Drive to the edge: day 1

Last week I had the great good fortune to stay at my friend's farm in rural Queensland. She and her family live near a town called Murgon about three and a half hours from Brisbane. I packed up my kids and got on a plane. It was only after I had collected the hire car that I began to freak out. The last time I was in Queensland I was about fourteen and it was a school trip.

But ever the showman I was a picture of composed self confidence. We admired the impaled yellow people lining the freeway. Was it art or just a Queensland thing we didn't understand? The radio was abuzz with congratulations because some football team (?) had won the grand final and it was two Queensland teams so obviously this proved that Queensland was the best place on earth etc.

The kids drifted off to sleep and I was left with static as I drove away from civilisation. The tiny hire car was very zippy and comfortable. I soon found myself looking at the greenness around me. Coming from South Australia I can admire Queensland even after the dry season and in drought for being green and wet looking.

Hours later I arrived in Murgon and could not find my friend's shop on the main street. It turns out I was on the wrong side of the road and not seeing clearly because of all the driving. She laughed at me and showed us around. We were given the "snake lecture" and the "drunken yob" lecture and then followed her back to her farm several kilometres out of town.

Pulling up to her front gate was a sort of homecoming for me.  She had described it to me with such love and colour that seeing it in the flesh was just being placed in my memory.

My kids met her kids and immediately became friends for life. Her soft spoken husband welcomed me and then shoved us out onto the twilight so we could talk. He made dinner and wrangled kids, giving us much needed catch up time.

We sat on the dirt road that runs next to her house. The sky was purple and orange and green and perfect. When the stars came out they blazed in the sky in a way they can only in places with out street lights. A warm breeze ruffled our hair as we caught up on life and remembered dear friends now departed.

That night I dropped into bed exhausted and happy. I fell asleep to the sound of my children breathing and the silence of the outback.