Arc Tangent

The pho­tos below were taken yes­ter­day, as I drove South from Can­berra to Mel­bourne. It’s about a 680km drive — only trance music and caf­feine kept me going!

The first is The Dog on the Tucker­box. Story goes some­thing like: old drover orders his dog to guard his tucker­box as he goes into town to wet his whis­tle at the local pub. Being the kind of man he is, he gets into a bit of a biff, and loses his life over some­thing silly. The dog, ever loyal, guards the tucker­box — howl­ing and pin­ing for her mas­ter — until she finally expires.

Gets me all misty eyed every time.

The sec­ond is a bloody great sub­ma­rine in the ground. It’s HMAS Hol­brook — which I guess is named after the town — and it’s a weird sight as you drive down the arid NSW stretch of the Hume High­way. The town styles itself ‘the sub­ma­rine town’ and has a top-​notch bak­ery in it!

So. My story. I’m now work­ing for site​point​.com, and just to make it clear, my opin­ions and expres­sions on this blog are wholly my own and do not reflect upon my employer, etc etc!

I’m in Mel­bourne. To live. Look­ing for a place to call home, camped out in some friends’ largely empty flat. It’s weird and excit­ing to think I’m liv­ing here now — not going home at the end of the week like usual.

In about 2 months’ time, I’m plan­ning to be in Europe for at least a month. I’ll pack up, leave Can­berra, and spend 4 weeks kick­ing back overseas.

I may not come back.

Well, not to Can­berra, any­way. I’m feel­ing a strong urge to relo­cate, to be some­where else. There are peo­ple that I dearly love in Can­berra, but I do not care for it as a city. Peo­ple tend to be closed off; there’s a pre­vail­ing atti­tude of snob­bery and affected elit­ism that I can’t abide. In short, there’s a lot of pre­ten­tious wankers here.

Plus, it’s bit­terly bloody cold.

I’m con­sid­er­ing a shift to Mel­bourne, where I have a lot of friends and fam­ily. It’s all very up-​in-​the-​air. Assum­ing Europe goes ahead, I may sim­ply give up my cur­rent place in a share house and make some deci­sions when I get back.

Time to hit the road.