Romantic Adventures on the Machans Beach Access Road

We live in a special suburb. Machans Beach (pronounced 'May-Chans, with the emphasis on the first syllable) is ten minutes drive from the centre of Cairns. There is only one road that connect this suburb to the world - the "Machans Beach Access Road", so we have no through traffic. Most of the cars that travel in and out of Machans are carrying people who live in here. We drive between fields of sugarcane to get in here - sometimes a solid wall of waving giant grass ten feet high, sometimes sporting fluffy pink plumes of flowers. When the cane is high it feels like driving home through a secret tunnel, into a little private, privileged world. Some days we drive out of the beach through the tunnel and when we return, we get a small shock to see the fields suddenly lying bare. During our small absence someone has gathered up all the tall green stalks and carted them away, and we travel home feeling strangely conspicuous and exposed.

There isn't a lot of litter along our road, but what there is is collected voluntarily by a Machanite - a fellow who rides a pushbike out there every morning armed with a rubbish bag, and makes it his own particular business to keep our Access Road spiffy. (He was one of several residents recently awarded an OMB ("omby" award) at the inaugural "Order of Machans Beach" community awards.)

Our one road to the outside world has a low-lying section that floods about every second year and seals us in, or out, for a few hours or days. I think that there is something particularly precious and rare about living in a place where your access to the world can be disrupted. It can be frustrating, and sometimes worrying, and sometimes financially costly when I can't get to work, but the disadvantages do not compare with the incomparable delight of getting an unexpected day off work. (And I adore my job, but I love being free in my house even more!) Often it is raining heavily and there is nothing for it but to sit round inside, reading, chatting, listening to music, listening to the rain, cooking, napping, catching up. And it is all completely guilt-free ! All social obligations are lifted, because we are innocent victims trapped by the weather. This aspect of Machans life will apparently soon come to an end, with our local politicians committing to flood-proof our access sometime soon.








Machans is bordered by a creek on one end and river on the other, with the ocean at the front and the highway behind, so with the road closed, any other access is by water. We have our own emergency services division in here, and a couple of little shops, which sell ice and fuel and gas and food, so the main hardship we face when the road is closed is that we do not have a bottleshop . Once the river becomes passable, some community-minded soul will soon volunteer to nip up the river to the Stratford Hotel and come back with supplies, and word gets around and folks put in their orders. They will also take the opportunity to bring more mundane things like bread and milk!

We recently became more intimately familiar with the Access Road than I ever expected (or hoped!) to become. Our poor old Magna seized to a final halt on the Access Road one afternoon. With no immediate financial ability to buy another car, we had to find another way to get to work. I have an early start at the cafe, earlier than the first bus from Machans. Getting to the city by 7am involved leaving home by 5:50am, walking half an hour along the Access Road and then standing on the edge of the highway with traffic thundering by at 100km/hour and trying to persuade a bus to pull over and pick me up in the gloom. I cannot thank my darling husband enough for getting up with me in the dark, walking me to the bus every morning for about four months - and then walking half an hour back home.

When we began doing this it was winter, and pitch dark the whole way. We carried a little flashing red LED to help protect us from being run over. There is little traffic on the road that time of the morning, and no houses, and no lighting, and I would have found it very unsettling to have to walk it alone. By the time we were able to buy a replacement vehicle, it was light before we even left home and the morning was hot before we got to the highway. With my beloved along, however, it became a little romantic adventure every day. We held hands and plotted and planned and laughed as always, even on days when a sole fell off my shoe half way there (gaffa tape to the rescue), or there was a torrential downpour and we almost died of heat and humidity inside our rain ponchos, or we were befriended by a huge, skinny, extremely goofy white dog that insisted on walking the whole way in between us, leaning heavily on us and lolloping out onto the road whenever a car approached.

We would make the most of a spare few minutes before we were parted for the day and hug each other and kiss on the roadside while we waited for the bus, and I often imagined what an unusual sight we must be to all the drivers streaming past us into the city - a couple standing in the first light between the highway and the cane, far from the nearest house, lost in a passionate embrace, day after day. When a bus heaved into sight in the distance he would valiantly stand almost in its path and flag it down for me (we had learned from frustrating experience that such extreme approach was necessary, and even then not always successful!)

It was romantic, and as we always do we made the most of it and found things to treasure about it ( this is one of our special skills), but we are both extremely grateful it is over.