Dinner for One

'Living on earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun once a year'

The Ranger squinted at me through the dirty, cracked windscreen and in a monotonic voice said,

'Jane turned her 4WD over sixty kilometres down the track. She and the kids are being flown to hospital with the Royal Flying Doctor'

I carried the battered contents of Jane's car inside the house and sat down, alone. Just me and my soup. I ate the bread. Silently, I photographed my soup on film.

Through the window of the dining room I could see the southern tip of Dirk Hartog Island under a full moon. I was sitting alone in a large sprawling stone mansion just fifty metres from the Indian Ocean just east of Steep Point. Apart from the Ranger's cottage this was the western most house in Australia.

What set out to be  a week of private coaching for my student Jane ended up being a week of a Robinson Crusoe existence on one of the world's most exotic shorelines.

The difference was I was in a massive three wing building with an auto-start power plant, my own desalination system and a cellar with a hundred bottles of the finest wines.

There was no vehicle, no telephone, no radio, no television. I did have a camera, twenty rolls of film, a fishing line and a feeling of trepidation being on my own in this magical place.

The moon shone through the open window of my west wing bedroom and, aided by a bottle of fine red wine, I pondered what I would do for a week, on my own, in this remote, romantic location. Except for the gentle lapping of the waves on a moonlit shore there was nothing. Not even a friendly mosquito. My mind drifted to places I'd adventured in and faces I had imaged.