Sunday in Daniel's Town

Early Sunday morning, evildoom_bunny and I went back to Wallan, Daniel McKay's home town, at the invitation of one of his cousins. For National Tree Planting Day, a group of people from Friends of Wallan Creek and his family were planting a tree in his honour. A Swamp Gum, in fact, a hardy native with a really big trunk which can apparently grow very tall. His grandmother did the actual planting, and we were all given trees to take home. I have a seedling in my flat - not sure how the worlds tallest hardwood will cope in a one bedroom bachelor pad!

We met lots of members of Daniel's family - his sister, his mother and father and several cousins. It was really, really great to talk to them, and compare notes. They were also really interested to hear from us, since Dan didn't talk much about his work as an activist. They also showed us pictures of some of his work around Wallan, and even the place where he died. Apparently the local train station was his special target. He'd also done some really interesting abstract stuff based on his dog, which I think I've seen on walls around Melbourne. Dan's mother had been retracing his steps, and found stickers on roadsigns all over the area - except next to the tree where they found him. He must have been out stickering, spotted a sign he hadn't yet touched...

Dan had a pair of the Black Spot Sneakers (V.2) which I wear constantly, several people asked me about them. They're a great shoe, by the way, get yourself a pair and know that no one was exploted making them. I am wearing mine right now.

Dan's dad was kind enough to give me a huge stencil, from a roll he was carrying in the boot of his car. It shows two people hugging while holding a spray can - I'm going to work out how to put it up in my flat. Dan was also writing an "agony aunt" column for Overspray Magazine (not entirely sure this is still being published) which was very, very silly.

Seriously, in the distant future, when I go I hope so many people remember me, and feel the need to plant trees in my name.

After partaking of McKay family tea, evildoom_bunny and I went to find the Wallan cemetery. We didn't go there the day of the funeral, but today I wanted to see the place. It's not a big cemetery, and seemed to have many graves of people taken before their time. We found Daniel's grave in one corner, fresh soil and slowly decaying wreathes still on it. It was an intense moment. I said to Sara "Why are we here? Why are we here above when he's down there beneath?" Some things are just not fair, sometimes bad things happen to good people.

We stopped off at the Wallan train station to see if we could find any of Dan's work. There was some, but most of it faded with time. I suppose all his work will disappear from rain, wind and other posters before too long.

Check out the organization his friends and family have started: Daniel McKay Memorial Challenge.

Sunday Afternoon.

We drove from Wallan to Whittlesea, where we found the "town centre" and feasted on fish 'n' chips from one of the two fish 'n' chip joints right next to each other. I had hopes of finding a decent decaf "wanker" latte, but for good or ill, Whittlesea hasn't sucummed to that rich Melbournians getting out of town for the weekend syndrome like many other towns. Barwon Heads, the Yarra Valley, Ocean Grove, Castlemaine, to cite some examples.

evildoom_bunny and I went back to King Lake National park. We walked in there a few weeks back, the last time we were in Wallan, but the sun had gone down by the time we got anywhere interesting. This time we drove down to a barbecue area (what is it with this country and frying sausages in the open air???) and went on a bush walk... For all of 500 metres. About half way along, there was a viewing platform next to a piss poor little weir on a piss poor little creek. I'd been saying to evil doom that this seemed like a pretty lame forest and a pretty lame walk. When we came across the weir - with a viewing platform, for crying out loud - I laughed and laughed. Like I've never seen a cement weir on a river. And some... Rocks! Wow! Thrillsville!

Despite hardly being able to walk from laughing so hard, we continued on to some waterfalls I can't remember the name of. They were ok, some fifty metres of rock with a couple of cupfulls of water running over them. Ah well, at least I breathed some fresh air and saw some trees. I said to evil doom "Ok, so, I'm more of a green at a distance. I like the idea of trees, forest etc. but I don't really have much interest in actually walking through wilderness." Keep it all, bankrupt Gunns forestry, but I ain't going to carry a pack into the Styx Valley in Tassie with Bob Brown.

We drove to the top of Mount Sugarloaf. There was a tiny view of the city through a gap in the trees. But evil doom and I spent most of our time up there... SMSing... Come on, it was the only place we'd had reception for a while! Note to self: I should get out of zone one more often.

We went back to Northcote through Whittlesea because I didn't want to drive the really really windy roads out of Kinglake back into St. Andrews and Hurstbridge. We stopped off to buy a shitty coffee for evil doom at a shop on top of the mountain, and stopped again for some great honey from a roadside stall. As it was, Fuji the Wonder car's brakes were fading by the time we got out of the mountains.

Driving back into town, we had the dubious pleasure of seeing a whole lot of new development that's springing up out that way - Mill Park, and other nameless suburbs plonked in between paddocks still grazing cows. Damn. Talk about ugly. All these generic shitty modern houses - built right to the edge of the block, no eves, barely any insulation, sucking down electricity from the grid to run the air conditioner - which someone somewhere must be aspiring to. No public transport, no nothing. They should be putting down train lines before they start putting up the houses, otherwise in a few years everyone will be bitching about all the driving they have to do.

I will never, ever, ever, EVER be drawn to a place like that. I will live in a shitty unit in the inner city till my (non-existent) kids bitch about sharing a room. Then I will take them out there and show them what a big house in a new suburb looks like - the slums of tomorrow! - and they'll stop whining. Or I'll smack em :-) Seriously, who are these people who still think a quarter acre block is a good idea? Aspire to something else! How interesting that four weirdos I know - me, evildoom_bunny, stillbeing and Luna the half-Chinese Goth, came from North Balwyn, North Ringwood, Bayswater and Rowville respectively.

"Poor little middle class me" - Eddie Perfect.

Anyway, that was my weekend. I was in Northcote, Point Cook, Bayswater, Wallan, Whittlesea and King Lake. 275 Kilometres worth of driving and three blog entries. That was a quiet weekend for me!