Yackandandah via Wodonga and Yarrawonga

There is poetry in the place names of country Victoria, poetry in the landscape too. The drive to Wodonga on the Murray and the border of Victoria and NSW is tiresome - straight down the Motorway, the road hardly deviates for three hours. But when I stopped and looked around it is another story. All the rain has fed the creeks and rivers and fields - the grass is lush and cattle look well fed and content. And once again, the wattle is blossoming everywhere. The clear blue of a wide sky, bordered by mountains and fields dotted with pink and white cherry blossom and a road lined by wattle like fireworks. Mostly though it is the undulating hills which stretch across the landscape like a serpents back while Toot Toot makes her merry way along that capture my imagination.

I am visiting my pal, Kirsty and her wondrous son Jarrah in Wodonga. This morning they took me to Yackandandah and we wondered the old shops, spent some time in the Museum and the old park. I am always amazed at the war memorials in country towns - long lists of names, sometimes three or four in one family, who perished on the other side of the world.
This also makes me wonder about the aboriginal history of the area - the Murray would have provided a rich feast with lots of bird life and a flood plain for grazing mammals. Hopefully I will discover more over the next few days.

The road to Seaford and Aireys Inlet...

I have spent the last week staying with friends in Seaford, down near Frankston. This requires that I travel through the tunnel and along the motorway, Eastlink. I have got better at the tunnel, though I do find it disconcerting when the GPS shows me and my little van actually travelling under the river!

Then last Friday I headed off to Aireys Inlet for their Words Festival, to listen to authors and illustrators, Roland Harvey, Elisabeth Honey and my pal Jackie Kerin. They all talked about their inspiration and their craft of creating stories and books. Jackie talked about the creation of her book, Phar Lap, the Wonder Horse. She also told more stories on her kamishibi, a traditional Japanese storytelling theatre. I love Jackie's stories, based on historical research and a great passion for characters and events through time.

Aireys Inlet also has an old lighthouse. It was International Lighthouse Day... Both Jackie and I tell adaptations of the "Lighthouse Keepers Lunch" by David and Rhonda Armitage, in our story sessions for small children.

Aireys Inlet also had a great van park where Toot Toot and I settled for a couple of days. There were not many people at the southern tip of the continent this last weekend - well, not many at the van park, so I had a fabulous stay with the camp kitchen and games room all to myself.

Story begets story begets story...

The house was hopping and the stories running hot at Daylesford. Annie had three storytellers and two musicians staying at her place this weekend, so we shared champagne, red ned and a little whisky, along with the stories and music until late at night.

Jackie Kerin, Mattheo and Jan (Yarn)Wozinksky arrived at the Daylesford Courthouse for their panel discussion on "An afternoon in conversation with ..." Annie led the discussion and Jan (Yarn) was first up talking about what brought him to story - his mixed Scottish and Czech heritage, his history with the Bushwackers Band and the stories he collected in NT from Bill Harney Jnr. All this was accompanied by his banjo and ballads. Jackie followed and chatted about her time as a dreamer, when she was small, and training at NIDA, then hilarious stories about working on ads for Bunnings and, to quote Jackie, 'stuff I wouldn't want to eat.' In fact Jackie has a wide and diverse acting history, but when I first met her, about 15 years ago in Melbourne she was just starting out as a storyteller. She also demonstrated her 'Split Dog' stories on the kamishibi, a traditional Japanese story theatre.

Mattheo's story was fascinating too - his early work as a set designer building hugh sets and props, his work with theatre in Melbourne and Bryon Bay and lots of anecdotes about being a street performer and the way storytelling creates pictures in your head. Mattheo tells 'wonder tales' and that is how it is - wondrous, taking the listener on a wild and hilarious journey with ogres, fools and princesses. It was a great afternoon.

Later that night, back at Annies we all told tales to the camera so that Annie could put them together for the Guild Blog. It was great fun, sitting by her fireplace, trying to work the lights and camera, but mostly just telling and laughing and encouraging each other to look right at the camera. Story beget story beget story - that's the way it goes. It is how stories have moved all around the world, survived, thrived, changed and morphed - but mostly kept on moving, mouth to ear, breath to breath, heart to heart.

Words in Winter...

So, on Friday morning I asked Sean the way to Daylesford. Sean is my Irish GPS guide. Every time he tells me to turn right in 300mts, it makes me laugh and I find myself arguing with him. “Oh Sean, you’ve got no idea at all how to find your way around the Australian bush. Who do you think you are kidding, right you say, right. “

That’s how we usually chat with one another and I must day he is very persistent. So this morning when I asked the way to Daylesford, I had already worked it out on my map. I just thought it was time to give Sean a chance to lead me astray. Well, he certainly did that! He took me across hill and dale, through some of the most hidden roadways. I would never have taken the chance to go that way myself, it was far too obscure. But I have to say, Sean came up trumps. It was a spectacular journey from Shepparton, through Heathcote and the State Forest to Daylesford – and so much shorter, even for the meandering way. At first I was a bit worried about the kangaroos as the path was heavily wooded and Toot Toot is not really used to dodging wildlife. But after a while the road became an avenue of old eucalypts on the edge and pasture beyond. It was hilly but so beautiful.

Until we got to Annie’s place at Daylseford…

And here the stories started…Annie has been a storyteller as long as me, starting back in the eighties in public libraries, then making the leap to freelance work about 88, like me. She has worked all around Victoria, particularly Daylesford and Ballarat where she has lived for 20 years and raised her kids too. Annie has worked in schools and libraries, on local radio and

at galleries. She has developed lots of wonderful stories from historical material and tells the stories that have just sat on library shelves neglected, or have lingered in the minds of folk, waiting for a teller to draw them out and let others hear…

So when tellers get together that’s what we do, tumbling over each other with ideas and hare brained schemes that may take some time to find their voice. But they usually do, eventually. Annie is telling at the Daylesford Words in Winter festival. She started last night with her show, “So who was the first gay in the village” about the history of gay culture in Daylesford. I cannot believe I missed this – but just could not make it in time. Never mind, there will be other times, and anyway I am here for the next few days so we are sure to be telling late into the night. Tomorrow, three Melbourne tellers will be here – my great pal, Jackie Kerin, and two of the oldest fairy tellers, Marylou Keaney and Mattheo. One of the strange phenomema of the Australian storytelling scene is that quite a few of us worked a lot in the early days in the Fairy Shops. In Melbourne the first Fairy Shop was Wonder Wings, in Richmond, and it offered steady work for tellers at children’s parties and the Adult Only nights on the weekends. Annie, Mattheo, Mary Lou, Suzanne Sandow and of course, Nell Bell, all told at Wonder Wings in the early nineties. Fairy parties were very popular for kids then – it has dwindled these days. I also told at Brisbane’s first Fairy Shop, on Latrobe Tce, in Paddington, for a while, but this work was really developed by another Brisbane teller Suzanne Harris. Telling at children’s parties is hard work because the kids are so beside themselves with excitement. They are also pretty little, so it is as tough a training ground in working with audiences that you can get. If you don’t tell well for small children they just give you the flick. It is not easy to engage fully with their imaginative life – the teller has to lead for a bit, then be prepared to follow and take them on a truly wondrous journey, bringing them back safe to eat cake and blow out the candles.

'tis fierce cold

It is nearly seven years since I lived in Melbourne and I always forget the cold down south. In Deception Bay it is almost balmy, definately short sleeved days and the sun quite warm as I walk along the waterfront. So the deceptive spell does it's work and I forget that it is cold in other places. Mind you, many people reminded me and I have an arctic sleeping bag, a mohair rug and my red wool coat. I sleep snug enough but the chill creeps up from under the van and in the early morning, once I am on my way, I had to dig out my red leather gloves and rainbow beanie.

Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle on the road...

I have been telling this story since 1992 when Scottish teller, David Campbell gave it to me at the first Glistening Waters Festival in Masterton, New Zealand. He explained that it was a very, very old tale - well, old in the Western European tradition - which means hundreds, rather than thousands of years. Like all old tales it just gets better the more you tell it. Folktales have so much room inside them for the listener and the teller to roam around, connecting the tale to their own story as well as the shared family and cultural experience. Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle is just such a story. It is a simple finger rhyme with a great walking rhythm up the hill and down the hill.

A couple of years ago some dear friends, the Korting family from Calliope, gave me two small finger puppets who they had named Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle. I had told them the story many times and it was a family favourite - different every time and full of laughter. Mr Wiggle and Mr Waggle are on the road with me. These are a couple of photos of them at the WeHi River camp at Moree and in a gnarly old tree at Coonabarrabran.

In the beginning...

Ursula le Guin says, "It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end." So here I am, at the beginning of my journey, with no idea of the end, except that it will be home again, eventually. I have been on the road two days, down the Newell Highway, heading for Daylesford and the Words in Winter Festival. It will be marvo to see fellow tellers and hear their stories - but first I must traverse half the continent in my new van, Toot Toot. She is a little beauty, a Renault Kangoo, brand new and all set up to take me and the story box south. But in the beginning, before I left, I had lots of difficult choices to make. What books would I take with me? How could I leave my library at home for weeks? I borrowed as many audio books as I could from the wondrous DBay Library. If only I had planned ahead enough to have an EReader. Lackaday, Lackaday.

Whew up there, girl! Remember this journey is about solitude, and the landscape and the stories that emerge - not taking every moment to catch up on favourite authors and books. My wondrous friend and fellow teller, Jackie Kerin, calls it 'addicted to print' and that is true enough, but it is really addicted to story. Story tells us who we are and where we come from. It makes sense of experience by placing it in a context. Sure enough the context constantly changes. That is the heart beating challenge, the wild old ride between teller and listener. As a storyteller I have been traversing the continent for years - with small children, smart mouth teens, jaded workers and wise old folk. Sometimes my fellow tellers were full of laughter and good cheer, often they were truthful with a capital T and vulnerable, mostly they have shared their stories with great generosity of spirit. This is the spirit I emulate.