Swift's Creek Film Diary // Part Two

Here is part two of my film diary from Swift's Creek. This week was more challenging than the first, for many reasons, but enjoyable all the same. 

part one

I compensate for my lack of literature to read by preparing for lessons I am teaching throughout the first week. At night my bedroom is lit with the warmth of the lamp, and shadows are cascaded around the room, dancing for me while I write about learning objectives and resources. In the mornings the room is lit up with sunlight, which creeps in through some rather poor curtains. As a consequence, I am awake by 6.30am every day. Waking early seems to be fitting here though. In a place so beautiful, it feels a shame to miss out on any time spent outside.

Laura and I drive up to Omeo that first week with the intention of having dinner at the pub (The Golden Age, we had heard many disastrous stories about the other pub in town). The first of quite a few trips up to the larger town. I search for a book but find none (I am still grappling with how people survive without the luxury of a bookstore nearby). There is one very pretty store where I buy a silk dress. There is a little dog that chases us around the store, who Laura all but falls in love with. As we are leaving, the little munchkin pushes past and escapes down the road! Horrified at our mistake, we chase him all over town. He thinks it all a game, of course, and plays hide and seek behind parked cars and on a small hill. Eventually he is caught, by another local shopkeeper, and after apologising profusely Laura and I head back 'home', choosing not to wait around for dinner as we had run out of things to occupy our time! 

We stop twice on our way 'home'. Firstly at the lookout overlooking Omeo and secondly on the road back to Swift's Creek, to take photographs of the sunset. The way the light hits the land is incredible, I bask in the warm glow for a few seconds before heading back. I do not want to linger too long, for fear of running into a kangaroo or wombat in the pitch darkness that surround the towns up here. 

Friday night has us heading down the hill to Lakes Entrance, for a conference the next day with our University lecturers. I manage to find a bookshop still open (finally!) and buy Virgina Woolf's Room With A View, as well as a book of poems by Coleridge. Laura goes swimming while I read and watch an interesting program on Albinos living in Mali. 


We are staying at the Bellevue and dinner is fantastic. I have seared scallops for a starter, pork belly for a main and pistachio crème brûlée for dessert. The highlight of the evening though is the look on my lecturer's face at the sight of the (rather large) scampi on her plate. We were all hysterically giggling for what felt like hours.

The next day is Laura's twenty-first birthday. I take a photograph of her at breakfast but she, predictably, blinks. Today was a hard day for me. Rude comments and a six hour conference do little for a peaceful state of mind. 

We have a little time before the conference starts, about twenty minutes. Laura, Amy, Casey and I rush down the street and have a look in the shops. I buy a purple beanie to take with me overseas, mostly because it has a fluffy pom-pom on top. I snap Amy searching through the skirts in one surf shop, where there are photographs on the front counter of the owner eating friend tarantulas. Rushing back has us at the conference room just in time for it to begin (though it couldn't really without four out of five of the guests). The rest of our time in Lakes consists of listening to our lecturers. The highlight was performing a short skit about an airport for our lecturers. I take a photo of my lecturers, but am choosing not to share it here. 

Laura and I head to Orbost, so Laura can spend her birthday with her family. We go out for dinner in Marlo, where her family takes up about six long tables. It's fun, her cousins are nice and the food is surprisingly good. The next day we go for a drive with Laura's mother, and visit the venue for her 1920s themed birthday party. Laura takes me to a spot she wants us to take photographs in one day, it is a small section of rain forest hidden between paddocks and the river. We spend time in Laura's old Primary School, where her mother works, playing the piano and helping Laura get her preparation done for the next week of teaching.


It's an exhausting weekend, and I am glad to return to the tranquility of Swift's Creek. This driveway has become familiar in such a short span of time. I become more comfortable with my teaching, not feeling overly nervous about having to take the whole class or over my planning. It's a refreshing change of pace, and I have a feeling that Swift's Creek has a lot to do with it. 

On the Tuesday I go on an excursion to Omeo with the year fives, sixes and sevens. We visit Jeff Cooper from the local lions club, who shows us the court house and the old log jail. He tells us all about some of Omeo's lawless history. The town has a well deserving reputation (at least during the 1800s) as Australia's most lawless town. One story sticks with me. About six young girls, aged around sixteen, decided to go out one night in the mid-1800s. For a laugh, they head to the 'Oriental section', where all the Asian miners lived. They entered, and it is speculated unknowingly, into a gambling institution, where they were promptly arrested. At their trial it is stated that any young girl mad enough to go into the Asian part of town had to be clinically insane and the group were sentenced to three months in the local insane asylum. It is arranged at the end of the three months for their parents to come and take them home, but none of their parents ever came and the girls lived their whole lives in the asylum, eventually going insane from abuse. Their story is tragic, even more so because there is no court record of who their families were. Last names were never used. Out of all the stories Jeff told, of miners and bush rangers and pub brawls, this was the most heartbreaking. I do not believe I will forget it. 

part one