Skip to main content

John Williams Birthday Bash Part 3

After a good night's sleep it is time to head back to Sydney and home. It's already a quarter to ten by the time I exit the hotel and carpark. I set the music to John Williams' complete score to the original three Star Wars movies. 

Being a Sunday, the traffic is relatively light and not in a rush and I don't have to stress too much about navigating my way along the motorways out of the city. I'm glad I chose to drive rather than fly. As I head past the airport the wind is ferocious, buffeting the car. It would be a rough flight.

The car needs petrol, but I skip past the first few service stations until, an hour and a half later, I arrive at Avenel. On the way down I'd spotted hand painted roadside signs advertising smallgoods and a mysterious "bacon jam", so I thought I'd take a look on my return.



I bought a jar of the bacon jam, a savoury spread, from the roadside stall near the service station and grabbed  some hot items for a brunch. A "sweet chilli chicken" (piece of chicken with flavoured crumb) and a couple of deep fried classic Victorian dim sims.

Then off again until Euroa, where I thought I'd look for a bakery and a different supplier of jelly slices.



Sorry, Burke's jelly slices are not up to scratch. 

I'm feeling pretty yuck by the time I reach Albury. I'd woken up with a mild case of the runs and I just want to lie down. I stopped here to grab some additional delicacies from the Beechworth Bakery branch outside of Myer, but I don't want to end the day's travels here. Maybe I can keep going a couple of hours and stay the night at Gundagai or Yass.

After using the facilities, I allow myself a wander of the two levels of the Myer department store. It brings back memories of when B was a student in Albury and I'd come down to visit her.

I buy a few treats from the bakery for the others and a piece of sushi for my late lunch. On the way out I pass a Dymocks bookstore and end up buying a book for myself. I miss bookshops.

After the walk, a sushi and a drink I feel a lot better. Once I'm back on the highway I'm more comfortable, for this is familiar territory and the traffic is relatively light.

I look at the time and I'll be lucky to make Sydney before dark falls. The tank will need another filland I'm just going to play it by ear. If I need to stop for the night, I will, but the other two want me home.

I just keep driving and driving. Occasionally another car will annoy me and it's almost always a Volkswagen. It's like they cannot stop speeding and weaving in and out of traffic.

As the shadows lengthen the landscape is bathed in a wonderful golden light. I only wish that I had the time to stop for the day and admire it.

Gundagai and Yass come and go and I do not turn off. I really am feeling a lot better now. 

The traffic gets worse after the merger of the Federal Highway from Canberra. Using the GPS history I set it for Marulan, where we filled up the car for the last time of the previous trip.

When I pull into the service station at Marulan there are a couple of Queensland cars with red ensigns hanging off them, indicating that their feral mulleted occupants were part of the idiotic "freedom" protests in Canberra. I wonder if they'll start bitching about the N95 mask I am wearing into the petrol station.

Thankfully they leave first. I fill up my tank and head back to the motorway. I'd wanted to have a look around Marulan, but there is not the time now.

The traffic entering Sydney is not too bad this time. I ignore the usual hoons and just give them the rightmost lane to be stupid in. 

For this last leg I have set the audio to the Cinematic Sounds podcast's final episode of six celebrating John Williams' 90th birthday. I have timed it impeccably, because, as I turn off into my home suburb, his "Birthday Variations" play, the final piece of music.

And so it is that my own celebration of his music comes to a conclusion.

I'm very glad I made the effort to drive down to Melbourne to attend the concert. Of course I wish that I had longer, but I've seen and done a surprising number of things along the way and had a chance to enjoy some wonderful music.

Happy 90th Birthday Maestro!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site .  I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch.  The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It'

A selection of jams

We're home now. The last two days of our Brisbane trip involved a lot of driving but not always much movement. On Wednesday we arranged to met Sis and her family at Robina Town Centre, a massive shopping mall. That meant a drive down towards the Gold Coast along the same motorway we'd driven up along. What should have taken an hour took twice that due to the holiday traffic along the 3 and 4 lane road. Lots of people taking the turn-offs to three of the "Worlds" (Wet'n'Wild, Movie World and Dreamworld).  The Town Centre hosts Artvo , a trick photography gallery where you use perspectives to make subjects look like they are part of the artwork. It was surprisingly fun, despite the aversion of we males to being the subjects of photos. Afterwards we had a long chat over lunch, which was sourced from a variety of eateries. I had roti and chicken curry from Roti and Buns . Passable, though the curry was more laksa like. We later took Sis to Daiso and she and her h