Having already - by dint of laziness - blown the fiction that I am writing a real time story I continue ...
It is Saturday morning, wedding day, well possibly wedding day. If the river has risen over the road at Marx Hill then the groom will be in Urunga and the bride in Bellingen and there won't be a wedding until the floodwaters recede. Or perhaps it could be a proxy wedding like in the Middle Ages when kings married off their children in utero. The owner of the guest house promises us that the river will go down and we will make it to the Promised Lands. This is very reassuring. She has lived in Bellingen for many years. The river always goes down quickly. The tide is going out etc.
We have breakfast with the other guests. Two German ladies with thick hiking boots and bumfluffy moustaches are uninterested in the wedding and consider the weather personal attack on their plans. The other couple are fascinated, which is good because they are the most fascinatingly unlikely couple. The older woman is the central casting version of a school librarian, buttoned up blouse, calf length skirt in a sensible print she looks at us all in nervous silence. If she hadn't emerged from a bedroom with another woman, I would be convinced she is uncomfortable about breakfasting with same sex couples. The younger woman is the opposite, bright and bubbly, with platinum blonde hair that looks entirely natural, she is dressed like a young Australian who has spent a year in Italy and spent judiciously rather than extravagantly. She asks about every detail of the wedding. She also appears to confirm her couplehood, by constantly referring to 'we' and 'our' and possessively touching the older woman's hand.
Later, I almost mention to Bruce, how interesting it is that the only guests of a rural bed and breakfast are same sex couples. I'm glad I don't because the next morning we hear the younger woman calling, "Mum, it's breakfast time." And the age disparity and the discomfort suddenly become crystal clear.
We meet Nerine and her friends for coffee in town. Everyone is able to bring their own piece of local knowledge gleaned from the people they are staying with or the waiter who has served them. Unfortunately, all the local knowledge is identical - I have lived in Bellingen for years, the River goes down quickly, the tide is going out etc. And yet the river steadfastly rises in defiance of the local prognosticators. It is now over the bridge and lapping muddily at the edges of town. Nobody wants to be the one who says it, but we will need to prepare a back-up plan. Just in case.
The Coach company call. They have been hired to do a run from Coffs, through Urunga and Bellingen out to the church, so no-one will be forced to drive a winding country road at night. They have spoken to the SES who say that, at this stage, they will not be able to take a coach into the area. They aren't giving up hope. The river could go down. It is wait and see.
Nerine's hair and make-up is being done by a local girl who has driven down from the Promised Lands that morning. The night before, people had been trapped by the rising creeks. Visitors were forced to stay the nights with their hosts. Some tourists in the area had to rely on the kindness of strangers. But when she passed the Gleniffer church that morning it was high and dry, only the grass all around it had been flattened by floodwaters from the Never-Never Creek. "It's okay," she tells us breezily, "The North Bank Road is open".
A couple of family members are sent to explore the North Bank Rd. The hair-dresser's father is a Gleniffer Real Estate agent. He knows everyone who has ever lived in the town and has their mobile number in his phone. He stands on the street and calls a back up coach, a couple of back up reception venues and a back up priest and leaves messages for all of them. If your wedding is to be rained out, it is certainly better for it to happen in Bellingen where the locals rally around and offer all the support and assistance they can, than in Sydney where it would be seen as an opportunity for price gouging.
More to come ...
