ‘Turn left and make a U-turn.’
I filmed the phone map spinning in every direction. ‘It looks like it’s going nuts,’ I said. ‘I’m turning it off.’
I switched off the phone, and we completed the journey to Adelaide in peace.
[Keeping with the car-theme this week. Bought a new secondhand car. Sold our car. I say, if I’m a bit muddle-headed, it’s because of all the dealing with vehicles, banking, and paperwork that goes with it. The new-for-us car is beautiful, though and everybody involved is smiling.]
Road Trip to Sydney, the summer of 1979 – Episode 1
[Based on real events. Some names have been changed. And some details of events may differ. After all, it was over 40 years ago.]
Lost Control
A conference on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I wonder what gifts God has for me? I pondered while dozing in the back seat of my brother Rick’s Chrysler Charger. And Dad…why was it that Dad had to go all on his own by car to the conference? Oh, well…much more fun travelling with my peers.
Crunch!
I sat up. Rubbed my eyes. ‘What happened?’
The car fishtailed. Rocking the carload of us back and forth.
‘Hey, mate!’ Rick, my brother, yelled at the driver, ‘Jack! You trying to kill us?’
Without reply, Jack bit his thin upper lip and swung the Charger to the right, and into oncoming traffic.
I gasped.
A truck bore down on us.
Jack, who reminded me of Abraham Lincoln, clenched his strong jaw and corrected back to the left. Keep left, that’s what you do when driving in Australia. Jack’s usually blonde curls appeared dark from perspiration.
The semitrailer gushed past us, sucking the air out of our open windows.
Rick held up his thumb and forefinger in pincer mode. ‘You missed them by that much.’
Rick’s navy-blue tank top was soaked with sweat around the neckline under his mouse-brown curls, and under his strong arms. Mid-January and the full car with only open windows for air-con, steamed with heat. And body odour.
To my right in the back seat, Mitch, taller and thinner than my brother but sporting chestnut brown curly hair, wiped his damp mauve polo shirt and then sighed, ‘That was close.’
Cordelia, in the briefest of shorts and a tight-fitting t-shirt, showing off her classic beauty and assets, sat on the other side of Mitch. She clutched her stomach. ‘I feel sick.’
Mitch leaned forward and tapped Rick on the arm. ‘How long till we reach the next town?’
‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ Cordelia said.
Rick nudged Jack. ‘I think you’d better stop.’
Jack rubbed one hand on his blue jeans, straightened his long white shirt, placed his hand again on the steering wheel, and kept driving.
Cordelia cupped her hand under her chin and groaned.
I smoothed my white wrap-around skirt and then brushed my light cream-coloured blouse patterned with blue roses. No way did I want Cordelia to mess up my most flattering-to-my-slim-figure- figure clothes.
‘I can’t!’ Jack said and continued to speed down the highway. The golden expanse of the Hay Plains, dried out by the fierce summer heat, spanned the horizon. White posts flitted past. The red-brown line of bitumen of the highway stretched to its vanishing point on that horizon. A faded white sign flashed past. Dubbo, 265 miles. How long had Australia been metric? A few years at least; not that one would know, travelling in outback Australia in early 1979. Still…
Another groan from Cordelia.
Rick screamed at Jack. ‘Stop!’
Jack slowed the car and rumbled onto the gravel beside the road.
Cordelia leapt out and hunched over a shrivelled wheat stalk. I looked away and covered my ears from the inevitable sound of chunder.
‘That was close,’ Mitch said.
‘Remember that drunk guy, your brother brought back to Grandma’s?’ Rick said. ‘Took me a week to get the smell out of her Toyota.’
‘Hmm,’ Mitch replied. ‘That was unfortunate.’
‘You mean, the guy who kept singing “Black Betty”?’ I asked. I remembered that fellow. He had messy blonde hair and a moustache. He lounged on the back seat of Grandma’s car while I sat all prim and proper in the front, waiting for Mitch’s brother to drive us to Lighthouse Coffee Lounge. ‘He kept saying I was so innocent.’
‘Well,’ Mitch said, ‘you are.’
I guess I was 15, but hated to admit it.
Cordelia stumbled back into the car. ‘That’s better.’
Rick and Jack arranged to swap places. So, after a brief stretch of legs and a nearby scraggly-looking bush receiving five visitors, we set off on our quest for Sydney. After all, we still had ages to go before arriving there for the Revival Conference. We hoped to arrive with enough spare time to see the sights Sydney had to offer.
[Another fond memory from my childhood…and Dad’s catchcry, “for the time being” took a breather when, after being promoted to Deputy Principal, he bought the Holden Premier. Also, a timely piece as our recent Remembrance Day, November 11, marked the 50th anniversary of the sacking of our then prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the Governor General Sir John Kerr. I still remember where I was when that happened. At home watching the news and old Gough saying: ‘Well may we say, “God save the Queen”, because nothing will save the Governor-General.’
Anyway, a car tale from our journey to Canberra where my education in Australian politics began.]
The Dream Car—Holden Premier EH, Serena (100-word challenge)
Serena, our dream family car ferried the T-Team to Canberra. In 1975, hardly a maiden for this voyage, she drove us to our destination; a comfortable, safe ride over the Hay Plains. No breakdowns. No stranded waiting for road service on the hot dusty side of the road. A smooth ride that rocked me to sleep; the vinyl with scent fresh from the caryard to us.
She mounted the snow shovelled roads to Thredbo. From her window, my first sight of snow on a brilliant sunny day, snow shining on twisted eucalypt branches.
[In 2013, the T-Team, Next Generation embarked on their pilgrimage to Central Australia. Purpose: to scatter Dad’s ashes in his beloved Central Australia, in Ormiston Gorge.
Over the next few months, I will take you on a virtual trip to the Centre and memories of that unforgettable holiday in 2013, with my brother and his family; the T-Team Next Generation.
This time, the T-K Team (my husband and I) return to Hermannsburg and catch up with friends there.]
Hermannsburg Here We Come
As we powered along the sealed Larapinta Highway, I mused, what a difference some 60-70 years makes. When Mum T lived in Hermannsburg, back in the 1940’s and 50’s, the trip to Alice Springs was a long arduous half-a-day journey on a dirt track in a truck where one spent several days in Alice Springs stocking up on supplies.
As we passed the turn off to Jay creek, I said to Hubby, ‘Mum told us the story of her mum (Grandma Gross) who, when the Finke flooded, had to wade through the waters to reach the other side to continue the journey to Alice Springs. She was 8-months pregnant at the time.’
‘Hard to imagine the creek flooding,’ Hubby glanced at the dip, a dry riverbed, that signalled the up-coming fork in the road leading the Hermannsburg. ‘But I know from camping in the Flinders Ranges, at the first drops of rain, you don’t hang around, you get out.’
‘Your mum and friend didn’t when they camped at Parachilna,’ I said. ‘They were stuck there on an island with the river all around them for days.’
A sign with an image of a cow, and below written, “Beware of wandering stock”, flashed by. Brumbies galloped on the side, as if racing with us. Hawks soared in the cobalt blue sky above. A lone wedge-tail eagle, having gorged on a carcass of roadkill, waddled off the road just in time, avoiding the same fate as its feed.
This time, when we arrived in Hermannsburg, we made a beeline for the FRM store where we located our friend, P. He welcomed us and gave us a tour of the store. So much bigger than in 1981; more like the size of our local IGA store in size and shelves fully stocked. It even stocked fridges and washing machines. P proudly showed us the bakery where fresh bread is made each day and he introduced us to the Indigenous workers at the store.
After settling into our P and K’s home, we spent the afternoon drinking coffee and storytelling with P and K. Storytelling continued over dinner. Much had changed since the T-team visited in 1981. The population of Hermannsburg has now grown to 600, the Finke River Mission still exists there, and the Christian community is growing. However, there remain challenges for the Indigenous community as there are in communities all over Australia, and the world. ‘It just is,’ as P stated, ‘we’re at the coal-face, being a small, isolated outback community; you see everything…’
‘Whereas,’ I concluded, ‘in the city it’s hidden by numbers, a larger population and behind the walls of our castles.’ Then I changed the subject. ‘Oh, by the way, this is the house I stayed in when the T-team visited Hermannsburg in 1981.’
[This postcard of the Basel Minster (German: Basler Münster) was delivered to its recipient in 1899. Theodora Bellan, the recipient was the house maid of my Great-grandmother (Sophie Basedow nee Hiller). Imagine! Those were the days when ancestors had house maids. My grandfather (Sam Gross) who was my Great-grandma’s son-in-law, collected postcards and so, ended up with this one. I wonder if he considered, back then, 80 to 90 years ago, that, one of his descendants (me) with the K-Team would visit the birthplace of my husband’s mother? Would he have envisaged the changes to this city and the challenges the K-Team faced visiting this city of Switzerland?
I might add here, that as far as my family history goes, I have several and varied connections with Basel. A branch of my Trudinger relatives lived and worked in Basel; they owned a successful ribbon factory at the turn of the twentieth century. All went flat (pardon the pun, but my dad loved puns) with the stock market crash in 1929 and the subsequent depression. Still, I believe some relatives of mine may still live in Basel, even today. And on my mother’s side, my two-times Great Grandfather (Charles George Hiller) and my Great grandfather (Emil Basedow) studied for the ministry in Basel. No wonder, when I visited Basel, especially the Altstadt, I felt a connection to the place and it seemed so familiar to me.]
K-Team Adventures in Basel — August 2014
Not so early, for once, on this Saturday morning, P1, Granny K, Hubby and I headed for Basel. We regretted not rising early. Near Zurich, cars on the autobahn came to a virtual standstill and continued that way till Basel.
Having taken twice as long to get to Basel and then taking time to squeeze into a very narrow car park in the middle of the city, once released from the confines of the car, Granny went in search of toilet facilities. She found a toilet close by only to discover they took her Swiss Franc and failed to deliver relief as she couldn’t open the door. We hunted down the street in search of a toilet. Migros would surely facilitate the desperate. No, only if you patronise the establishment do you get the code to get into the room of relief. The Rathaus? No, joy there—closed for business. Ah, MacDonald’s! Off Granny and I ran. By this time, I was becoming a tad desperate for a wee break. I had a plan. Buy McChips and a McWrap and get the Mac-code and we’re in business. Had to line up, though. The men waited outside. We waited. They waited. Finally! Service and the sacred code of the Holy Mac-Grail, the toilet.
We fought our way through the Saturday shoppers and holiday crowd over the bridge and to the Kleine Alstadt to find a bench to sit and eat our lunch. Ironically, free benches were the Holy Grail there, but toilets, now we didn’t need one, were in abundance, including open air urinals! Granny was horrified. What has her Basel come to?
We did find ratty old seats near a playground and youth nearby with a stereo booming out Spanish hip hop! Oh, well, it was a seat and I enjoyed watching the people and the happy ambience of the sunny Saturday afternoon.
‘We haven’t seen anything,’ P1 mumbled. He meant missing seeing the Matterhorn, thanks to the “Matterhorn Rebellion”. But that’s another story you can read …
However soon enough we did see some sights. We saw the outside of the Rathaus with its mural artworks—the inside still closed for a meeting! Approaching the cathedral known as the Basel Minster, I exclaimed, ‘Ah, I’ve been wanting to see inside this cathedral with the tapestry roof for ages. Last time when we were here in 1998, we didn’t have time to look inside.’
‘It was Sunday, then and the Cathedral was closed for a service,’ Hubby said.
‘Oh.’
We entered the Basel Minster and marvelled at the simple beauty of the sanctuary. A service was starting in half an hour, so we had to be silent and not take photos.
After meeting P1 in the square, we walked through the cloisters next door to the Basel Minster and then marvelled at the vista of the Rhine, the city and the mountains in the distance. Hubby pointed out the Blauen Hoch, the mountain we’d climbed while in Badenweiler.
On our way back to the car, we walked through the Altstadt to the Kunst (Art) Museum. Too late by this time to explore but Hubby and I hoped we could return next weekend to see the museum. Never happened…Next time??? 2025, and still waiting …
And finally, Granny asked Hubby to drive past the church where she was baptised. Unfortunately, it was only a drive-by, more road works and nowhere to park. At least the church bells started ringing as we crawled past to the delight of Granny.
Tru-Kling Creations 