mileage

In the old days—in other words, when I am a kid—distance is measured in miles.

Decimal currency starts on 14 February 1966; anyone my age can still sing the jingle. “Out go the pounds, the shillings and the pence … ” A shame to lose our quids, florins, deenas and zacks.

No one remembers when we shift from weights avoirdupois—from the Norman French avoir de pois, literally "goods of weight", the original goods being wool—to metric. And we don’t remember when we forsook miles for kilometres: no date, not a year nor even a decade comes to mind.

Being driven home to Warrnambool as a small boy, I count off the miles as each post flits by. These days I get a rare thrill to see an old mileage post by a railway line or along a now bypassed highway. Extraordinary to think that only Americans still measure distance in feet, yards and miles.

Miles live on, at least, in our vernacular. A good footballer still kicks the pill a country mile. A country kilometre doesn’t cut it. And somehow we all understand, we intuit, that a country mile is longer that a standard mile.

Today my good woman and I cover many miles, country and standard, from Hawks Nest, through sluggish Newcastle around nine, along congested motorways to Sydney. My good woman is my navigatrix through Sydney from Hornsby where the F3 ends, from north to south, on roads with numbers, sometimes names, but foreign to both of us, Serb and fifth generation Australian alike.

Finally out of Sydney’s clutch, we stop in Kiama. My good woman, fresh from nine hours watching The Lord of the Rings, likens it to Hobbiton—hilly, busy, colourful and clean, everything just as it should be. Only the wind that blows the gizzards out of salad rolls, detracts.

The hinterland, when we emerge into it, splendidly verdant, takes her breath away. But we can neither tarry nor linger. Two hobbits in a Caddy, our journey home is long and I would put miles behind us this day.

We struggle through the endless road works of Nowra, the town somewhere to our left behind signs and barriers; Batemans Bay likewise. We stop for afternoon tea in Ulladulla. Is there a better town name on this continent? Only Monkey Jacket, a location near Hawks Nest, tickles my fancy as much.

Over tea, coffee and pear and ricotta cake we consider where to roost for the evening. Narooma is always my preferred destination and just after six we arrive. It’s miles from anywhere and I like it all the more for that.

Rock on.