Why I Live Where I Live

	Why I Live Where I Live Forty years ago a conscious decision was made by my husband and myself to abandon the ‘rat race’ of city dwelling and take our two small children, aged six an four, and live in a more relaxed community. so, from a city of two million to a country town of some four thousand, was quite a change. The incessant and time consuming need for commuting from our home in the suburbs to places of work - strap hanging, hours of wasted time, herded like cattle into stifling trams, buses and trains; racing against the clock in order to earn a living; living! ‘What are we trying to do?’ we asked ourselves. ‘Live’ was the answer ‘and have time to enjoy it with our children’.The answer was obvious, we must move. A further winter in Melbourne’s weather, children cooped up with measles, chicken-pox, influenza and weeks of rain, we were determined to find an environment where we could actually breathe more easily and live, not merely exist. The need, was to find a community where our particular types of expertise in the work force could be utilised - we did have to pay our way. The area of Central Murray with an average annual rain fall of 1 to 14 inches, where the sun seemed to shine forever, came to mind. (One child badly need to live in a dry environment north of the Great Dividing Range.) This was the area we chose to research. Pelicans at Picnic Point where the Edward leaves the Murray - photo Sylvia Baker © 2002 The Murray Valley is where the River Murray itself is the life support system of those who live within her reaches where, to be precise, the Edward River takes off and forms an anna-branch, rejoining the main stream some 150 miles downstream. Running through the flat plains country, it winds its way quite philosophically slapping at the roots of the ancient and magnificent River Red Gums it passes on its journey to the sea, some 800 to 900 miles further south west. Pelicans float peacefully overhead. People fish from tinnies, swim at the beaches or picnic by a park billabong to the accompaniment of the cries of numerous nesting birds. Golfers share the fairways with kangaroos, wood ducks and ibis. The river itself seems to weld all residents together in loose, free flowing bonds of friendship and caring for one another. Life’s mysteries and joys co-exist here as in all other human habitats, but the type of people make the difference - people with time to have become part of it. We enjoy living where we live.


Sylvia Baker (as broadcast by ‘Macca’ on the ABC program ‘Australia All Over’), ©2003

Top \| Home \| Stories \| Poems \| Interviews \| Plains Talking \| Elders of the Plains

This site and domain sponsored by McPherson Media 03 5831 1866 info@mcmedia.com.au for fast, reliable, internet connection					Last updated - 13/1/2003 URL this page - plainstalking.deni.net.au/sbwhy.html Designed by - Daryll Bellingham, © 2002.