Tête en bas

Down under wandering. Archipelagoes to islands; beaches to deserts; mountains to cities.

The absolute perfection of a night in a swag


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I’m losing my words. I just don’t know how to describe this amazing feeling I have, every night, when comes the time to go to sleep. I was used to go to bed; sometime reading a little before trying to fall asleep, watching a blank roof. For the last ten days or so, my roof is made of thousands of stars. I stare at the most amazing starry skys I’ve ever seen. Milky way is there, night after night. So intense that I’ve been wondering a few time if it was not a cloud… Every evening, I’m not counting sheep to fall asleep, but shooting stars. Only two or three some evening, up to fifteen during other nights. It’s always magic. Each time I’m watching the sky, I have this little down, already knowing that it’s going to be one of the thing I’ll be missing the most after Australia. These never ending sky, sparkling with thousands of stars.

But the magic doesn’t stop there. There’s always those moment where we wake up, in the middle of the night, for no reason. Instead of trying to find an other position to go back to sleep as soon as possible, I just enjoy taking my time again. Being amazed by the show. And then, you have the moon, that always rise at sometime. It was full not so long ago. I’ve been watching her, getting smaller, day after day. Today, it was nothing less than a thin line in the sky. Tomorrow, she’ll be new.

Sometime, you also have the howling of the dingos, in the middle of the night. They sound a lot like wolves. You can hear them for a little while, before they stop. It reminds me the coyotes, I seldom heard while traveling in North America. In Kings Canyon, I heard them welcoming the moon in the sky, in a way no man would ever be able to copy. At the Devil Marbles, there’s only a lonely dingo. He still howls, from time to time, in the middle of the night.

The show ends with the rising of the sun. I always wake up a few minutes before. Just on time to see this amazing ball of light rising over the horizon. Sometime, I fall asleep, and wake up again later. Today, I wake up long before. The sky was black, with this amazing orange gradient. I’ve seen him slowly changed, to have colors I’ve never seen before. Black and orange just fit so perfectly well… and finally, one hour later, I saw the first shine of the sun. I watched him raise, one more time. Thanking him, as I always do. Those who knows the story will understand…

We were sleeping on the top of the Marbles. First tourists arrived a little bit after that, waving to us. Asking us how we slept. If the view worsted it. Of course, it worsted it. I didn’t watch TV as they did, in there so comfy king size bed with integrate heater. No, I was just watching the sky, counting the shooting stars. I heard the first sing of the birds, as they were waking up, one after an other.

I would have love to spend the whole day here. But Sara would like to arrive in Katherine soon, in order to go back to Darwin to catch her flight back. It’s a compromise. A hard one. I would love to see my sky. One more time. Well… there will be other opportunities…

It’s long after noon when we finally leave the Devils Marbles

One Response to “The absolute perfection of a night in a swag

  1. July 20th, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    Kaly says:

    Tu sais, il me semble qu’ici, on devrait pouvoir confectionner l’équivalent d’un swag – ou en faire venir un ? N’ayons peur de rien !

    Tu t’installerais dans le parc, entre les parterres de fleurs et les rangs de carottes.

    Tu aurais les chiens qui se répondent (le premier chez le nouveau voisin, après la maison de JP, et le second sur la grand-route, près du garage des camions). Tu aurais les coqs de qui-tu-sais. Ouaip, c’est pas motivant.

    Alors tu n’aurais qu’à monter dans les bois en-dessus où tu jouais quand tu étais petit. Et trouver un coin où les étoiles joueraient à cache-cache avec les ramures, ou un petit bout de prairie pour ne rien manquer du ciel.

    Ou encore monter jusqu’à Innimont, là-haut on doit être beaucoup plus tranquille encore.

    Mais ça doit être possible de passer dehors de bien belles nuits ici aussi. Quand tu veux !