The Earliest Days of Trenna AND Greg – Part 4

This is the fourth and final chapter in this brief love story. The first part is here.

Camping at Pemberton

By Greg

But First a Detour

As usual Trenna was ready to go when I pulled my Toyota Corolla Station Wagon into her driveway in Girrawheen. Unfortunately Girrawheen was the exact opposite direction to our final destination but I was so happy that she had agreed to go with me I couldn’t have cared less about the travel.

It was Monday 1 February 1988, just 5 days after that lovely sleepover. We had both been able to arrange a week off work, and being January it was all blue skies and warm weather.

Trenna had packed lightly, she had a bag of clothes and and a metal esky that had picnic equipment and a few other items and that was about it. I had all the camping equipment. Well almost all.

As we cruised South on the Kwinana Freeway at 80kph I said “We just have to pop into my Mum and Dad’s place to pick up the camping stove”.

“What! Greg!!”

What had I done this time? I hadn’t contrived the situation so I could call into my parents place, it was just that I remembered we would need their GAS stove.

“We won’t be long, they’re expecting us. What’s up?” I asked.

“Well look how I’m dressed!”

Oh! I saw her point. Trenna was wearing a small black singlet top, a very short, thin, sort-of-leopard-skin mini skirt. And that was about all she was wearing. It wasn’t really “come and meet my parents for the first time” clothing.

I hoped I hadn’t blown it with Trenna, again.

We really didn’t have a choice so 10 minutes later we were pulling into the long driveway of my parents house in suburban Bibra Lake.

They were both outside in a flash to check out this woman I was with.

Dad, I sensed looked at her admiringly, Mum, suspiciously.

However they were both very pleasant, as was Trenna to them. However, we didn’t hang around, we got the stove and were off in a matter of minutes. Again, it was an incident we didn’t talk about any more until much later in our relationship.

About Pemberton

Pemberton is a small town in the South West corner of Western Australia, a bit over 300 km from Perth. It probably took about 4 hours to drive there.

I had been there with my parents many years earlier, and I had been absolutely captivated by the huge, towering karri, marri and jarrah trees. These massive hardwood trees form the basis of a wonderful and very beautiful eco system.

I knew there had been plenty of clear felling of huge swathes of land down that way and I was praying that Pemberton’s sensational natural environment hadn’t been spoiled. The number of loaded log trucks on the road were a bit of a worry.

Although we did see plenty of evidence of native forest destruction whilst we were there, most of the areas we visited were pristine.

Camping

I had done a lot of camping over the years. Most of it had involved large eskys of beer and a bunch of mates, I was quite wary about how Trenna would hack it, she was so slight, and feminine.

As it turned out, Trenna was a gun camper! Her years camping with the Andersons at Meelup had taught her everything she needed to know.

We camped on the edge of town at a camping site that had a rudimentary fire pit, but was near a babbling stream and marvelously shaded by huge trees. A delightful spot.

It was beautiful fine weather, blue skies, not too hot, and thankfully, not too many flies.

In the evenings we ate well, drank wine and Trenna had had the foresight to bring a bottle of Tia Maria. For my part, I had brought a book of bush ballads along and tried to be romantic by reading poems about the exploits of Australia’s (white) pioneers.

I think Trenna thought this a bit weird, but took it in the spirit it was meant.

My recollection is that the days were spent driving around the various local natural beauty sites, admiring them, and then looking for a place nearby in the bush to make love.

There was a lot of love making on that trip.

The 5th Dimension

After one morning of sightseeing (and its associated activities) we were starting to get a little hungry, so we headed to the nearby town of Northcliffe, about 30 minutes further South than Pemberton.

Now, I don’t want to cast aspersions on current or past residents of this town, and we really only spent less than an hour there, but there was something about that town. It had a real Deliverance feel about it.

The 2021 Census puts the population of Northcliffe and it’s surrounding area at 288 people. I suspect it was quite a bit smaller when we were there nearly 35 years ago.

But there was something about the people we met that made us think they were all related.

It just had that feel, and we both remembered that visit for that reason, and another.

After walking around town for a little while – it didn’t take long – we figured the only place we would get food, was a bakery, in a small tin roofed, wooden building.

Checking around us for problematic relatives toting banjos we gingerly entered the shop. And there they were…

The hugest, fattest, yummiest looking sausage rolls that we had ever seen. It was as if these sausage rolls had just been sitting there, growing, and growing, waiting for our arrival.

“We’ll, have two of those” I said enthusiastically pointing to our destiny – those sausage rolls were beckoning us, even though, or perhaps because, there was something mysterious and unsettling about that town.

The boy behind the counter, who looked a lot like all the other people in town, slowly, oh so slowly picked up some tongs, then found a paper bag, then slowly, oh so slowly manoeuvred the sausage log into the bag. Slowly, very slowly, he did the same for the other one.

He mumbled something, I gave him a $5 note and he, slowly, gave me some change.

We were out of there in a flash, found somewhere to sit down and got stuck into our prizes. They were as delicious as they were huge.

For many years after that Trenna and I would relate to each other the story of the “Trip to Northcliffe”.

So it was inevitable, a couple of decades later that we should revisit this tiny hamlet. We were in the South West and thought we would try to relive the experience.

We pulled into town and although small, it seemed like a perfectly normal town. There was a diversity of people there, and there was no sign of the bakery. Not even some hint of where it had been.

Nothing.

Yet that memory of the slightly disturbing town with the slightly disturbing people and the world’s best sausage rolls persisted.

Back in 1988, during our site-seeing, had we gone a bit too far off the beaten track? Had we gone around one too many bends to avoid being seen? Had we slipped into a completely different time-space continuum? Had we followed a road that took us to a very different Northcliffe, one not normally visited by tourists? Perhaps one that’s in the South West corner, of the Twilight Zone?

Physical Prowess

If you go to Pemberton, you will inevitably end up at the Gloucester Tree. The world’s second tallest fire lookout tree. The public can climb the 58 metres or so if they choose.

Now, I had been to this tree with my parents more than 15 years earlier. My Dad and I had started the climb, but had turned back before too long. I didn’t regret the decision, and if I had had a bucket list, climbing to the top of the Gloucester Tree absolutely wasn’t on it.

Unfortunately Trenna had different ideas. So up we went.

Huge steel spikes have been driven into the trunk and they spiral around to dizzying heights. A sort of thick wire joined each spike and it formed a sort of rudimentary cage. I doubt if you could fall off and plunge to your death, but it looked eminently easy to slip and hurt yourself.

The climbing was fairly straight forward, if a bit nerve racking – but Trenna was following me, and fully keeping up so I really had no choice but to keep going.

At one point we encountered people on their way down, and it appears the designers had made no provision for such an eventuality. Basically, one person hugs the 7 metre wide tree trunk whilst the other person gingerly squeezes past apologising profusely.

And then we got to the bit where the branches start sticking out of the trunk. By this stage we were about 40 metres (about 130 feet) above the ground.

Those pesky branches pop out wherever they like and there are a few bits that are tricky to negotiate.

Eventually, thankfully, we emerged through a hatchway onto a steel and aluminium platform, with solid rails. Our legs were rubber and we were puffing, but we were exhilarated. We’d done it!

We were both complimenting each other on our courage and physical prowess when one of us noticed a half carton of empty beer cans in the corner. Someone had matched our prowess, but done it carrying a dozen cold beers!

The Rest of the Trip

I don’t know if it was our bonding over the conquest of the karri, or if it was our mutual ability to find new and interesting places to make love, but that trip really did cement the early stages of our relationship.

Everything went really, really well. Neither of us could have been happier with how it had gone.

As I dropped Trenna off at Girrawheen that Thursday afternoon we both had smiles on our faces. We knew something had shifted. We both knew our relationship had skipped forward a stage.

A Series of Events

It feels like from that point on we were both on a path, through a series of staging posts, but certainly moving on the same track in the same direction.

With Evo now in America Trenna didn’t find Cine Cellars to have the same pull on a Friday night after work. Most weekends I would pick her up from home on Fridays and drop her back home on Sunday evening.

She spent all of Easter with me at my (soon to be our) house. She loved that we could sit on my front porch and look at a beautiful grassy park across the road.

There was the odd hiccup, which we could always turn around. For an example read the post “A Burger with a Peace Rally, and a Watch on the Side“. We were both happy, and she seemed to like living in Kensington.

Acapulco Annie’s

Then there was one weekend which was different to the others. I was staying at Trenna’s place. I think we were doing the gardening there, which was a totally new concept to her.

As the day drew to an end we agreed that we deserved a meal out.

“How about Mexican?”

“Sure”

Acapulco Annie’s Mexican Restaurant at 85 Wanneroo Rd, Tuart Hill was in a contemporary styled commercial building, unremarkable but nice enough. It was upstairs along the busy road, about 15 minutes drive from Trenna’s place.

We of course had some Moondah Brook Chenin Blanc and were so comfortable in each other’s company. And that’s when I said it.

“Do you like me?”

And she said “well … no”.

And after a pause.

“I love you!”

If the previous months had seemed to be heading in an inevitable direction the next weeks and months seemed unstoppable.

I knew, in a very positive and wonderful way, that our two lives would forever be inextricably linked, and that life and love would never be quite the same again.

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End of Part 4, and the end of this series, but just the start of the story…

You might also want to read a story on our Engagement and Marriage. It is HERE.