Caringbah is big

My first memories of Caringbah are all of where we lived, our house, the garden. Or of Olive's house next door, or the orange cat, Soxy on the other side, and one up the Evans' house, looking for their rabbit underneath. The smell of the soil under their house, a kind of cold, dry smell. Further down the hill from Olive's was the Haste's house: Darryl and Martin. Martin was my age, Darryl was a couple of years older. I'd go and hang around there. Their house seemed darker because it was further down the hill and had trees around, shrubs in the front instead of lawn.

I don't remember the transitions to places outside of Caringbah. I remember, faintly, being on holiday at the beach, or way up in a forest in Queensland. Or being at our cousin's house in Killara, or at a friend's house in Berrara. Places far away from Caringbah but I don't remember getting there. Except for just two things; an accident in the car, my mum breaked suddenly when a truck stopped in front of her, and I fell off the back seat and hit my head on the seat belt anchor for the front passenger. I got a cut, and bled everywhere. I remember the back of the truck. I remember being on the floor in a pile. Then somehow we were at my cousins' house and my mum and Cousin Jen were talking. I've still got the scar up on my hairline, left hand side. The other memory is part of the drive to, or from, Queensland. I'd been given a Rupert the Bear Album. I was looking at the pictures, trying to tell myself the story. Wishing that dad would read it to me, but he was driving.

So when I was small, Caringbah was small, stretching only two houses on either side of ours. It didn't even make it across the road.

But when I got bigger I realised the expanse of Caringbah, a great slab of ground coming up from Botany Bay, then along the ridges to Port Hacking, North Caringbah, and Caringbah, and Yowie Bay, and Lilli Pilli, and Turriel Bay, and Dolans Bay, places and more places, all held within the same postcode, 2229.