The scout leader must have had a mate with some land.
It’s where we went as children to camp, a quaint little spot with gum trees, lush terrain, and an ankle-deep creek that flowed faster than its depth would indicate.
As nice as it must have been, I only have two vivid recollections.
The first was of a fellow group member piercing his hand with a barbed-wire fence, and seeing blood gush from both sides of the webbing in his hand.
The other was the 1am and 3am wake up calls made by the nearby clunkety-klunk of a freight train.
Maybe the noise gets louder over the years, but the sound in my head is enough to rattle away any other memories I might have had of two of our grown-up superiors bathing in a shallow creek bed.
Never mind that it was early morning and single-digit temperatures. Even back then I knew the shampoo they were putting into an otherwise clear waterway was enough to cause significant damage.
The trains might have been nearby. But it was wilderness, so I never really knew how close they came. I didn’t see them. All I knew was that they’d taken away whatever shallow slumber I was to get during our two-night getaway.
Not much for camping, every time I read about trains, I’m reminded of my horrific scouting adventure.
I have, to now successfully diverted any of Wanda’s aspirations to travel the Ghan – or the Beenleigh express to the city, for that matter.
And I’m thrilled to hear there won’t be any freight carriers clunkety-klunking their way through the suburbs of Logan.
It’s exciting when rail stations are given upgrades, or when public transport services get a government hurry-on because independent travel will be a way of the future.
When we realise that disposing of car shells as we convert to electric vehicles is as damaging as the dirty fumes they bellowed into the air for decades, we’ll also discover that public transport is a good thing.
Less convenient, sure. But a good thing nevertheless.
One of those rail – let’s for argument’s sake say – improvements may require the digging up of Beenleigh town centre. Others require the resumption of land at Logan Central.
Either way, it’s yet another nuisance most of us will notch up in the “not in my backyard, so I won’t overly care” column.
There’s also the argument of the rail trail. Even in retirement, the poor old rail lines can’t escape the headlines.
It’s not something I hold strong views on because I don’t foresee that by the time it’s finished I’ll be in any state to be cycling quite that far.
Wags will be wiping his greying whiskers as we both stretch our calves and wonder whether it’s worth the effort to brave sub-20-degree temperatures so the poor animal can drop parcels on lawns other than our own.
There might well be people sitting back saying “I told you so”. Whether that’s a group of retirees telling the police at 3am that there’s been another bottle thrown over their fence, that remains to be seen.
Maybe it will be a group of cyclists forced to take two 90-degree turns to navigate the diversion that was put in place after a village had their way.
Either way, trains are a bitter-sweet exercise.
Hey Wanda, I can’t find the … never mind.
Now where did I put those darn car keys because I’ll be damned if I’m taking the train.
