Australian Holiday Part II

We drove down the wide, suburban roads from the airport past Adelaide's centre in Nat's truck. Every single car I could see was enormous. It seemed that no-one had heard of Smart cars, Mini Coopers or Twingos. Every single car had a monstrosity too it that said "I was made from the fiercest iron, born for the roadless deserts". The more I gazed out of the window, the more fascinated I became with all these four-wheel drives.

Eva wasn't so happy about being awake past her bedtime. She'd had a dazed and sleepy look on her face the whole time in the airport lobby but only now did she begin to whimper, crease up her face and then howl.

Although I'd experienced many a car tantrum with multiple toddlers in my days of being a French nanny and had never particularly enjoyed them, I sympathised with my niece who had been woken up and forced to sit still with an uncomfortable seat belt around her for forty minutes. Not to mention she was surrounded by new strangers who resembled her mother but weren't.

We finally approached South Pacific Drive, the destination. On entering Kate and Nat's garage, Eva perked up. I was so tired I could hardly process anything. We passed the patio on the way to the house and then we were finally there, in Kate and Nat's house.

It was a surreal experience, finally being in the very room I'd  been Skyped into for months. On top of that oddity, it was such a different type of house than the houses of the U.K; built for summer rather than horrible damp winters. There were sliding doors, mosquito screens and air conditioning fans outside. It reminded me a little of our houses in Thailand.

It was almost 11pm and Anna and I were exhausted but we collapsed in the living room with our suitcases, taking it all in. Eva had perked up now that she was not chained down to her carseat. She began interestedly peeking into our suitcases and she let out a delighted shriek from mine.

She'd unearthed my pink, slightly battered stuffed rabbit that I have had since my own toddler days. I take him with me whenever I travel, out of habit. A little piece of familiarity in changing landscapes can be comforting.

"Teddy," Eva said proudly, cuddling him in her arms. Admittedly, he was exactly the kind of thing she would notice in my suitcase; a fluffy and pink thing with a face. Not to mention he is extra-specially charming. But I made a mental note to keep a tab on him in case he mysteriously "went missing" into her toybox of other teddies.

Not long after that, my eyes were closing by themselves. We went to bed and finally...finally I fell asleep, dreaming of absolutely nothing.

The next day and the weeks that followed all somehow blurred together. It felt natural to all be together again and there were even times when it felt as if we'd known Eva forever. Boxing Day was a little overcast but we went to the beach anyway and took some body boards with us. Because of the wind, the waves were high and powerful, capable of pulling you under and pushing you back to shore in one fell swoop. Nat told me that the basic rule of bodyboarding (and I suppose surfing) was to get behind the wave before it was fully formed. When it started emerging, rolling up but not quite rippling, you were to paddle in the opposite direction towards the shore. As the wave gathered speed, so did you, until you were actually carried onto the rolling current before it rippled and broke into a full wave. By that point, if you have successfully been carried onto the wave, as it breaks, you are actually on top of it and stay afloat...and the rest, is surfer's paradise.

It all sounded very straightforward. I soon found that it was not.

For the best part of an hour, I was out in the waves, paddling madly, forwards and backwards trying to get the timing just right. Either I saw the wave just as it was breaking and had to duck under, which carried me backwards, or I almost got on top of it for a split second only to realise that I wasn't quite on the current but under it. Which made me go under as well.

My nose, ears and throat filled with water and the constant ducking and being pulled backwards made my head spin. But it was addictive. There was something about the fresh cold water, the strength of the waves and the adrenaline I felt every time I saw a roll in the ocean ahead that made me stay for just another try...then just another...

I finally got on a wave. I started paddling towards the shore, rather half-heartedly, as I saw another forming. I didn't really think I'd get on it, just another one which threw me off mid-course, I assumed. But before I knew it, my board had risen above the water and I could see the beach ahead. As the wave broke, I did not go under. Rather, I glided over it, gathering speed as it crashed tumultuously onto the shore. My board slid neatly onto the sand without so much as a drop of water touching me.

I leapt up excitedly and ran up the shore.

"Did you see me?" I shrieked at the others who quickly shushed me. Eva was fast asleep on the sand so I silently motioned to the sea.

I don't think anyone quite understood it like I did. Nat, who had just swam in, gave me a high five but really, how could explain what it had felt like? After an hour of struggling against the sea, I had wanted to give up. But even as I had felt that defeat, the rush of excitement at seeing another wave approaching, another potential, had kept me there in the sea. Even though my feet couldn't touch the ocean floor, my eyes watered with the salt and my shoulders ached from paddling, seeing one more wave approach was addictive.

Now that I had finally done it, I couldn't get over how amazing the feeling had been. I looked on at the surfers passing by with a newfound respect and understanding. I knew what they were looking for, what they spent hours out in the freezing cold, sometimes shark-infested oceans. It didn't matter. I finally knew what it meant to "catch the perfect wave".

There were times in those two weeks when Anna and I lost track of where we were and what day it was. Eva came to see us first thing when she woke up, knowing where to find us. We went to the beach again many times; we sat out on the patio in the soft light of evening, drinking wine and cooling ourselves down after in the air-conditioned living room. I went running down the esplanade a few evenings in the time I was there. The esplanade was about seven miles long and ran along the coast. The cliffs overlooked the wide, blue ocean and even at eight thirty in the evening, when the clouds were forming and the sun was setting in for the night, you could see the surfers still out there, little dots and specks on the surface of the water. They were still determined to catch one, the wave that would carry them straight back to shore.

As much as we tried to escape and lose track of it, the time finally came for us to leave. It was a Sunday and the day had been fairly quiet. Now we all sat together in the living room, Nat's family and Kate, whilst Anna and I packed our suitcases.

Outside it was still humid and summery, even at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Eva walked barefoot around the patio, humming to herself and trailing my pink teddy bear absent-mindedly around with her. I didn't have the heart to take him from her just yet.

Driving down the highway to the city, Anna and I took in the surroundings a final time; trees, kangaroo signs, the huge SUVs. Eva had finally fallen asleep in her car seat, one fist clenching around a teddy of hers. In the background, a song called Daydream Believer played softly. Kate turned up the volume because it was our song, hers, Anna's and I's. But a couple of minutes into the song, she changed the track. We didn't say anything to each other, but we all had tears creeping up into our eyes.

We arrived at the airport two hours or so before our flight. Adelaide airport was smaller than I remembered, although I had been very tired when we'd stepped off the plane two weeks ago. Eva was in good spirits after her nap. Her curiosity got the better of her as we checked our suitcases in. She hopped onto the giant, industrial scales and giggled to herself.

"Eight kilos," I read aloud. "That's the best it's ever going to be Eva."

After we had been through security, we went to get some dinner. During dinner, Eva could not sit still, began to fidget and whine. I reached into my bag and produced the magical pink teddy which quietened her. After dinner, there was still some time and Eva was still fidgety so we decided to all walk to the end of the airport and back. Outside the giant glass windows that overlooked the runway, the sun was setting in magnificent pink and orange streaks. The runway was oddly empty; there didn't seem to be that many planes coming in or leaving at this time of day.

We stopped by the window so that Eva could watch a jumbo jet take off. We tried to guess where it was flying to; Perth? Sydney? Auckland? We didn't know.

Not long after it seemed, the inevitable was upon us. It was getting late and Eva was beginning to grow tired. It was past her bedtime again; we had a flight to catch and they had a forty minute drive home. But goodbyes are usually easier than this, at least for us. We always avoid those goodbyes, the three of us, we're not very good at them. We've always tried to make them as brief as possible because otherwise it's too difficult. We got into the line to go through the second security, Duty Free. Then that was it, Anna and I took our turns. We hugged Nat, kissed sleepy Eva goodbye and then Kate. It was a quick hug from both of us each to our dear sister, the missing third of the pie. I kept myself together. They turned and walked away and I couldn't look back, not at Eva's tiny blond head or Kate and Nat's disappearing silhouettes. But because Anna was there, I allowed myself this once to burst into tears, even though I knew she didn't want me to.

Once we were in Duty Free, we distracted ourselves with the souvenirs and interesting things you can get from Australia which are considered "Australian". Wanting to cheer us both up, Anna bought some souvenirs; matching Australia t-shirts.

Once we'd boarded the plane, it was eleven o'clock at night and I felt quite sleepy. Anna and I watched X-men: the Apocalypse together and then I found myself falling asleep quite naturally, unlike the last plane trip.

I wish that there were a way to write more, to say in detail about everything that we did in Australia. I wish that I had been quite disciplined and written a daily journal entry, which would have given facts, not a waffling beginning and end, the story of an airport once more. But this travel was different. It wasn't about seeing Australia, holding a koala bear, swimming with a dolphin or photographing a wild kangaroo in the garden. It wasn't about having a barbeque or meeting a group of surfer dudes or going snorkelling with some jellyfish and coral. It was where my sister is. Where she is now, this is it. The reality of the trip hit me like a ton of bricks: Australia is far. The world is huge and we are at opposite ends, north and south, east and west. But what made Australia special was that it was ours now. It wasn't just somewhere we had travelled to and kept a few photos and passport stamps for the scrapbook. It was a place we would always return to, in one way or another. Our family was there and that meant we were there too.

When I woke up from my sleep, four or five hours had passed and I had no idea what time zone we were in. I thought about the next part, when would we return?

One day we would. "Anna," I whispered, because everyone around us was sleeping. She opened an eye groggily "Maybe next time we can visit Perth."