Jonathan McKeown

The Big Dam

One of my earliest memories I inherited from my father.

When I was three months old, my parents moved from Sydney to an outback mining town where my father had secured work as a plumber. We lived in a caravan on the outskirts, but we only stayed a couple of years. When I was three we moved back to the city for a short time before my parents bought some land out west. One day, before we moved out there, my dad took me to the beach.

I followed him along a track through the grassy dunes and when the ocean came into view, spread out to the horizon before me, I stopped, "Dad! Look at that big dam!"

into the creek
my daughter christens the turtle
we came to release