The world is smaller now

Centennial Park

Last night I saw a TV news clip from Sydney about the continuing bush fires in New South Wales. Because I’ve been there and have stood looking up at the bridge, I react differently than I otherwise would have. We spent a week in Sydney on our own after our tour finished. We stayed at a small apartment hotel, bought Opal passes for transit and, more-or-less, figured out how to get around the city. We revisited the Taronga Zoo and spent more time in the bird enclosures surrounded by trees and shade. My camera served as an introduction to locals who also photographed birds and were able to tell us where birds hung out. One woman with a Canon camera and a long lens tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out a wallaby lying in the sun on a ledge. I, and everyone else, was facing the opposite way looking at a pair of parakeets.  

En route to the flying foxes

One of the owners of the hotel suggested we visit Centennial Park because there were lots of birds there and it also was home to a colony of flying foxes. Again, I was having a lovely time with my camera. I found the flying foxes fascinating and extremely noisy! On one of the lakes there were several black swans and we hung out on a bench in the shade while I tried to get the perfect shot of swans. As I focused on the swans, Richard pointed out half a dozen turtles who sunned themselves on a log and then slipped back into the water.  After a while a man approached us, and we started to chat. He told me he takes part in a bird count every year. He also told me that there was a tawny frogmouth nesting in a grove of trees on the other side of the road.  He said the owl on had been on its nest for the last several days when he passed by and led me to the spot where the nest was visible. Unfortunately, the frogmouth was not in residence that day. I thanked him and he headed off in the direction of the train station. Although it was still early spring, the bush fires had started and the colour of the sun was tinged with smoke.

Supper in Manley

The next day the smoke was thicker, and we decided to take the train to Woolongong where, according to the weather report, there was less smoke. We wandered about Woolongong for a while and then got back onto the train and went back into Sydney. From there we took the ferry to Manley and had supper in a small café while watching the surfers.

A couple of days after that we were on the plane heading home. From the report I saw on the news the smoke in Sydney the other day was 12 times what is normal. On the one hand, I’m glad we were able to get home before the smoke worsened. On the other hand, I feel concern for the people I met who are going about their days in the smoke and for those I didn't meet whose lives are forever changed by the fires.

Sydney in a little bit of smoke

In the title of this post I said the world seems smaller since I have travelled. Perhaps more immediate would have been a more accurate description. I can never again see a news clip about what’s happening in Sydney without imagining myself there. Sydney has now become part of the geography of my mind. I am closer to it than I was before, even though the physical distance is the same. As I travel there are fewer and fewer places ‘out there’ and more and more places ‘in here’ so that as I grow older and travel in smaller and smaller circles I will be able to return in my mind to the places I have been and feel at home here in a different and richer way. For that I am grateful.