Some of you may have read that I was born in Port Macquarie. So you will know already that Port is a real seaside town, on the mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia. Wauchope—pronounced Warhope—is also a real town. Rocky Creek, however, is a place of my imagination.
For the first ten years of my life I lived on Rawdon Island, which is in the middle of the Hastings River, between Port Macquarie and Wauchope. My father was the school teacher there, my mother a dressmaker. Every Thursday we went to Wauchope to shop, and every Saturday to Port Macquarie, where my parents played golf and my two brothers, my sister and myself went to the movies. That was where my love of story began.
I recently revisited Port Macquarie to see what it was like nowadays. Yes, the old picture theatre is still there. And so is an old house with steep terraced lawns where I used to roll down whilst my mother was inside, doing dress fittings with the lady owner. There is no apartment block called Blue Horizons. At least, not one like mine. But it is real in my mind, as are my characters and their wonderful love story. Very real. Hopefully, they are now real in yours.