travelling with my daughter

SHE’S BESIDE me at the wheel in tee-shirt and jeans, her hair pulled back off her face and tied in a bundle of braids, her mouth glossed with lip balm. It’s 10 in the morning and I’m travelling with my daughter on the road to Strahan following the Derwent as it spools up into the West coast …
Not far out of Hobart we pass through open farmland and small towns, and then the country becomes a still life as gum trees lining the road deepen into thick bush and the silence of forest. There’s ice in the gullies, a soft grey sky and low clouds that mist into the hills. Light rain falls. Sunshine into shadow into sunshine again. As we drive she sings along to a tape and brushes a jelly snake across the steering wheel in time to the music. The white Telstra purrs with her clear, sure voice.
Now and then a car or van passes but for most of the journey we have the road to ourselves. I write down the names of some of the waterways we’re passing. I tell her we have to say each word out loud and let the sound ripple though our heads before I can put it down. Black Bobs Rivulet, what’s a rivulet she asks and why only in Tassie? Bronte Lagoon, E-m-i-ly.. Char-lotte.... Scarlett and Raglan Creeks, make me a red jumper MUMMM…I can’t help laughing. She’s playing word tennis. When we pass over rivers - the Franklin, the Cardigan - the bridges are wide and underneath the roadway swift water the colour of tea streams by. High overhead an eagle is gliding. I watch its slow, heavy flight through the opening between the trees, see it dip as it reaches the mid-point above the road then rise and circle inside that space again. Welcome to the west.
We stop for lunch at Donaghy’s Lookout on a gravelled clearing beside the road and find a small track leading to the lookout point. A wild green forest covers the land as far as my eyes can see and I’m swept away by the thought of just being here. We’re part of all this beauty! The air’s so cold and we’re up so high that when I breathe I cough. I put my hands on the rail and feel ice on my skin. Someone’s left a message on the wood, a finger script in white crystals. LOVE IS THE ANSWER slopes across the ledge and away to the valley. I add the first word that comes to me when I read it. YES!
A large grey cat with eyes like yellow globes darts out from the undergrowth close to where we’re standing then disappears. Pussy gone w i l d she calls. We go back to the car and continue the trip. A bus heading south slides suddenly around a bend and for a moment I think we’re about to be pushed off the road. She steadies the wheel and then waves her hand calmly at the driver. I’m in awe of her confidence.
We reach Queenstown in the early afternoon. As we approach the old mining settlement, the road winds round and round a cluster of bare hills and then it’s a slow, careful descent into the town with the lunar landscape. Seeing the scarred grey earth when we arrive in the main street is like having shock therapy when you’d like a hug.
We laugh, imagining ourselves as Thelma and Louise on the freedom ride to where?
“Anywhere but here” she drawls and keeps on driving.
I think I’m 25.
A short time later we arrive in Strahan and park beside the Macquarie Harbour. A silky skein of water, deep, flat and glassy fills the basin of the Gordon river. We pick up pieces of huon pine and sassafras from the pine mill beside the gallery and the boy in the mill gives us directions to find the best views of the town. I notice his face reddening as he talks. She’s charmed him too. On our way back to the road she links her arm into mine and kisses me on the cheek. We reach the car, slip our seats back as far as they can go and listen to the water lapping at the pier.

(this originally appeared in Tasmanian Times February 2008)