I like it - it brought back so many parallel events for me at Rottnest
Island, our holiday Island off the coast near Perth - oh, the girls, the
sun, the beer, the first attempts at smoking various substances :-)

Ah, nostalgia. You gotta keepit light or it weighs you down.

Andrew

On 29 June 2016 at 09:03, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> bags of memories in all this for you, Bill,
> and some of them take on some life for readers.
>
> By following your own experiences there over the years,
> you also give the makings of a personal story, without attaining
> the dimensions of ‘growth of a poet’s mind’...
>
> At present it reads rather as things said to yourself,
> notes of reminders, place names that resonate with anyone with local
> knowledge,
> but only a few reach further. I do know Squeaky Beach.
>
> I gather the ‘Prom’ remains unspoiled wilderness mostly,
> thanks to government protection, visitor numbers kept down, etc.,
> and this is a story also worth telling, or ‘between the lines’.
>
> If you are working towards a poem for publication,
> I guess you’d select just a few items and maybe
> expand the perceptions of unspoiled environment,
>
> but I do enjoy the passing of decades and hints of
> social history here and there.
>
> Max
>
>
>
>
> On Jun 28, 2016, at 15:33, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Here's an account of Wilson's Promontory,
> > boot of coastal Victoria, available to swimmers,
> > surfers, mountain climbers, nature nuts
> > and all-round ratbags.
> >
> > By foot, in 1927, Grandpa and two mates
> > swatted sandflies all the way from Derby River
> > to the Lighthouse, leaving written proof of their
> > deed in the Lighthouse Register: Treasury Trio.
> >
> > I first hit The Prom as a pre-teen kid in the 60s,
> > family camping at Tidal River, all of us sticking
> > to tracks, walking to adjacent coves, Squeaky
> > Beach, Little Oberon Bay. Windy, wild, wet.
> >
> > Later I post-Christmas camped with the Links:
> > carrot-topped, freckled boy scout, John,
> > primary school friend with tenting talents,
> > Les, his joshing, bushwalking father,
> >
> > and Marg, John's meatball-making mother.
> > Bitumen ring road, ti-trees, kerosene lamps
> > in tent annexe, ham and cheese sandwiches,
> > nightly euchre played on wonky, cracked
> >
> > red vinyl-topped card table. Battery torches.
> > Outdoor cinema, byo deckchair. Lemon
> > cordial. Then school camp, form six. HSC.
> > Climbing rocky Mt Oberon in fierce wind.
> >
> > Anthony Kemm unwittingly barging
> > into one of the girls' cabins, surprising
> > soon-to-be-model Kerry Daniel, struggling
> > into her close gripping black wetsuit.
> >
> > Kerry first-reactioning 'Sorry' before covering up.
> > That apology bewildering Anthony - and all those
> > he told - and establishing him unchallengeably
> > as the luckiest lad on The Prom.
> >
> > Returning again, unchaperoned to rustic cabins
> > at school's end. Frying blades of mowed grass
> > to vary hamburger mince diet. Sticking
> > together, drinking beer from long-neck bottles
> >
> > inside, outside, blurring our fact-filled minds.
> > Jenny Sayers's blue bikini, windblown hair,
> > carefree cackle, bubbly Claire's heaving hoots.
> > Stubbing out cigarettes in beach sand. Wind.
> >
> > And again, a year later, at eighteen. Now
> > twenty of us in one big old beach lodge.
> > More beer. Mess. Three undefrosted fridges.
> > John Kenneth syphoning ice melt through
> >
> > the hollow metal legs of a kitchen chair.
> > Getting seagulls stagger-drunk on
> > metho-soaked stale white bread.
> > Body surfing. Running at dawn on empty
> >
> > Norman Beach after staying up all night.
> > Losing my virginity on sweaty sheets
> > on a single bed, paranoid that someone
> > would burst in and see my bobbing bum.
> >
> > Playing Truth or Dare round beer-bottle strewn
> > tables, eating 15c hotdogs from the Tidal River
> > store each dusk until money ran out after day
> > four of seven. Hunger. Living in footy shorts
> >
> > and t-shirts. Telling jokes. Laughing at jokes.
> > Groaning at puns. Not working. Not studying.
> > Not reading. Mosquitoes. Moonlight. Marijuana.
> > Billy Thorpe cassettes. Red lichen on big grey rocks.
> >
> > Sea gulls. Tea-tannin river water. Skull Island.
> > Years later, walking back from Refuge Cove,
> > with my wife, groin aching, dark threatening,
> > seeing a woman with baby in pusher, heading
> >
> > the other way. Waking to football kicked into tent
> > next morning. Packing up. Driving off. So stiff,
> > having to lift left leg with hands to reach clutch.
> > Whisky Bay, Picnic Bay, Prom Gate, Anakie.
> >
> > bw
>



-- 
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
Books available through Walleah Press
http://walleahpress.com.au