One of the good things about staying at Dondingalong was the fact that it was so different from the unit in Sydney in which we were living at the time . Beach Street , Coogee was a pleasant location just up the hill from the beach itself and fortunately the unit was big enough for us and the odd visitor. True , it was old , but it was in good condition , and extremely convenient for such things as swimming , exercise walks, shopping , proximity to Bondi Junction shopping and other such .

But it had neighbours .

The other residents of the building were , thankfully, very nice people indeed , but we did live on top of each other a little too much. And of course all round us were other densely populated units , and diagonally opposite , a backpacker's hostel , so that one always felt crowded in .

Not so at Dondingalong . No matter where I stood on the block , there was not a neighbour to be seen . All of us out there had twenty-five acre blocks ( ten hectares in decimal reckoning ) and though the traffic went past on Piper's Creek Road , the houses along it were well outside the range of my vision.

The only bush block that could have had a visible dwelling on it was a battle-axe shaped block directly opposite our gate , but the owner had not built on it . While we were there it was sold on , and on a couple of occasions I met and invited for a meal the new owner while he was doing a bit of clearing of the dense wattle growth and putting in a fence .

A side issue here . When I checked on a person who also had my somewhat unusual surname by telephoning him early in our time there, the man , whom I had looked up in the local directory , told me he was the son of my uncle. Note the terminology . I am sure that he was indeed the son of my uncle's wife , at least . Not that that parentage is of any significance to me , but he did mention in our conversation that he himself had considered buying that block opposite us.

Instead he bought at Taylor's Arm . To have been living opposite a putative cousin would indeed have been a coincidence .

From the road , to the left of that block , lived Bob and , for much of the time that I spent up there , his wife Jane . She was a potter , and we still have several of her mugs here in Sydney . She was very tall and thin , and I often thought of her in relation to the Sitwell poem Jane , Jane tall as a crane . They were both most amiable people , though their own relationship was often strained .

Jane would bring their boys Michael and Jeremy up to the road each week morning to catch the school bus , and as I was usually out working on the block around that time , I frequently took a break and invited her down to the house for a cup of morning tea.

Over the cup or more often cups I was generally given a rundown on what was happening among the other neighbours in the area whom she knew more intimately than did I . Now and then she and I and Bob would share a meal either at my place or at theirs , and there were some very merry evenings resulting from the free flowing of our respective home brews or the odd wine cask . It was not always an easy return home , stumbling back up the steep gully from their place and back to mine , though I admit to enjoying the glorious nights made even more glorious by wine .

Bob was one of the most obliging blokes one could meet . Before I had my own transport up there , it was no trouble for him to take me into town , and on one occasion when I was not sure whether I was having a recurrence of heart trouble , he very swiftly played ambulance man and got me into the district hospital . He would always meet me at the train from Sydney , and at the end of my stay , take me in to town to catch the express for the return , and I practically had to hold him down to give him some slight recompense for his trouble .

Employment is scarce in that area, and it is surprising how many training courses Bob had attended . On one occasion at least I was grateful that he had, for one piece of welding that he had done in a course led to making a rammer for star posts , very labour saving when putting in an orchard fence.

He was also a good neighbour in that he kept an eye on the place between our visits and in the only emergency that arose while we were absent he held the fort for us till we got up there .

His main interest was in the Bush Fire Brigade , of which he was a staunch member and had attended the bigger bushfires that happen every summer over the state. All of it for free , as is the custom

They were among the two first sets of neighbours that I met in Dondingalong , and they were the kind of people who with their country friendliness made my visits to the block even more rewarding .