Monday, April 28, 2008

To the Prom

April 7th

The best laid plans are sometimes best lain in. A 4:45 start crept thankfully to 6:15. Amelia put on coffee while we packed the car leaving for the Prom at a respectable 7:30ish. “Ish” was the world that day. We stopped just outside the Prom in the town of Foster and dug into some meat pies. Meat pies are, depending on your point of view, a good or a bad thing that we Americans did not inherit from our British heritage, and after watching Sweeny Todd this winter, I just do see them going off. However, for cheap, tasty and heart-clogging energy, a meat pie has no equal. Steak, bacon, and egg in a pie crust. It's called a "Ned Kelly" the famous armor-wearing bushranger (outlaw) of the these parts in the late nineteenth century. I also had a lamakin, another treat America should import. It's a square cake coved in a light layer of chocolate followed by a romp in shaved coconut. Forgive me, I digress into my hunger pants.

The Prom(ontory) is rather like a rough isosceles triangle attached to continental Australia by a slight isthmus. It would be, and from many sides appears like, you would imagine a picturesque, temperate, deserted island to look like. Among its square millage are mountains up to 1500ft, rolling hills, swamps, bays, bushland, temperate rain forest and miles and miles of white beach interrupted with shallow freshwater streams colored light brown from the Tea tree leaves that fall into them. It is a most Robinson Crusoesque experience to take your shoes off and hike barefoot through these beachy streams. Amelia was unfortunately sick and not up to the roughly 60 km of hiking over three days that was planned, and she stayed at the main campsites in Tidal River with its generous access to a range of day hikes and fine sandy beaches, one of which, Squeaky Beach, is named as such because your feet squeak on its evenly-shaped and sized grains of sand. The hike began on the beach next to this whose name escapes me. I quickly climbed the lower exposed granite bluffs of Mt. Oberon, the Proms' highest mountain. The climb increased steadily to a view of a rocky distant island reminiscent of Esperance. Two more sets of beaches and bluffs later, I passed some school children. I was somewhat put out that one of the little darlings had a radio, and, I felt for a second was missing the point. Then again, who was I to judge? It was nice to hear music when it comes my way. Would I have had a problem with it if he was making is own? Is bringing a radio different than bringing a book? Either way, I was not staying at their campground and moved on.

I scared two wallabies - shorter and stumpier cousins of kangaroos. They taste the same (not these particular two). The first jumped from the road and watched me with suspicious curiosity as I took pictures and tried to speak to in it what can be best described as an unintentional Mickey Mouse voice. I don't know why I and others feel the need to talk to animals in strange voices. The second wallaby crashed through the trees down a steep incline. I heard his gravity-enhanced scamper for nearly ten seconds.

I am at the Roaring Meg campsite. Just me and a couple from Melbourne who were very excited when I told them there was a loo on the other side of the campsite where we were staying. The Meg, roaring as it were, seemed to be an overstatement. However, the trees atop the ridges in this protected valley do whisper loudly as the wind blows by. In my valley for the night the air is calm. A possum comes to look at me reminding me to store my food properly. A mosquito lands on my shirt. I slap him and am surprised by the amazing amount of gore (probably mine) that stains my shirt. Bedtime.

No comments: