We headed bush again Thursday night after work, both pretty tired, stopping for fuel at Eltham. It wasn't until Kerrin began to replace the nozzel he was holding that he realized someone had tangled the hoses and replaced the diesel in the wrong spot, so he was holding an unleaded nozzel. Oops, $47 worth of unleaded in the diesel. We couldn't find anyone with a syphon or even an old bit of hose, so did a quick calculation and decided to run on mixed fuel till Flowerdale (yes the garage there survived) and then add more diesel.
Just a few k's short of the turnoff to Flowerdale, at the top of a hill, the motor coughed and the lights came on. Kerrin cut the engine quickly and we coasted down hill, looking at the burnt out trees either side of the road and thinking it would be hard to find anyone who could help. Then we noticed lights through the trees on our left and at the bottom of the hill rolled around a corner, stopping outside a house that obviously had someone left in it!!! A small miracle.
Opening the gate we were greeted in friendly fashion by a guy who scratched his head when he heard our dilema. He introduced himself as Paul (the one with the head light) a mechanic who was just starting to get a business going at home, but had left his syphon at work. He scratched his head a bit more, then decided to consult his friends who were round the back having a beer. They all looked a bit bemused and were making noises like 'can't really help', 'drive you to the garage' when one of them, Damien, the one in orange, said 'what about...'. Then they all got enthused with finding a solution for us.
A few minutes later and we were out the front with all four male heads under the car and me deciding to be sexist and leave them to their dirty gravelly confab - enough heads underneath. Just as well really when another car came round the corner - I made sure it could see me standing out far enough from the car to protect several pairs of male legs sticking out into the road.
Confab concluded, Paul headed off into the garage and came back with a little gadget he'd invented - a pump that could be hooked up to the fuel feed with a feeder down into numerous gerry cans which appeared out of no-where. Some time later, Mark, the one with the cap, headed off up the road for his tractor - the one with the burnt out tyre that they'd replaced with some sort of old car tyre innard and some cans holding it together. No good having a tractor without a tyre if the fires came back. Did I get that right, is that really what they fixed that tyre with?
So the next task was to syphon diesel out of the tractor into the truck. Another while and a few beers (glass of water brought to me by someone out of a nearby house), and it looked like we were ready to go. We discussed the fact that they now had 50+ litres of a mix of diesel and unleaded in 3 gerry cans and what were they going to do with all that if the fire came down on them again??? Kerrin saved the day by suggesting the culvert down the road - shove them up it till the fires are past, and if they do explode it will be out the ends of the culvert and won't create any danger.
I was reluctant to leave them there although they'd already whethered a horrible fire storm by evacuating then sneaking back in behind police lines to save their houses once the fire had passed. So I stopped taking photos, gave them all a big hug and some words of motherly wisdom like, be careful, keep yourselves safe, and we were off.
They'd given us enough fuel to get to Yea, but all was closed when we got there. Another quick calculation said we'd have enough to get home and we did. When Kerrin went to get fuel at Buxton the next morning, the truck took 56 litres. It only holds 56 litres. I guess Mark's guestimate that he'd given us 30 litres was a bit out, but still it got us home.
While we waited for the gerry cans to fill, we got chatting to Damien who was excited to hear what we do and asked us to bring some cards back some time. We're planning on visiting on the way past and dropping off some homoeopathics for burns and snake bite. I'm sure we'll sit over a couple of beers (and waters) and chat for a while, hear more of their fire stories. If you ever need a good mechanic over Flowerdale way, we know a good one, his name's Paul. I'm imagining taking both our vehicles over to him for the next service, taking a picnic lunch and a couple of good books and a couple of beers of course. We were exhausted when we left Melbourne at 8, but when we left the boys in the bush we both felt uplifted and energized, even though it was 11pm. That bush spirit of helping and caring, of friendly interest and relaxed communion, so beautiful.
The next night we were sitting on the veranda at the Taggerty store with half our street and a few others, sharing bread and dips and fire stories. Talking it out is so therapeutic. One of the things that hasn't been said about Taggerty is that even though the township is saved, there were a lot of people south of town who got left out of the equation. Our road was outside the containment line that first night. The police called on two of our neighbours to tell them the fire was 8-10 minutes away, but the rest of the street missed out on that and just sat in the dark waiting. They waited for another couple of hours before the fire reached them. The phones were down but a number of them had walkie talkies. Some of them, including Kerrin didn't.
I don't know what it was like waiting. Sandice spoke of the glow behind the mountain (with their house just the other side) and the sight of the fire coming up the 2kms from the highway but not knowing it would stop before it got to her. Kerrin watched it come down beside our place through the eucalypts, and simultaneously come up from the highway. He focused on the grass fire till he'd stopped it before our house, then looked at what was behind and just sat on the ground and said: 'I can't fight you, you're too big'. He heard explosions from down at the road and thought our friends and neighbours across the way were gone, wondered how many others were gone.
Hours later he heard from another neighbour and realized everyone was alright and in fact no houses were lost in our street. I think he probably greeted the firies with tears when they arrived at 4am - his first contact with anyone. They were the first firies in our street, we were out of the equation for them as the cfa instructions were to stop at the containment line on Cathedral Lane. By the time the fire got to Cathedral Lane, our road looked as though it was Armageddon except the houses were all sitting there in amongst the black.
One of the reactions that our street has had to work through is anger and frustration about how we were left out and not told we were being left out of the protection plan, but nobody could have been prepared for what happened on Bushfire Saturday and most of us realize that. With Marysville and Kinglake wiped out so thoroughly, anyone in charge would have been in overdrive and just did what they could at the time. What is needed though is for our street's story to be told - the local paper ran an article telling of how the cfa saved Taggerty but failed to mention how there were a lot of civilians saving each other's houses which contributed to the fact that when the fire did reach the containment line it was more containable.
Each person contributed - the people further up our street thanked Kerrin for his efforts as by stopping our part of the grass fire, it protected people to our east, we've thanked Josh who lives east of us for putting the fire out at our little house making it easier for Kerrin, Gary thanked us, we thanked Eric and so it goes on, a little web of rural protection that worked.
Walkie talkies are going to be included as part of a sensible fire plan from now on as they were literally life savers for some people and emotionally wonderful for us all when the lines went down.
And we're all thanking our lucky stars.
This has been a long catch up, written while Kerrin teaches astrology downstairs in Blackburn. It's time to pack up again now so we can head bush when he finishes. I guess we'll be dancing back and forwards a bit more over the next couple of weeks until autumn weather really sets in. So I'll go pack up my bucket of seeds and gardening books (the next crop of greens needs to go in), put the rug and the water in the car, get the dogs organized and we'll head off.
Take care wherever you are,
love Marg
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