An unintersting story of my day.

Sunday afternoon I had reached a state of boredom strong enough to entice me to go for a walk. I always get extra bored when I am walking without at least a small amount of purpose so I decided to take my awesome messenger bag, that has a picture of Jack Skellington of the nightmare before Christmas on it. In my bag I had my sketchbook and my unimpressive pencil case. My goal was to make my way to some sort of nice spot to sit and. . . draw something I guess.

First I walked to a nearby park that I have been meaning to visit just because of its convenient location and how green it is. I discovered quickly that the spacious green Field with its random tree placements was less secluded than I thought. I am not entirely sure why I thought it was secluded, seeing as I discovered it by looking out my car window while driving on the main road.

I tired of the noises of cars and slams of doors (honestly, do people that live on the main road not know how to close their front doors quietly?) a few minutes after I arrived. So I continued walking, planning on going to the memorial cemetery. My mission to visit a cemetery isn't as unusual as you might think. . . OK it is pretty odd. However, in Port Macquarie there is very little to do. There are not many nice places to sit and draw.

Next to the cemetery there is a park, complete with lovely trees, well kept grass and even a flowing river where ducks occasionally drift setting a nice scene. It would be a very calm and serene spot, were it not for the fact that another main road cuts through directly next to it. Also it is across the road from Finnian's Irish Tavern. I don't think the bar was open but the fact that it is there kind of ruins the tranquility of the spot.

I walked down the main road, past pizza hut, domino's, red rooster, several petrol stations, until I reached Finnians and crossed the road to the park next to the cemetery. I was planning to go straight to the cemetery and sketch a broken grave stone or something but I was in the mood to get away from the noise of civilisation. So I went into the park and walked until I reached the tree line and the beginning of the board walk.

I didn't even hesitate to start walking along the board walk. The further I went the quieter it got. Until I reached a single dead end part of the board walk that opened to a nice view of the river, mangroves sticking up through the mud around the edge of the wooden path beneath my feet.I sat down and started sketching. I was going to sketch the river, but the fact that the water was broken in one spot by the hose of a vacuum cleaner put me off a bit. I ended up sketching the wooden path itself, and my feet that were sitting on top of it.



I was having a nice time, the weather was great I was completely chilled out and I was very happy just sitting there sketching my feet. Occasionally other people would walk along the path and come over to look at the view. Mostly they would just notice me then continue on, a couple of people said hello politely and continued on. I was almost finished my drawing when one particularly unusual person wandered over to see the view.

I just glanced up when I heard him coming so I didn't really take in his appearance. I just remember my first impression was that this guy was an idiot. He wandered up to look out at the river, saying "G'day" as average Australians usually do. He continued walking to the edge of the board walk, almost falling into the river as he did so. I tried not to laugh and just kept at my drawing.

He glanced at me and said "You don't look like you smoke. Wouldn't happen to have a lighter?" I said no and he turned back to the river muttering something about all his lighters going missing. He managed to walk almost directly in front of me, blocking my view from the river. I may have been sketching the wooden path beneath my feet but I was still appreciating the view. The guy seemed to just be gazing stupidly at the river. I have to say I am glad his lighters left him. The interruption of my serenity would have been doubly annoying if he had lit up right there.

I did what any annoyed but polite person of my generation would do. I took out my phone, pretending to check the time, and packed up my things as if I had somewhere to be. I muttered a polite "Have a good afternoon." and headed back along the board walk. I did end up going to the cemetery after all.

It may seem like a tad morbid a goal but the cemetery is actually quite lovely. Gravestones scattered randomly around a Field with no real structure. The wonderful amount of grass and trees in the area almost makes up for the broken and graffiti covered blocks of granite everywhere. I even found some mildly creative graffiti on some sort of table.





How low can you get, spray painting a grave. Disrespectful idiots aside, I managed to have a nice walk. I sketched a grave stone that was sitting alone in a wide empty space, much like many of the others were.






And there you have it my boring Sunday afternoon complete with pictures. Hope you liked it.

-Rach