Why we are going

Over the years Mary T and I have discussed places we were near but did not visit. One of those places was the great desert in Australia. Mary had tried to bike across it, but after a few miles of hard slogging was told by someone that there was no way she could manage it as there was no available water for miles and miles and miles. She turned back.. This must have been nearly 55 years ago. I lived there for year during a sabbatical leave with my husband in 1964/65. We arrived in July of 1964, having spent a month in New Zealand where Henry lectured. We had our first born('63) child with us, Sarah. We flew into Sydney from Chirstchurch. We were several days late as we received a phone call from the air line we were travelling with saying that their planes had been grounded due to the habit they had developed of the wings dropping off in mid-air. We agreed to stay on the ground until that problem was fixed. We bought a Holden station wagon when we were Sydney and with our suitcases, mostly filled with baby equipment we drove to Canberra. We were housed in apparently very good accommodation due to Henry being a Professor. ( he was actually an associate professor, but as the Australians did not have that classification he was given the benefit of being a full professor). This meant a long house near the lake. The houses had been designed by architects in Sydney who were not entirely aware that Canberra is much colder, especially in the winter and at night than Sydney. The houses were chilly, un insulated, and air conditioning meant large holes in the upper end of the walls,near the ceilings which made it a perfect place for the Huntsmen spiders to come in, which they did most nights to lie behind our heads to get the warmth. This was a terrible problem for Henry who would remove them with a mop hopefully before I woke up, but occasionally they dropped off the mop onto the bed.. they are heavy.. and I would wake and shriek. There was one source of heat and that was an anthracite fire place ( anthracite no longer exists I gather) located at the far end of a large living room. I lit this most days as it snowed lightly most mornings in August. Shortly after we arrived Henry took off with geological colleagues to do mapping in the outback, I received graphic letters from him describing the creepy crawlies. He slept on an iron bedstead, being careful to keep the blankets well tucked in, under the wonderful desert night sky, but as you know, sand does not hold heat so at night it gets terribly cold. In the morning he said he looked under the bed to see little piles of bones which the trap door spider would have shoved out of his burrow, having feasted on a mouse or two. Meanwhile I was learning to live in a city which had been specifically built, ( like Brazilia). They had backed up the river to make a lake, but one could not swim in it as it was very polluted and the sailing community had to have typhoid pills if they fell in. The meat in the shops was wonderful and plentiful , but there always seemed a shortage of vegetables. A van would come around with fresh vegetable every once in a while. I took up knitting. When I was there it was not surprising to see people buying half a whole sheep or lamb ( tried to buy lamb while keeping house in NZ but the butcher told me it was all sent away to the UK or North american so i could only buy mutton)huge tranches of beef in steak or roast form. There was still little refrigeration so people tended to eat quickly what they bought. We had a small fridge.. a perk of our "good" housing. But I digress.. this is not a spot for telling my Australian story. I should say that I would often say to Henry that we should go back, as we were glad to leave it, but memory dulls the bad stuff and I would have liked to emphasise the good. So this is an opportunity to relive, in part , to improve my memories of Australia.