MACQUARIE PASS

After hours of teaching by day, I'm marking Advanced English HSC scripts in the Snakepit (don't think Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's a basketball stadium) at Wollongong by night. We're in the middle of Blade Runner and Frankenstein responses. Anyhow, I drive home via Macquaire Pass, which winds up the escarpment between Albion Park and Robertson. God I love that road at night - the serpentine nature of it, all that Top Gear adrenalin, a chance of spying a small wallaby or a sooty owl feeding by the roadside, the smell of Eden, that stretched buzz of crickets as you zip past them, Spring's full moon climbing up the escarpment with you, trees like fortresses... 2 people I spoke to yesterday used the adjective 'scary' in association with Macquarie Pass. The Pass adrenalises you, tests you, keeps you focused, asks you to respect it, brings you closer to divinity. LJ, November 1 2012.