On Saturday I went for a walk down through Camperdown and the lower parts of Enmore. The houses there are so old they have laneways out the back. One even had an outhouse where you could see the hole in the back for taking out the crapbuckets, that had been bricked up when sewers were put in. I come from a town where the oldest buildings are from the eighties, so everything here is about as ancient to me as castles and tombs must be to regular people. At Camperdown Park I noticed that the soil was actual dirt and not just grey sand. It was a big deal. I feel like I’m in a different country.

On Sunday I tried to take a train out as far into the suburbs as I could. I wanted to see some urban sprawl - preferably with vast expanses of sand where the new estates were going to be. Just like Rockingham. But the only train I could find went to Bankstown, and that wasn’t half way there. The houses were a bit bigger, sure, but there were too many coloured people. The only non-caucasians living in Rockingham are the ones who run the Chinese restaurant.* I’m going to have to go further next time, right to the end of the railway, and then take a bus. I might end up in Newcastle.

*May not actually be true. But you get the picture.