A Long Way Walkin’ in Australia: From the Tasman to the Timor Sea

By Tom Hayllar

Tom Hayllar is a teacher, writer, bushwalker, caver, and adventurer. He has climbed inaccessible mountains in New Guinea, explored remote cave systems in New Guinea and the Philippines, walked across isolated Himalayan and Nepalese high country, and trekked lonely stretches of Alaska. In 1975 he was the first person to walk the 11,829 kilometer journey around Australia, and three years later he became the first person to traverse Australia on foot along its widest point from Cape Byron to Steep Point.

Tom Hayllar just loves to walk, but the journeys are enriched by the characters, landscapes, and even the hardships experienced along the way.

Here is how and why it was a long way walkin in 1985 when he made the diagonal journey walking from Wilsons Promontory by the Tasman to where the Timor Sea laps the cliffs of the Northern Kimberley.

This walk, like his other long distance walks in Australia, is authenticated by the Guiness Book of Records.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Feb 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452512884

Tom Hayllar

Tom Hayllar, a teacher, writer, bushwalker, caver and adventurer, has walked across Himalayan high country, trekked lonely stretches of Alaska and was the first person (authenticated by the Guinness Book of Records) to walk around and across Australia. He has also climbed mountains and explored limestone caves in the wilds of New Guinea. This is his description of the first crossing, with an Australian expedition, of the Star Mountains in Papua New Guinea in 1965.

Book preview

A Long Way Walkin’

in Australia

- from the Tasman

to the Timor Sea

Tom Hayllar

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Copyright © 2014 Tom Hayllar.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-1286-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-1288-4 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 02/04/2014

Contents

Dedication

Quotations

1 The Start : Wilsons Promontory

2 On the Road to Melbourne

3 Walking the Big Smoke

4 Bendigo and Beyond

5 Murray River Meandering

6 The Biggest at Mildura

7 Trudging the Silver City Highway

8 The Dog Fence

9 Plodding Away in Big SA

10 The Old Ghan and the Rainbow Flag

11 Tramping to the Alice

12 A Concerted Effort in Alice Springs

13 Trekking the Tanami

14 Travellers on the Tanami

15 The Waterhole of Rabbit Flat

16 Shuffling into WA

17 Stumbling along the Gibb River Road

18 Pressing on to Carson River and into the tropical zone

19 Scrambling and Staggering in Pursuit of Cape Londonderry

20 The finish : the last step, Kalumburu and the Timor Sea

Poem - The Old Ghan

Afterthought

Postscript

Walks Completed

Bibliography

Photographs

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DEDICATION

To my family and friends on the walk whose love and support I fervently acknowledged each step of the way: Marygai, Connie, Elizabeth, Josephine and Grace, Terry and Don. I also salute members of the Coast and Mountain Walkers, the Sydney Speleological Society and The Explorers Club of New York all of whom gave me plenty of background for the walk. To the many characters on the walk who gave me a drink, a wave, a talk, advice, action, a signature in my log book, a place to stay or all of the above. Thanks.

Quotations

‘Quand mes pieds se reposent,

mon esprit cesse égalment de fonctionner.’

Johann Georg Hamann

Family members and friends who journeyed with Tom often commented on how much they enjoyed the slow pace which allowed them to linger and appreciate the people and places in a way not possible when driving long distances every day. They are delighted that Tom’s and their experiences have been recorded in this humorous, whimsical memoir.

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Wilson’s Promontory

1 The Start : Wilsons Promontory

As we drove in the night in two trucks, a caravan and a trailer to Tidal River, the camping capital of Wilsons Promontory National Park, the announcer on my car radio was saying:

…. and a total exclipse of the moon is predicted which is forcast to coincide with the spectacle of a meteor shower caused by the Earth encountering the trail of dust left in the pathway of Halleys Comet.

Was it an omen? We had just driven from Sydney and were looking forward to a long sleep in the calm of a bush sanctuary. However, when we switched off the truck engines and sat in what we hoped was going to be silence, we found that the night was not quiet at all. From the bushes all around us arose voices, crackling sounds, the clash of utensils and above all, the constant pschitt, pschitt, pschitt of drinks being opened by ring-pull cans. The sounds and the stomach-churning odours of frying steaks, sausages and onions unnerved us.

Desperate to camp and cook our own food, we started up the trucks and tried to back out but in a couple of neatly executed moves, hemmed ourselves in with other cars and caravans as neatly as if we’d dropped out of the sky into the middle of the crowd. When Marygai and I opened our doors and stepped out of our trucks to scratch our heads, our three tired and hungry children, angry at our clumsiness, managed to hit the horns.

Shouts of outrage rose from the nearest barbecues and tents and it was possible we might have been clubbed to death with steak tongs if one of the campers hadn’t put down his beer and neatly extricated us from the one key car that was blocking us in. We kangarood out to beery cheers and ironic clapping.

Further along the road, we turned through sandhills and successfully inserted ourselves into parking spaces between screens of coastal tea-tree or leptospernum vigatum as their sign informed us. As we lifted our grizzling children out of the trucks, fed them and bedded them away for the night in our caravan, a couple at an adjoining screen of leptospernum sat easily in their arm chairs, sipping drinks and playing Trivial Pursuit. They must have seen the heavily envious glances we directed over our shoulders as we toiled at their haven of peace and light captured under a couple of hissing Tilly lamps, because they soon invited us over to drink tea. They were Jo and Julian down from Melbourne for a quiet weekend’s camping. From the main camping area we had just left, thumping, jangling sounds undoubtedly shooting from enormous silver and black cassette players with multiple speakers, mixed with vaguely drunken singing and shouting, were mercifully muffled and softened by the sandhills.

We sighed with relief, sipped more tea and carried on more polite conversation with Jo and Julian. This was what we’d hoped Tidal River would be like.

* * * * * *

I was up at 5am, blearily shaving then showering in the ablutions block. This was the day I was to start my foolish walk diagonally across Australia, from Wilsons Promontory to the Kimberleys. Why ? Curiosity and the attractive idea of a slow paced Australia. However, at 5am the thought of this project was so nauseating that I grew faint in the washbasin.

In stumbling to and from the ablutions block, I somehow missed seeing the shower of meteorites that fell across the early morning sky as the Earth did indeed encounter the dust left by the tail of Halleys Comet. According to the radio, a number of people in country Victoria reported seeing meteorites falling and fading at 5am. However, I did see the moon. It was as yellow as an old Jaffa orange and shaped as if it had been belted into the sky with a cricket bat then sucked dry. I had written to the Chief Ranger of Wilsons Promontory, breaking the ridiculous news of my ludicrous walk and then brazenly going on to propose that he drive me down to the lighthouse on the tip of the promontory which was recognised as almost the most southern point of the mainland, although the actual point is the next headland to the west, seemingly unnamed on the larger maps of Australia. Once at the lighthouse, it would be possible for the chief ranger to witness my departure for the first twenty kilometre stage of my walk after which I would reappear at Tidal River. Seeking to make a good impression with my appearance which would partially dispel the madness of my request, I made sure my clothes were neat, my hair combed, and my feet shod in new, white sandshoes.

The receptionist told us that Scott, the chief ranger, would not be in till 10am then give it another quarter of an hour for morning tea. There was nothing for us to do but turn away and drift through the adjoining Activity Centre. Overhead large, plaster or wooden birds gyrated in an artificial current of air and fibreglass rocks stood around. A display showed the granites and tourmaline that composed the floor of the park. There was a list of vegetation: Tall Sword -Sedge, Silky Hakea, Hairpin Banksia, Rough Guinea Flower - a dense, waist-high scrub with yellow flowers, Dusty Miller with talcum dusted leaves around tiny flowers and Hazel Pomaderris, hairy under the leaf to trap a layer of moist air and reduce transpiration.

Other birds were mentioned: the Grey Thrush (stuffed) hops around in waist high scrub and has a melodious song. The huge sea bird swooping round just under the ceiling was Diomeda Exulans, the Wandering Albatross. Mentally, I began to plan my walk from the lighthouse back to Tidal River. It was over 20 kms so I’d make it an overnight stay. I would take my big, Irish Lowe rucksack… Ten fifteen, time to report to the receptionist, announced Marygai. We went to the desk.

I wonder if the chief ranger…. Out of a side door strode a tall, sandy haired man with a freckled face and arms and dressed in the stippled green of the Park Service.

Hello, I’m Scott. The accent was Scottish.

Hello, I wrote you a letter, Mr…

"Call me Scott. Oh, aye, about the walk from the lighthouse. It’s the weekend so I’ll have to let the keepers know. I’ll give them a ring.

Please don’t go to any trouble.

Aye, well it’s noo trouble at all. Can you be here at 11 am? You’ll need a day pack with lunch.

Obviously Scott considered I’d be able to make the 20 kms from the lighthouse back to Tidal River in the afternooon. Why not?

See you at 11 am then.

We hurried back to the camping area. I grabbed my Irish rucksack to be on the safe side, threw in a few items, said goodbye to the family, ran all the way back to the office and whipped through the front door at precisely 11 am. Simultaneously, Scott snapped out of the Rangers Only door and we shook hands with clockwork formality, I think, like Mr Fortnum meeting Mr Mason when the clock strikes noon over the famous London department store.

It was three quarters of an hour’s drive from the park headquarters to the gates of Wilsons Promontory where the lighthouse was situated. It had been explained to me that a large, chainwire fence cut off the tip of the Promontory from the National Park. On the way south we drove through forest aisles, the road grey and sandy.

Scott talked about deer stalking in Scotland. Sometimes he and his companions had walked and climbed twenty four miles a day on a bottle of porridge for breakfast and a bar of chocolate for lunch. The worst of this was dragging or carrying the dead animals down forest paths. Scott’s accent rolling over me was as rich and dark as Haggis chocolate ought to be – if such a thing existed.

We used to wear hare-hide boots which were soft and durable, reeel good for the wet weather and grrrand for snowy and boggy conditions, ye ken?

Out of the truck window the infinitely vegetated marshland around Oberon Bay rolled away to the coast where the pale jade sky rested and fitted as perfectly as clingwrap over gelatinous swells of the Tasman Sea. In close, the islands of the Glennies group basked like a pod of very old whales, their hides infested with heathery growth. I roused myself from my Scottish - flavoured torpor. Marygai had urged me not to engage Scott in merely superficial conversation but to take the opportunity of an hour’s coversation with the chief ranger to ask about important things such as the kind of bush growing along the track,

Messmate and Stringy Bark mostly,

Scott answered - but I noticed that the answer was about five seconds too long in coming. Scott had become preoccupied. He turned in his seat to peer intently at a brown and yellow track-side notice but did not stop. We crossed the edge of marshland. Then the road led up through big trees and open forest. A creek running through the forest was identified by a sign as Roaring Meg Creek.

Well, that’s a real Scottish name way out here.

No doubt about that. It surely is.

Soon small plants began to appear in the middle of the road and then as we began to go down a steep grade, the vegetation growing out of the road increased in size. To avoid running down groves of flourishing young saplings, we stopped.

This road must lead somewhere. Tom, get your pack and we’ll see.

Do you think it joins up with the proper road to the lighthouse?

I didn’t emphasise proper for fear of sounding critical.

Very likely it does.

We got out, thrusting the truck doors firmly against the springy vegetation that was crowded in on us. We pushed down the road through the light scrub till we came to a sign saying, NO THROUGH ROAD. The sign itself was almost buried in vegetation. A little beyond, the road ceased at the edge of a gully. On the other side lay thick Banksia forest. Doubtless it was Hairpin Banksia.

Do you think we should go on, Tom?

The chief ranger and the hopeful marathon walker could not simply turn back when faced with a little bush. I nodded.

O.K, well let’s see if we can get around to the lighthouse this way, said Scott half-heartedly.

You never know, I said trying to strike the right note of anxious optimism. So, we crossed the gully and burrowed into the scrub. It was atrocious and for an appalling half hour it engulfed us. A great slope of the stuff eventually ended at sea level where huge slabs of rock shaped like giant hamburger buns were being gnawed by the sea. We attempted to progress by squatting, tunnelling and crawling through the banksia in a horizontal line across the hillside, a task which I found very difficult as my ridiculously large Irish rucksack rested on my back like a giant playing card. It kept getting wedged between bushes and saplings. Inevitably, as we were whipped by dried banksia and the stems of unidentifiable prickly plants, we trended downwards like a falling sales curve. Between gasping for breath and wiping our sleeves across our eyes running with rivulets of sweat, we communicated with inane, polite remarks.

It’s an interesting place to be, Tom. I never expected it could be so thick. A fire would go through it like a dose of salts.

I shuddered at the thought of being caught by a bushfire in such a place.

Certainly would, Scott. Ah, what kind of bush are we pushing through now ?

"Common Banksia, Furze Hakia, Horny Cone Bush and Bushy Needlewood. Some of the bigger trees are Messmate and Stringybark.Sometimes we’d see the lighhouse. Even locked away and struggling in our hell of scrub we’d catch a glimpse of it standing white, clean and a cool symbol of unflusterability on its magnificent headland. From the depth of the scrub we could also see the ridge top beneath which we were pinned.

Scott, do you think if we went straight up we might eventually strike the lighthouse road up there on the ridge top?

Even now I found myself saying: the lighhouse road instead of the right road.I marvelled at my polite self control.

Well it does come in at an angle as it nears the headland. On the other hand, if we were to cut straight across….

He pointed through the bush and only now I became aware that we were toiling on the lip of an immense amphitheatre with the scrub clinging grimly to its bowl like a matted coat. Granitic outcrops rose into the skyline while two hundred metres below lay blocks of stone - obviously previous granitic outcrops that had given up. Among the blocks, the sea smacked and sucked back and forth.

For some minutes, while Scott was attempting to force a scrub-choked gully, I made an insane attempt to propel myself upwards - only to rebound from overhanging scrub and fall back heavily into litter and bark shards where I sustained a cut on my hand that bled like a tap. As I nursed it, I noticed that the gully had similarly repelled Scott and he was unable to climb even its far bank. Realisation seemed to hit us simultaneously. Following a line of least resistance, we slithered downhill allowing gravity to bear us through, or rather underneath, even massive barriers of scrub until we found ourselves finally peering from precariously leaning trees at the shoreline of the giant burger buns almost vertically below.

It looks feasible, Scott.

Ok, let’s give it a go.

We swung down and more or less dropped onto a slab. Standing up, we found ourselves looking along the littoral of the bay formed by the western side of the promontory. Fortunately, the slab surfaces were studded with half-embedded pebbles as prominent as the studs on running shoes. They helped us greatly as we began leaping over rifts in the rock. It was the only possible way to progress.

You’ll have to watch you don’t slip and break an ankle, Tom! yelled Scott in mid-air.

It seemed a distinct possibilty as we had to keep on leaping practically all the time. Whenever I took off, my big rucksack flapped like a bats’ wings. Progress was perilous but rapid and we soon saw the chainwire fence that cut off the lighthouse area from the rest of the park.With relief, we reached the end of the cliffs and approached at a saner pace a gate in the wire fence where two men were standing. At the sound of our shuffling footsteps, they swung round and stared at us.

A bit late, aren’t you?

Aye, replied Scott. We been trying out the coast track.

The two men introduced themselves as the lighthouse keepers, Ted and Norm. Ted’s distinctive item of clothing was a blue checked flannel shirt while Norm filled out a black wharfie’s singlet. Ted had the craggy, flinty look around the face and eyes that one would expect of a lighthouse keeper and the kind of brusqueness I would expect of someone who’d received my standard letter outlining my projected walk across Australia starting at his lighthouse. But Norm was open and friendly. Also with them was a small child called Tim, a cattle dog called Snoopy and a short wheel base Toyota utility.

It was a steep ride mostly up past a bunch of rocks that were as smooth as bananas to the level rock ledges at the tip of the promontory where the stone tower of the lighthouse stood and the stone houses of the light keepers crouched. Beyond there grew a hardy lawn up to a red painted fence with the ground on the other side falling away to a cliff with ledges and the sea below. Ted pointed out a rock at sea level that was a more southerly fragment of the promontory.

Feel free to scramble down to it.

Ha, I think I’ll settle for the red fence.

For a few moments I gazed out at the southern sea, all navy-blue chop piped with white braid. A container ship looking as vulnerable as a collection of match boxes, slid through the dreamy spume. I turned away to find Ted, Norm and Scott deep in conversation about penalty rates and work loads. Hating to interrupt but remembering the 20 km plus walk back to Tidal River, I ventured:

Could you all move right to the fence for a group photo, please.

Don’t forget the two hours overtime for track work. This do?

Perfect. Look this way, please.

If I were you I’d apply for concessional rotation in lieu of marginal accessibility. Or that’s what it sounded like to me. I took the picture.

Now could I get you to take a picture of me, say, walking away from the fence and crossing the lawn to the lighthouse?

I was using my little movie camera.

Norm, your incremental status probably needs adjustment.

O.K. no problem.

The beautiful, little, whitewashed lane running between the two keepers’ cottages framed the lighthouse, but as I took the irresistible picture, Ted said:

Tom, that particular view of the lighthouse is copyright to a postcard company but if there is a person or persons in it, the copyright clause is nullified.

I think Snoopy was in the picture.

Well, that’s all right then.

I took some photos of the two family groups including Norm’s baby - only two weeks old and now breathing some of the freshest air in Australia. Unexpectedly, because I didn’t think we’d made such a good impression, Scott and I were invited into Ted and Ann’s house for tea and cake. As she poured tea she told us she’d been a teacher in England and as an Australian she’d been expected to talk like Rolf Harris. When she returned to Australia, she’d been to Rabbit Flat, a place in the Northern Territory.

We’d heard of Rabbit Flat. We, too, on this trip would go there, God willing, but I hated to think after how much anguished walking. When we’d looked it up on the map, we’d found it was in the north west of the Northern Territory border in the red dust and spinnifex desert. Even hearing the name ticked a box like a blank square on an application form for a survival course. We talked and sipped tea and ate seed cake - the kind that caused little explosions of spice in the mouth as each seed was bitten. It didn’t feel as if we were sitting at the physical end of the Australian landscape. It was more like enjoying the delicacy of an afternoon tea in an English country cottage. I think there were even roses nodding outside the window. Instead, here we were perched at the edge of a continent noted for its red desert, insect hordes and granitic characters. I noticed the colour of Ted’s eyes. They matched exactly the wintery blue of the sea outside and I wondered if there were another person’s eyes that could match a job as surely as Ted’s. After tea, Ted led us out to see the radio room of the lighthouse situated in the circular section of the building below the glass panels of the light itself. The radio room, too, was encircled with windows and being up there staring out at the sky and down at the sea gave the impression of standing on the bridge of an extremely tall ship. There was the sensation, too, of being part of the flurry of nature, drifting with the high-blown spray across the sea’s surface, knotted and snarled with crazy, white ribbons bellying towards us.

Pointing out the window and waiting for a viewer stood a fully extended naval telescope on a tripod. At least a metre long, its eyepiece was a moveable disc, its brass tubes were shining, its binding was black leather and tarry yarn and its hooded objective lens was as dark, convex and lustrous as the eye of a horse.

I glanced at Scott and could see that he, too, was bursting for a look. I cleared my throat and asked. Ted found and focused on a passing ship.There it was: red pipes, misty windows and even an impression of greasy rivets in a grimy, green metal deck. It was a vision which induced an instant feeling of mal de mer, I hastily handed the eyepiece over to Scott.

The two lighthouse families wanted to drive us down to the gate in the chainwire fence. However, having started the walk with those few steps from the red fence at the tip of Wilsons Promontory, I was now, of course, on foot. Scott elected to walk with me. At the gate there were handshakes all round before it was closed and locked behind us.

The track rose steeply in front of us from the low neck of land on the promontory - doomed one day to be gnawed off by the sea leaving the lighthouse, if it still existed, on its own island - to the high heathland above. However, I didn’t really know what to expect in the way of a climb although Scott tried to warn me as we walked forward.

I believe a lot of walkers are content to remain up there on the top and not visit the lighthouse because of the steep climb back.

Even as he spoke, the bushes thinned and a more discouraging view became available. The country north of the lighthouse bulged above like a great cranium up which the track haired like an erratic nerve that was occasionally unsheathed as it traversed the steep scrubland. A lot of the track was composed of giant-sized steps made of earth and sometimes a metre high. These rose in a wall in front of us yet Scott was soon bashing up the track like a rock wallaby.

The only way to climb a hill such as this is to keep up a good pace- it settles the muscle tone into steady rhythm. Don’t you agree, Tom?

Yes !

Trying not to end the word with a gasp. I had to keep up with Scott. I did keep up with Scott although he was obviously in the Highlands climbing up through the heather with a deer across his shoulders. The price I paid to keep mounting at roughly the same pace was the sensation of a mass of concrete setting rapidly around my heart and lungs and a galloping weakness of the leg muscles. For twenty minutes we climbed without speaking but hardly in silence as I was snorting and blowing like an asthmatic dugong. The sea was far behind and below us. The bush on either side blurred as the blood pumped furiously behind my eyes and danced in red jiggles up the track in front of me. I heard Scott shout from above:

Take a rest,Tom,you’re nearly on top. I’ve got to go round and get the truck out of the scrub. See you on the road.

Having no strength left to answer, I waved weakly and as soon as he’d rocketed round what had to be the last upward bend in the track, I sank on the ground speculating that Scott was fully qualified to be the marathon walker even if I wasn’t to be the chief ranger. Later, I saw Scott on the road up on the top as I was making my way slowly through the heathland. He waved but as soon as the truck sounds had died away, and the swish and hum of the breeze and the bees had resumed, I sat on a convenient rock by a convenient stream and realised I was weak from hunger. It was 3pm and I hadn’t eaten, except for the slice of explosive seed cake at morning tea, since about 8am. To overlay the sounds of nature which I was temporarily fed up with, I fetched my little transistor out of my pack and immediately picked up the brightly commercial sounds of station 7AD, Devonport. Comforted, I turned to lunch. Out of the pack came the paperbag containing the lasagne pie and two donuts I’d purchased at the Tidal River kiosk. The donuts were embedded in the pie which itself had turned into an ooze ball.Yet, I relished it, snapped open a can of Fosters, drank the warm beer and washed in the stream. I even dozed a little. Then, feeling guilty, jumped up, shouldered my ridiculous ace-of-spades rucksack and hurried north.

With the coming of the autumnal dusk which began to gather about 6pm, I increased the pace and sped along in my sandshoes - ending up with a blistered heel.

I thought of all the creatures and flowers I might have seen if the vegetation I was passing hadn’t been a blur composed of about equal parts of Fosters and dusk. However, once pausing to ease off a sandshoe and apply a bandaid, I noticed the hanging tubular flowers of a Corea bush and was duly grateful for at least this colourful vision. But even the blurring became irrelevant with nightfall.

It took two hours of complete darkness to reach Tidal River which fortunately existed as a cluster of lights at the end of a good track and then a tarred road leading me in by the feel underfoot.

2 On the Road to Melbourne

A great, billowing northerly wind got up during the night and the next day we saw when we rose that the settlement of Tidal River had emptied of nearly all the campers as if they’d been blown away out to sea with all their barbequed steaks and tinnies. They must have gone very early.

However, at least two people had arrived in Tidal River during the night. There was Grace who had offered to teach our children in the desert and also hoped to practice her photography and star gazing, and her husband, Don.

They’d arrived at Tidal River in their sleek Tercel at the same time the night before as I was pulling myself up the steps of the ranger’s office after my walk from the Promontory. I’d tapped on the window and when the ranger came out after first pretending that he couldn’t hear the crass tourist who was trying to interrupt him, I asked him to sign my log book and would he please tell the chief ranger, the Scottish gentleman, that I’d returned. Then I saw Grace and Don.

Don, Grace ! What a coincidence. I’m exhausted, I’m blistered but I’m back from the first part of the walk, the lighthouse to Tidal River.

You smell like it said Grace.

Because Grace and Don had driven relentlessly for many hours from their home in Bankstown, Sydney, and because I had really returned from my lighthouse walk wrecked, we decided to rest at Tidal River for another day.

Grace and Don erected a tent fly behind the low, arched trunk of a ti tree for extra protection from the wind. The wind, however, was flinging the leaves of whole groves of ti trees around in a frenzy and had no trouble getting under the edges of the fly and straining powerfully like a weight lifter flexing until the tent pegs, one by one, zinged out in threatening arcs and the fly went streaming and cracking overhead like a great white flag of surrender. Don wriggled out of his sleeping bag and tried to gather it in looking, with his black beard and sinewy form, like Sinbad grappling with the Old Man of the Sea. As he grappled, he gave his head a prostrating crack on a ti tree trunk.

Oh, hell, I’m buggered!

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Our group setting out [left to right], Don Matts, Tom Hayllar, Grace Matts, Marygai Hayllar with children Elizabeth, Josephine and Connie.

Bent over, holding his head and swearing, Don staggered in widening circles till he hit the caravan.

Your language is horrible, said Grace sitting in the Tercel, knitting till the fly should be restored.

But understandable, added Marygai.

Since the wind mercilessly bullied anyone who ventured out of doors, it was not a day for picking your way across the wet sand of the tidal flats. Nor was it a day for feeding the rosellas from one of the flat packets of seeds available at the Tidal River store.

On the previous windless, sunny day while I was still on the walk from the lighthouse, Marygai found that the rosellas covered visitors with multi - coloured cloaks of feathers which looked strange and beautiful although each visitor