When I was a kid we lived in a house perched on a hill in far northern NSW. Upstairs ran a verandah as long as the house itself. From that verandah you were treated to a 180-degree view that began with a glimpse of the beaches stretching all the way down to Cape Byron, then panned out over cane fields up to the base of Mount Warning, the plug of a now extinct volcano.

If I went back to that house today, that view would take my breath away. But at the time, all those years ago, it just blended in to the every day of life.

We spent a lot of time on that verandah. It was the place where mum and dad had their regular after work cup of tea. It was the place I looked down from to watch my sister in her wedding dress have her picture taken in the garden. It was the place I’d run to, to see if my lift to ballet had arrived.

It was also the place we would gather when there was a storm brewing at the end of a hot sticky day.

“Come watch the storm,” my dad would call as he’d slide open the fly screen and step outside. We would tentatively following him, swatting away the mossies, gasping and ducking our heads each time the lightening struck over the cane fields.

Years later when I lived overseas I would recall this memory with a throbbing heart whenever I played Ganggajang’s song, This is Australia.

Out on the patio we’d sit,
And the humidity we’d breathe
We’d watch the lightening crack over cane fields
Laugh and think, this is Australia

Today, probably 30 years later, as I sat on the edge of Sydney Harbour and watched the colourful flotilla with my kids and Busy-And-Important-Husband this was the soundtrack that played through my head. The soundtrack to my memory of growing up in Australia.

 

What about you? What’s your soundtrack for Australia Day?