There's something both magical and surreal about visiting childhood places; people and places appear as though visited yesterday, memories re-emerge, changes challenge perception.
This week we spent a few days in Stephs childhood community, camping by the creek where he and his brother Mark fished, camped and bogged motorbikes. We passed the primary school, where friends lived, the old hall where he built model planes, Stephs family home, the vines and neighbours.
When Steph wanted to visit an old friend of his father's I knew he must be special, and he was.
Grant was an absolute delight; bright and sprightly despite being around 80, with a wealth of general knowledge and loads of common sense acquired through a life reading and adventuring. He greeted us in bare feet and white overalls, his long term uniform and over a wonderful cold glass of Nippys (OJ) recounted his time off the coast of the Kimberleys as he circumnavigated Australia in his huge aluminium hulled catamaran built in his Monash farm based engineering sheds and sailed to sea down the Murray River.
Steph recounted childhood visits to Grants farm and the array of continually improved go-carts ready for trial. Grant showed us his bespoke self-built semi-powered long wheel base bicycle he rides each day to do the businesses mail run, amounting to 100km a week. And of course Grant just loved the quadcopter that was put up!
We parted with warm genuine hugs, and returned the following morning to fill our empty tanks with precious Riverland rainwater so generously offered and gratefully received.
