Torquay

While Apollo 11 is hurling towards the Moon at a speed of 39,000 km per hour, I cycle home as a thunderstorm closes in. Yet, rather than being trapped in a tin can in space, I am thinking of arrivals, of finally being at the sea, continents away.

A couple of hours’ drive from Tullamarine Airport lies Torquay, with its windblown trees. It is where the Great Ocean Road starts, but for me it has somehow come to symbolize where the road ends, or at least takes a long, dreamless pause.

V. S. Naipaul has written at length about the enigma of arrival and how our own preconceptions of a place affect what we see. On the other hand, perhaps caring about aesthetics is foolish in the first place, that none of this really matters to anyone with remotely ordinary sensibilities. Nevertheless, I am afraid of just that: that my life will never come into focus again.