Two Peninsular Outings
1
I remember my pleasure at thirteen,
beginning on Latin, to learn that
Œisland¹ was Œinsula¹, Œalmost¹ Œpaene¹,
Œpeninsula¹ Œalmost island¹.
(The word Œisthmus¹ went alongside,
another borrowing to savour,
but Greek I never made a start on -
its alphabet was so un-Roman.)
Savoured again still as we turn left
leaving Geelong for the Bellarine,
and the roads diverge,
delicious choices all of them.
Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads? -
not this time, though a later jaunt
to the Dunes Café would suit,
to see the golden surf at sunset.
Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff - yes,
and crossing The Narrows to the town
is by an isthmus to a mini-peninsula,
and from both you look across The Rip
to that other peninsular tip,
Point Nepean, where the long rich
Mornington Peninsula
(twenty-six golf courses!) peters out.
The Rip! Stand on the cliff-top rapt
at the turbulent narrow opening
where the Bay meets Bass Strait;
there¹s the tiny pilot boat buzzing back
and now some big arriving ship
serene with a local expert on its bridge,
follows it in, tall as the cliff we¹re on,
leaving behind the so-called Shipwreck Coast.
Come back then to The Narrows
for the off-leash dog to fling itself
along the designated Dog Beach.
Beware poisonous puffer fish, pooch.
2
These days from Geelong we veer further left
past the Steampacket Gardens,
Limeburners Point, Stingaree Bay,
the Government animal health lab,
oh and the Cheetham Salt Works,
their stark bulldozed pyramids,
their broad evaporation ponds;
past the Moolap industrial estate
where the street-names catch the eye
(Nobility, Anomaly, Moon, Sun),
past the view of the aluminium works -
Point Henry (another mini-peninsula),
over the hill at Leopold (to our left
Pelican Park, Grand Scenic Drive, unsealed)
through Drysdale where the vintage train
terminates beside a genteel lake,
to Portarlington (one word),
for the sake of a b. & b. by the sand.
Over the wide waters to the left,
delectable mountains, You Yangs by name;
ahead, mini-stalks on the horizon:
Melbourne¹s skyscrapers;
to the right across the bay, Arthurs Seat;
further round, out of sight, Indented Head.
Now that¹s where I¹d like to live,
Max the poet of Indented Head,
where Pike Street and Whiting Street meet,
in a weatherboard bungalow,
low-care garden of prickly pear,
metal dinghy in the carport,
hammock on the sundeck,
observation tower above;
views of the busy sea-lanes beyond
and inshore the rust-dark paddle-steamer
ŒOzone¹, scuttled in nineteen twenty-five
and settled there as breakwater.
(Ozone, from the Greek for smell.
Pour me some resinous ouzo, darling,
or the local Bellarine Estate Shiraz,
the one with the narrow neck.)
7.45am, Wednesday 19 January 2005
Max Richards (leaving Melbourne right now
for Portarlington, Bellarine Peninsula)
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