Sydney And Beyond

3

Sydney And Beyond

October (ctd.) One couldn’t possibly, or so Maeve Pearson declared cheerily, be in New South Wales and not visit Sydney Harbour, we’d love the Opera House, and all the tourists liked The Rocks (huh?), and at least see Bondi Beach, tho it might not be warm enough for swimming just yet—her sweating audience goggled at her—and it’d be a pity to miss out on the Blue Mountains, the trip didn’t take long at all, and then of course Scott’s sister had a place on the Gold Coast, there was plenty of time to pop up there while the horses were getting acclimatised—a commercial flight, there was no way she’d let that maniac Bruce—Betty’s ex, she added illuminatingly—fly us up there in his blimmin’ Cessna, and we didn’t want to leave it till later, the Wet Season up in Queensland was unspeakable but it’d still be nice this time of year, we absolutely mustn’t miss the Great Barrier Reef! And if we wanted to see a bit of rainforest there were plenty of flights to Townsville but Betty’s Kieran could always drive us up, only don’t let him sucker us into just going to Bundaberg, there was nothing there but the silly old distillery (not noticing that Bean had brightened horribly), and etcetera…

    There was nothing for it. We cornered Belinda and got the Good Gen.

    “Betty” and “Scott’s sister” were the same body, her Aunty Betty: mad as a snake (apparently without rancour: we gulped). Bruce was of course Betty’s ex, as stated, and Kieran’s dad. A maniac? Big shrug. Mum couldn’t stand him. That was evidently as clear as it was going to get, so we asked about the son. Kieran was about twenny-two and a dork. O-kay. Got it. Had Bruce ever crashed his Cessna? Crumpy then ventured.

    The answer, completely indifferent, was: “Yeah: the one he useda have. So?”

    We retired, defeated.

    Bean of course looked up Bundaberg again, what time Egg gave in and did some googling on his own account. The report, in a shaken voice, was that the distances were HUGE. Townsville, which was up in northern Queensland, not the very north, tho it seemed to be on the Coral Sea—we gulped—was over two thousand and fifty kilometres from Sydney, that was, just on twelve hundred and eighty miles. Yes: one thousand, two hundred and eighty, Bean!

    After a moment Crumpy asked in a small voice: “So how far would it be from the Gold Coast place, old man?”

    “Eight hundred and eighty miles, just on. The Gold Coast—it seems to be a city, rather than a stretch of coastline—is not very far from the border of New South Wales and Queensland. Er—if this Kieran chap did drive us it’d take slightly over fifteen hours—that’s not allowing for comfort stops or meal breaks, I rather think.”

    “Eh?”

    “Mm.”

    “Fifteen hours? Egg, that can’t be right!” he croaked.

    “Seems to be. Australia’s huge. Queensland’s huge.”

    “Say we went to Bundaberg from this Gold Coast place,” said Bean unhelpfully: “that’s only a four and a half hour drive! –Well, bit over, um, just under two hundred and seventy miles.”

    “Right, and the same to get back, that’s nine hours out of the day, that’d be a jolly trip, it’d leave us around half an hour in this place with the rum,” noted Bean Minor. “Unless we wanted to get back well after dark, of course.”

    The Bean started muttering things like: “Start at eight—no, say seven-thirty, um, say two hours and time for lunch, um—” but we ignored him.

    “So how does one get to the Great Barrier Reef?” I ventured.

    The Egg sighed. “Well, it seems to stretch all the way from, er, just north of Bundaberg, actually, to the top of Queensland, that’s the tip of Cape York. Wikipedia was entirely unhelpful about how to get there, but other sites seem to indicate that the best place to take a day trip from is Cairns, with Townsville also a contender. –Cairns seems to be even further north than Townsville,” he added heavily.

    “Well, uh, fly to one of them?” ventured Crumpy.

    “I don’t imagine it’d be particularly cheap, old man, and the tours won’t be, either. And—well, think you might have to take Dramamine or some such, Sister Bean, there’s a fair stretch of sea to cross. Tho the Reef of course shelters the coast to some extent and the place is very popular with scuba divers, it shouldn’t be too choppy.”

    At the use of this last unfortunate word I gulped.

    “How much sea is there to cross?” asked Trelawney.

    The Egg looked at him limply. “The W. word was pretty uninformative on that one. Apparently it gets narrower as one goes further north. Well—the widest section is a hundred and sixty kilometres. Um, but a considerably shorter trip from Cairns, one presumes.”

    Some swallowing all round ensued but Crumpy eventually decided firmly: “I’ll get onto Dad and he can get his pet travel agent to get all the gen. If one can fly over to the bally thing it might be best to do that. Well a small plane, I suppose, but it wouldn’t take too long at all: just a hop, skip and jump, really! They say the best thing to do is a look-see from a glass-bottomed boat, if you’re not a diver.”

    None of us were divers so we voted feebly for that, with some objections as to his letting his Dad pay for the lot, but he pointed out that Mr Lamont had pots and would certainly insist. Which he did do.

   … Okay, it was decided. We would fly to Cairns, be met by Mr Lamont’s travel agent’s completely reliable chap, and from there take the forty-minute flight over the Reef, returning to Cairns for lunch, followed by a boat trip with an extremely reliable operator in a glass-bottomed boat. Then a return flight to either the Gold Coast or Sydney, as desired. He could go ahead and make the bookings right now, if we liked!

    “Crumpy,” I faltered, “we haven’t even met this Betty lady yet, we don’t know if she even wants us!”

    “No. Well best to do it from here, eh? Then Egg can check up on the horses when we get back. Think about popping up to the Gold Coast place if it’s convenient, eh?”

    “Yes—good. Don’t think Dad’d want me to desert the nags for too long,” Egg agreed.

    So after a certain amount of consultation with the helpful Mrs Pearson not to say after her phone calls to Betty—help, it appeared she was expecting us!—it was all sorted out. Nice look around Sydney Harbour first, quick run out to the Blue Mountains the next day (Mr Pearson here getting in eagerly on the act), do the Cairns and Great Barrier Reef trip after that, back to Sydney, and the day after that the Gold Coast—no, there was a big international airport there, it was a big city these days—to be met by Betty and Kieran! Bundaberg? Yes, no worries, Michael: if you really want to go there—well they did have a museum, it was quite interesting if you were interested in rum, Mrs P. supposed—Kieran will be only too happy to take you!

    “Bean,” I said feebly when the dust had more or less settled: “isn’t that a two hundred and seventy mile trip?”

    “Just under. Takes about four and a half hours. Well, I get the impression that these Aussies think nothing of that sort of distance!” he replied breezily.

    Help. One could only hope that this Kieran chap was as good-natured as his Aunt Maeve seemed to assume.

    Well Sydney came first, and so we were duly driven the approx. two hours down to it from the Pearsons’ place in a van-sized minibus which seemed to date back to the days when “the property” had been a working stables and had had a lot more stable hands than the Pearsons did now—slight diversion onto the topic of the renovations they’d made to the house—under the guidance of one, Rob, who was another cousin of Belinda’s and also a dork. The chap seemed entirely normal to me: a tall, cheery, good-looking fellow in his early twenties, just finished an architectural degree and working for his Uncle Jack who was (apparently) only too keen to let him have the time off. We never did get it straight which side of the family he was: nobody volunteered an explanation (we were beginning to discover that this was typical of Australia) and it seemed rude to ask.

    “There ya go!” he said proudly, as the extraordinary white-winged erection on the harbour was revealed to our admiring gazes. “That’s the Opera House.”

    Well it was a beautiful day, the sky was an intense blue, the harbour was a sparkling deeper blue and really, one might have been standing in a picture postcard! “Golly,” as the Crumpet put it.

    “All the tourists like it,” said Rob with what sounded suspiciously like cheerful indifference. “Well, interesting architecturally,” he allowed, “but it was the devil to build, the bloke had no idea of basic engineering principles and nor had the unfortunate blokes that hadda do the job. –Bit like the new Guggenheim in Bilbao!” he added with sudden enthusiasm. “Seen a really good documentary on that: titanium’s a bugger to work with, and the bloody architect just dashed off a concept drawing and the structural engineers were left to figure it out. They were tearing their hair out in handfuls! –Same with this thing, only with even less know-how, back then,” he added, eyeing its curving white wings with a certain lack of enthusiasm. “And of course there were endless rows because the oiks on the Council and the pollies and them, they thought it was too modernistic. Bloody wonder it ever got built at all!” he ended cheerfully. “Well ya wanna look inside? They do do tours or somethink, only it’s not that interesting, unless your thing is acoustics. What between you and me and the gatepost weren’t too shit-hot to start with, neither.”

    A certain amount of gulping ensued and in view of his obvious lack of enthusiasm we voted for not going inside but just admiring it from the outside for a bit.

    “Okay. Well, that’s the Harbour Bridge over there, see?” he added helpfully.

    Er—yes. That was a bridge, all right.

    Rob didn’t seem to object to our going closer to the big white structure so we did that, discovering that it was all panels, to the accompaniment of further comments about the Guggenheim Bilbao from our guide.

    Then, since Rob seemed to think it was the thing to do, we set off for a closer look at the Harbour Bridge and, he suggested cheerily, The Rocks. The harbour seemed far too built up for there to be any accessible rocks, but as his aunt or aunt-by-marriage had certainly mentioned them, nobody said anything; perhaps Sydneysiders, as they were called, were especially proud of and fond of a certain small piece of rocky shore?

    … Yeah, that there was the Bridge. If ya had a good head for heights ya could do the walk—nah, not along the road, Michael, mate. Up on the arch, the young architect explained, tilting his head back to look at the said arrangement of giant girders and associated stuff.

    “What?” croaked the Bean. “Up there? It’s huge!”

    “Yeah, she’s pretty big close up,” Rob allowed.

    As a large liner was passing under “her” as he spoke we could only nod numbly.

    Trelawney then asking some technical questions, the two of them became absorbed, and so Egg was able to draw us aside and murmur: “I say, you chaps, does the thing shout ‘Newcastle on Tyne’ to you?”

    “Good God!” gulped Crumpy. “You’re right, old man. I knew it reminded me of something!”

    “I’ve never been there,” said the Bean indifferently.

    “Oh—no, that’s right: Crumpy and I went up one hols. with Dad to see one of his owners who lives up that way—think you were incarcerated at the château with your Grannie, old man. If this bridge isn’t a dead ringer for theirs—pylons an’ all,” he noted as Trelawney’s and Rob’s voices floated over to us, “then I’m a Dutchman in his clogs!”

    “In his tulip garden: abso-bally-lutely!” Crumpy agreed, nodding.

    “I thought the Newcastle bridge was frightfully modern: doesn’t it swing or something?” I groped.

    “No, that’s a new bridge, Sister Bean,” Egg explained kindly. “They’ve got more than one. But the one that looks just like this one is older. What’s the betting the Aussies copied the design?” His eyes twinkled.

    “Ssh!” I hissed. “They won’t like it if you say that sort of thing!”

    “No, not even about cricket!” Bean Minor joined in on a passionate note—it was the bally School. Brainwashed him. He’s so much younger than Egg, Flossie and Crumpy that after they left their saner influence waned and he was at the mercy of demented games masters and other Hearties.

    “Cricket?” groped Crumpy.

    “Yes. Mr Pearson was showing me some photos of the SGC on his smart phone and all I said was it reminded me of the Oval but their groundsman must have a hard time maintaining the turf in decent condition in their hot climate.” He looked gloomy.

    “Er—factually correct tho your observation no doubt was, old man,” noted the Egg, “had you but stopped to utilise the leetle grr-ey cells you might have realised that it would not have been accepted in the spirit in which. So to speak.”

    “No, it wasn’t. I think he remembers every occasion on which a test match was rained out in England right back to the nineteenth century.”

    Kindly our Junior Drones Honourable Chairperson returned: “Cheer up, minor legume, we all make these faux pas from time to time! And we may share the rudiments of a common language, but it’s all jolly foreign here, isn’t it?”

    “I’ll say!” he agreed in relief.

    “Hear, hear,” Crumpy agreed.

    “Rhubarb, rhubarb,” chimed in the Bean, nodding. –Golly, and I thought he hadn't noticed a thing in his keenness to visit the bally rum distillery. And possibly to see groves or would it be fields of sugarcane.

    Trelawney and Rob then returning to our side, the rather newly-elected Auxiliary Hon. Mem., Junior Drones, announced: “I say, you chaps, it was built in 1932!”

    “Yeah—no, opened in 1932,” Rob allowed. “Took a while to actually get it done, ya know. They had a huge opening ceremony in 1932, and this guy, he pre-empted them and cut the ribbon!”

    “What?” croaked the Egg.

    “Yeah: rode up on a horse, dressed up like a cavalry officer, and cut it with a bloody great sword!” the grinning Rob announced with huge enjoyment.

    Forthwith we all collapsed in gales of laughter.

    “Yeah,” our guide concluded happily. “One in the eye for the bloody pollies, eh?”

    As we now understood this arcane expression to mean “politicians”, we all nodded feelingly. And Rob then generously offered to drive us over it.

    “Why not?” the Egg agreed. “Thanks, Rob!”

    So we did that. Well hurray for 1932 and the “pollies” who’d had the wit to get their bridge built! Because driving across the enormous sparkling blue harbour on a gloriously fine day was an unforgettable experience. Even tho in this instance it was accompanied by more technical discussion between dashed Trelawney and our guide. But we closed our ears and just looked…

    After which Rob took us off to see “The Rocks”.

    Good grief! Not rocks at all! It was a little tourist mecca, more or less in the lee of the Bridge, full of boutiques amidst a clutch of tiny old houses—well not old compared to the ancient buildings of England or France but even the Bean didn’t put his foot in his mouth by pointing this out—built in the early days of the White settlement of Australia.

    Only the Crumpet, thanks to his over-generous male parent, had the wherewithal to buy much: the rest of us had merely a minimal amount of spending money, so he forced largesse upon us and everyone bought a little something, since Rob seemed to expect it. Egg acquired a small plastic koala brooch for Carrie-Ann, fortunately she has the sense of humour to appreciate it, and a keyring with a gum leaf set in a square of plastic for his mum, he’d have liked to get her one of the lovely silk scarves hand-printed with Aboriginal designs, but they were all horrifically dear. Crumpet himself bought a beautiful silk blouse for Alysse, hand-printed but not with an Aboriginal design, plus a little extra, a keyring square of plastic containing a photo of a wombat, she was sure to love it. A very touristy boomerang adorned with brightly painted squiggles and the message “AUSTRALIA” was selected as ideal for his dad, he’d appreciate it. Bean Minor and I decided on presents for our French cousins from Paris who’d spent the pandemic with us at the Château Lebec. He chose a boomerang for Colas, who’s about his age, and I found a lovely small fuzzy koala bear for Mireille which had a cunning zipper down its back so that one could use it as a purse! Or put yer lippie in it, yes, Rob, so she could!

    On second thoughts I also got postcards of the glorious harbour with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in various, um, poses, so to speak, for all of the Paris cousins, and one each for dear old Oncle Patrice and for darling Marthe and Jacques-Yves, Grannie’s elderly cook and general factotum at the château. All of which were then firmly removed from my hand by the Egg with the stern reminder: “No. Not yet, Sister Bean. It’s whereabouts unknown, remember? Just try to retain your jolly old marbles in the face of all this touristic splendour.”

    Help! I’d completely forgotten!

    “We’ll give them the stuff later,” said Bean Minor hurriedly. “You can take it all when you go home, Mel.”

    Um, yes. What a fool!

    “Bother,” I said glumly. “I was going to send Miss Pinkerton from School a postcard, too: she was thrilled to get that ghastly one of the Château Lebec that Mireille and I chose that time. And she’s retired now, she can’t have much excitement in her life, living in a place like Margate.”

    “Buy one now and send it later,” said Trelawney kindly. “I say, I really don’t think Mum’d appreciate any of this stuff. Oh well, I’ll send her and Dad a postcard.”

    Mm. Did that self-centred pair even realise their offspring was in Australia? One could only hope it’d give them a nasty shock.

    Bean thought we ought to get something decent for Oncle Albert, not too heavy for me to take home—rather difficult, given what we had to spend—so he settled for a very typical Tee with the legend “AUSTRALIA” against shades of harsh yellow and harsh darkish green, which Bean Minor did not fail to point out were the Aussie Team’s Colours!

    “Eh?” croaked the Crumpet. “Cricket, y’mean? Whites, isn’t it?

    “Not the Tests, Crumpy!” the minor legume explained on a note of scorn. “One-Day Internationals, of course!”

    Crumpy looked as it if was clear as mud but it suddenly struck me and I cried: “Of course! That’s the one where they wear the coloured pyjamas!”

    And the Egg, the Bean and after them the Crumpet promptly collapsed in sniggers, what time the minor one and Trelawney both glared.

    “Hah, hah,” said Rob weakly. “They’re not that bad. Just trackie-daks, really.”

    This extraordinary expression reduced us all to gulping silence, tho there was no doubt such had not been its intention.

    Not noticing, our kind guide then decided we better have lunch, it was getting bloody late. Not sounding vehement at all: “bloody”, I was beginning to realise, could be used in different ways in the Australian vernac.: certainly as the traditional pejorative imprecation, yes, but also merely as a substitute for “very”. Crumbs.

    And so we bade farewell to The Rocks…

    And the beaming Rob led us off to—

    “Hungry Jack’s?” queried Crumpy faintly.

    “Yeah, thass right, mate. Their burgers are better than McDonald’s, they got beetroot!” He grinned happily.

    Gulp.

    So we sat down to strange Aussie burgers: true, with a “decent”, unquote, amount of meat in them, and the said beetroot. A slice—cold. Considerably thicker than one would have wished. Well we got it down us, tho it was a near-run thing.

    “Dad’ll never believe this,” muttered Crumpy, as Rob went off for a refill of whatever caffeinated and aerated beverage it was he’d chosen.

    “Nor would Oncle Albert,” I agreed, “tho on the other hand he has been heard to claim he’d believe anything about English food.”

    “Don’t blame us!” said the Egg hurriedly. “Within Albion’s jolly old shores one does not come across slices of the ubiquitous and, one would have said, redundant root of the beet plant placed inside the traditional hamburger bun.”

    “I’ll say not!” Crumpy agreed with fervour. “What about those weird macho Aussie chefs one sees on the telly these days? They never do stuff like this, it’s all poncy little gourmet piles! –You know, Mel: blond hulks!” he urged, noticing the blankness of the jolly old phiz.

    “Blond hulks wouldn’t be entirely bad,” I admitted. “I hate telly, Crumpy.”

    “Oh—yes, of course. Your mum, eh?” the sapient yeasty comestible in Q. discerned.

    “Mm,” I agreed with a wince.

    “I say, did anybody warn her about the bombers?” he hissed.

    Heavily the Egg replied: “I rang her at the flat but after I’d got no answer three times and she’d hung up on me twice, screaming that she didn’t know me and how the Hell had I got that number, I gave up. Given that had I tried to warn the Sidekick—Trisha, is it?—mm—I’d been assured by the Hon. Mem. Bean F.-B. here present that the news would have been all over London before I’d rung off.”

    Bean nodded. “I’ll say!”

    “Yes,” I admitted glumly. “Trisha’s been very kind to us all our lives, and Mum bullies the life out of her and takes shameless advantage of her good nature, poor thing, but she can’t keep her mouth shut.”

    “Probably because Mum never lets her get a word in edgewise,” noted Bean Minor.

    “I concur in the minor sibling’s last statement. Hic!” agreed the Bean. “I say, I think that bally beetroot’s repeating on me!”

    Smiling weakly, all remaining Junior Drones present were seen to swallow uneasily and experimentally, as it were. …Ugh. Possibly only my imagination or possibly not. Burp! Ooh, pardon!

    “I say, was that fizzy drink Coke or not?” asked Crumpy, possibly apropos.

    “No idea!” we all chorused.

    And that was that for lunch downtown, Australian-style.

    The rest of the afternoon was consecrated to a visit to the zoo, evidently the burly Rob’s mum had reminded him that tourists always wanted to go there. Help, at first sight he didn’t look like the sort to meekly obey his mum, but on the other hand, on taking a second look there was something decidedly soft about that wide, tanned, naïve and well-fed face.

    As it turned out the privilege of hugging a koala bear was apparently reserved for visiting Royals, including pop stars, and also including Australian girls who’d married foreign Royals—I am merely the reporter—so we just looked. They were manifestly asleep.

    “They’re nocturnal,” Rob explained in a bored voice. “Seen enough? They got some cool snakes! Come on!”

    Oh, God. So we trailed off in his wake to view the snakes… Lots of them were Aussie natives, were they, Rob? Mm. That was really a need-to-know. Possibly our expressions registered, because he then gave us a short dissertation on the merits of “anti-venine”. Um, yes. But how close would one have to be to the source of the jab in Q. for it to take effect in time? No-one asked and we thankfully tottered off in search of something less vilely destructive and deadly. Lions or tigers, for instance. Grizzly bears. Anything!

    Well although Mrs P. was glad to know we’d enjoyed ourselves, there was a certain amount of recrimination as we rolled up rather late for dinner, largely on the score of not showing them anything cultural, and didn’t you even get as far as The Cross? There were lots of nice little cafés there, Rob, she was sure they would have liked to try Lebanese food, at least! And what about the Art Gallery of New South Wales or the Powerhouse Museum?

    Rob merely replied, somewhat impeded by his mouthful of juicy steak: “Neh’ time, Aun’y Maeve.”

    From which we concluded, more or less, that his mum wasn’t the only older female relative who was accustomed to give him orders, and secondly, that he probably was as cheerfully indifferent to this as he sounded, and would carry out said orders only to a limited extent and if it suited him.

    And of course thirdly that it had never sunk in, tho one was sure the said female relatives must have pointed it out to him, that it was hardly the Done Thing to attempt verbal communication whilst in the act of food mastication, so to speak.

    … And fourthly and more generally, as the Bean remarked in some awe as we repaired to the guesthouse later, that the Aussies ate an awful lot of meat, didn’t they? Not that that was bad, was it? he asked brightly.

    Well, no, we all had to agree. In fact Bean Minor, getting a little above himself, possibly it had something to do with the amount of sugar in that yummy fluffy meringue pudding with the unlikely name that Maeve Pearson had served that evening, called for “Three cheers for Aussie steak, Junior Drones!”

    Well actually it had been accompanied by rather a lot of Aussie beer, but as it was a very, very cold, very light lager, and the boys were used to English beer, nobody suggested cheering that. And the Junior Drones obligingly responded with the customary: “Ra! Ra! Ra!”

    After which we fell into bed and slept like logs.

    And next day, bright and early, this time with me in the front of his car with Mr Pearson, the sulking Belinda and the shrinking Bean behind, and the others following us in the 4x4 belonging to “the property”, Egg driving, since he seemed to have the appropriate licence, it was ho! for the Blue Mountains…

    Well after what seemed like a very long drive but presumably in Australian terms wasn’t, there was lunch, and touristy things to do, Mr P. apologising that there wasn’t really time today for the Something Caves, ya needed to make it at least a two-day trip for that, but we were quite content, having stayed the pangs, to just look and breathe…

    Indescribable. Quite overpowering. From a distance the Blue Mountains really do look blue (accompanied by a goodly amount of info. from Scott P. about “the Great Dividing Range” and heavy sighs from the back seat from his offspring), but one doesn’t see just a few peaks: it’s ranks and ranks of the rounded hills, rolling away to a far-distant horizon… The sort of thing that one can just soak one’s senses in. Closer to, we could see towering crags and steep drops into misty depths which themselves seemed blue.

    “It’s totally alien,” Crumpy concluded in a shaken voice at one point, as Mr P., having encountered a fellow male Sydneysider of about his own age, was now happily engrossed in comparing notes about other trips at other times…

    “Yes; completely unlike anything in Europe!” the Egg agreed fervently.

    “You do start to feel like he said, that it’s an old land,” Trelawney ventured.

    Possibly most lands were old, geologically speaking, compared to us puny human ants, but this was jolly well spot-on: we agreed enthusiastically that you did!

    “Those rounded dark blue shapes of the hills,” added the Egg, tilting his head back to admire them, “couldn’t possibly be anywhere but Australia, could they? And the smell! Talk about aromatic!”

    “Isn’t it incredible?” I agreed. “So… spicy!”

    “It must be the gum trees,” offered the Bean. “I did read somewhere that they produce eucalyptus oil from them. –I say, have you noticed how they sometimes say ‘eucalypts’? I’d have thought they’d always say ‘gum trees!’”

    Oddly enough no-one squashed him for this somewhat naïve utterance: we’d all expected it, too.

    “So, um, what part of the tree would actually produce the oil, Bean?” asked his junior. “Mr Pearson said something about gumnuts at one stage, didn’t he? Would it be them, like, um, olives?”

    The Bean eyed him tolerantly. “No, actually, old man, it’s the leaves. But the whole tree would be impregnated with it, I should think.”

    I sniffed ecstatically. “Mmm… Gotta be!”

    “Of course,” the Bean added helpfully: “the amount of oil in them contributes to the forest fires.”

    Belinda hadn’t appeared to be listening: in fact she’d been standing there with a scowl on her face, looking bored to tears, but now she corrected him crossly: “Bushfires, ya nit!”

    “Oh,” he said, very disconcerted. “I see. Bushfires, then.”

    “Yeah,” she said, glaring. “Well you’re right, the ruddy things go off like bombs once the flames take hold.”

    We gulped.

    “They’re built for it,” she said indifferently, if not with complete botanical accuracy. “The gumnuts need the heat from the bushfires to germinate.”

    “What?” croaked the Bean, his jaw dropping.

    “Yeah. You mob don’t know anythink, do ya?” With this she relapsed into scowling silence.

    “Er—I’m sorry, Belinda,” offered the Egg awkwardly. “I did look things up on the Internet before we came, but—uh—there’s a lot of it.”

    She shrugged.

    “Anyway, the Blue Mountains are marvellous!” said Crumpy quickly.

    She produced a stick of bubble gum, shoved it into her mouth, and chewed juicily. “Not when ya been dragged here all ya life,” she noted. She swallowed juicily. And began chewing hard again. “Every time Dad gets an overseas visitor he drags them out here.”

    Oh dear. What could one say? Even the Egg was at a loss for words. We just smiled palely and returned our gazes to the extraordinary scenery…

    “Well!” said Maeve Pearson brightly on our return, very late for dinner. “I do hope Scott didn’t bore the pants off you with his Blue Mountains stuff! It’s a lovely trip, of course,” she acknowledged, “but he does go on a bit. And you must all be starving! I hope he didn’t make you have lunch at that awful (name of presumably awful Aussie eating establishment).”

    “No, it was a delightful lunch, Maeve,” said Egg quickly.

    “Yes, and we had a lovely time!” I added. “The scenery was absolutely wonderful!”

    “That’s good, Mel dear,” she said kindly. “Now, I’ve got a nice dinner ready for you—Scott! Go and get a bottle of that Coonawarra red, your name isn’t Uncle Scrooge yet! –Well it’s only a lamb stew but it’s got red wine in it, you see, so it should go quite well,” she added comfortably. “And I’ve done a few pan-roast veggies to help fill you up!”

    Er… yes. As we were beginning to discover, in real terms there was no such thing in Australia as “a few”. And sure enough, there was a huge platter mounded with roast potatoes, roast sweet potatoes, roast pumpkin and, er, roast sweet peppers?

    “Capsicums, yes,” she confirmed placidly. “That’s right, Tommy, done in olive oil with a bit of oregano: fancy you spotting that!” she added smilingly to Bean Minor’s comment. “Now I do hope you’re all used to wine: of course we drink it all the time, Australia’s a wine-producing country, you know!” She beamed happily at us.

    “Um, yes,” said the Egg very, very feebly, what time the rest of us merely gaped, dumbfounded. “Um, actually Mel, Michael and Tommy have French relatives who are wine producers. Er—from Burgundy,” he ended feebly.

    “Burgundy, eh?” said Mr Pearson with interest. “Pinot noir country, isn’t it?’

    “Yes, but many of the great grands crus are blended,” offered Bean Minor.

    “Yeah? That how it’s pronounced, eh, Tommy?” he replied with his fruity chuckle. “So what does your family make, eh?”

    “Château LeBec.”

     Blank silence.

    “It’s a pinot noir varietal,” the minor legume offered on something of a weak note.

    “Aw! Right! Great! Now, this Coonawarra red’s a Cab. Sav., of course, the region specialises in it, but I rather like it.”

    At this point I gave the junior sibling a warning glance, only to find that Egg, Bean and Crumpy were all doing likewise. (Trelawney was merely staring fixedly at the table.)

    “Mm, it’s jolly nice,” he said kindly, and we all relaxed. Phew! We did not need a glorious day discovering the beauties of the Blue Mountains to end with Bean Minor putting his foot in it over a perfectly drinkable Aussie red.

    The day ended with a reminder from Maeve Pearson that the agenda (i.e. hers) had been changed: tomorrow we would just go up to the Gold Coast, spend a relaxing day on the beach with Betty—Betty Burns, it was finally revealed—and Kieran, and take off from there for Cairns—which, oddly, they all pronounced “Cans”, at first we’d thought it was the English for Cannes—come back down to check on the horses as planned—though she was sure they’d be fine!—and then Kieran would collect us—nonsense, he’d enjoy the drive, it was no distance, really! And if we really wanted to we could go up to Bundaberg next day but it’d be much nicer to spend the day with Betty, maybe doing a bit of shopping and relaxing over a nice lunch with a view of the sea!

    Well I must say that sounded jolly good and I really had no burning desire to see a distillery or even the distillery’s museum as reported by the Bean. So good, if Betty suggested it that was what I’d do.

    I was about to get into bed that night when there was a tap on the door. I opened it to find Egg there.

    “Anything up, Egg?”

    “No,” he said, smiling. “Quite the reverse. Open your window, Sister Bean—there are insect screens, you won’t get bitten by those mozzies that Belinda warned us about—it’s getting lovely and cool out there and you can smell the gum trees!”

    “Really?”

    “Yes: the wind must be coming down from the Blue Mountains tonight!” he said with a laugh.

    So I duly opened my window. Mmm… spicy!

    And I went blissfully to sleep with the scent of the giant blue billows of eucalyptus forests in my nostrils…

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriendsdownunder-anovel.blogspot.com/2026/06/tropical-queensland.html