Time goes faster as I get older
15th June 2025
Somewhere in the bush between Bourke and Broken Hill.
I have been thinking about time a lot of late. How things get old, wear out and break and yet other things you want to change remain the same no matter how much time seems to pass :(
An old car somewhere in the bush between Bourke & Broken Hill.
When I made my way out into the bush between Bourke and Broken Hill to camp for the night I passed an abandoned car that was beautifully rusting away as Mother Nature reclaimed it.
Who remembers car speedometers in miles per hour?
I am now old like this car. I remember when the speedometers in cars were in miles per hour like this one. As I get older I want to slow down but life goes faster! How does that work?
Surat Fringe Camp on the Balonne River.
I do not remember when Australia was segregated but on my recent trip I was reminded it was not so long ago. I camped one night just outside of Surat on the banks of the Balonne River at the site of the old Surat Fringe Camp. I pitched my tent just a couple of hundred metres away from where the Mundy & Cleven families once lived segregated from the white community living in humpies and tents.
It was not until the 1967 referendum that the first nations people were able to relocate into the town proper. That is within my lifetime that we still had segregation in Australia.
Part of the Artmore Station ruins, Flinders Ranges.
Now for an event just outside the start of my life. In the Flinders ranges I visited the ruins of the Artmore Station. This was once a thriving sheep station founded in the 1850’s. Abandoned in the early 1900’s due to drought, the property now lays in ruins. Just one lifetime to go from flourishing to ruins.
Then still in the Flinders Ranges I visit the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) and a human lifetime seems so insignificant. This layer of sediment in the bank of a river marks the base of the Ediacaran Period 635 million years ago. During the Ediacaran Period the world changed from one off single celled micro organisms to the dawn of animal life.
The Bakery at Olary.
Back to events in my lifetime….as I ride home through the largely abandoned town of Olary I notice what remains of the bakery during a toilet break. I wonder what life was like in this town back in its peak and what caused that best of times here?
Crossing the border on the way back to Cairns.
We are here and then we are gone., time….we get so little of it when you think in terms of the Ediacaran period. It was about 13 years ago that I stopped doing repairs on jewellery made by others. Since then I have a list of other jewellers that I offer to people looking for a jeweller to do repairs. (I only repair jewellery I made).
When I returned back to Cairns I was informed that one of the jewellers I still refer people too died over a year ago! How much time do I have left? Time to get a move on :)
Whilst I can…I intend to roam as much and as far in Australia on two wheels as possible. Plan and try or wait and die, no time should be wasted!