Looking back, it was a golden summer. At the time though, it was little more than the gap between first and second year Uni. I went with a group of friends to Merimbula on the South Coast of New South Wales. I’d been just once before with my family; a trip memorable only for the fact that it rained continuously and that we barely left the motel room. This time things would be different. We were leaving just after Christmas and the chances of sustained precipitation were about as slim as we were.
Looking back, it was a golden summer. At the time though, it was little more than the gap between first and second year Uni. I went with a group of friends to Merimbula on the South Coast of New South Wales. I’d been just once before with my family; a trip memorable only for the fact that it rained continuously and that we barely left the motel room. This time things would be different. We were leaving just after Christmas and the chances of sustained precipitation were about as slim as we were.
Just as our parents had taught us, we got up in the middle of the night to start driving. This, ostensibly, was to ‘beat traffic’. It’s an odd thing that long car trips feel more manageable if they commence in the dead of night. It’s as though any travel done under the cloak of darkness doesn’t really count. After far too little sleep, the five of us crammed into a sedan. How we managed to fit everything in is beyond me.
There may have been five of us, but there was only one stereo. In the pre-iPod era, music was a shared experience; whether you liked it or not. I’ll admit now that I could have been more gracious. Plonked in the back seat, I was particularly interested in sleeping. Others in the vehicle, however, were devoted to staying awake, which is fair enough when you’re driving. So it was that, at five o’clock in the morning, we listened to ‘Doolittle’ by the Pixies at a tremendous volume. The Pixies were and remain an amazing band, but that was not the view I formed at five o’clock in the morning. Rather, I declared the group were rubbish which served only to inspire an increase in the volume. I am prepared to concede, now, that I was completely wrong.
We arrived at Merimbula, the sounds of the Pixies reverberating against the glass as we pulled into the campsite. I don’t recall doing anything especially useful in terms of setting up the campsite which probably means I made myself scarce and left it to others. Frankly, I’m not sure what (if anything) I contributed to the exercise. As I remember it, we spent our time there either at the beach or standing in a circle around the barbecue. At night, we trekked an incredible distance from the caravan park into town to go to the RSL, buy discounted beer and hope against hope that girls would talk to us.
But we were so much more than mere callow youth. That was the summer that we recorded our demo tape. It was then as it remains now; unheard by anyone except us, but between making it and reality setting in, anything seemed possible. It was recorded in our practice space at my father’s house. We borrowed a four-track recorder and we were incredibly pleased with the results. The fact that it existed made us walk taller, which was useful when trekking down the hill. It was like having a secret superpower.
Twenty-five years later, I have returned to Merimbula caravan park. This time, it’s with my wife, two of my siblings and their families. It will, in every respect, be a very different kind of holiday. In the intervening period, the caravan park has changed almost as much as I have. The place seems to have sprouted all kinds of infrastructure; pools, barbecues, waterslides and so on. And beyond just camping sites there are cabins, a café and even a bar. Everything has changed.
But despite this transformation, I still feel the need to walk past our old camping site. It is remarkable how unremarkable it was. There is no statue commemorating our visit. Not even a plaque to mark the spot where I’d decided to take an impromptu lie down, provoking persons unknown to make a little fortress out of empty cans before taking several photos on my camera that I only discovered when I got my photos back from the Chemists. The ungrateful sods haven’t even named the performance space in the café after us. Granted, the performance space takes up less room than the espresso machine, but some kind of gesture would have been nice. It’s almost as though our visit was not nearly as monumental for them as it was for us.
This time around, we didn’t walk down to the RSL in search of discounted beer. In fact, the walk into town feels a lot shorter than it did twenty-five years ago. Maybe I was less accustomed to walking then. And on this occasion, I go for a run every morning; through the town, along the beach and around the lake. Back in the early nineties, I would have only done that if I were being chased. Which, all things considered, was not entirely out of the question.
Along the New South Wales coast are all kinds of shipwrecks; each of them monuments to the end of something. It’s funny. Had the me of twenty five years ago rocked up and taken the camping spot next to the me of today, I’d be horrified. As we prepared to head home, it struck me that I needed to reconcile the past with the present. It was obvious: I needed to listen to that old demo tape. With an eight-hour trip ahead of us, at least there was plenty of time. Let the music begin.