Thundering down the highway 

destination: Loch Sport. 

Music of choice: Led Zep III  

- 'Hangman! Hangman!' Robert Plant implores 

inimitable brass-nasal vibrato: 'PoOoOoOoOoLe.' 

We sport companionable grins         headbanger nod to beat. 

The white ute sizzles like lightning 

burbles        drifting a little        skates round the corners. 

'Keep me from the gallow's pole.' 

Day: Unsearing blue         daubed cloud        flirty breeze. 

Pull up        debark        strut to pub. 

Too early for lunch.  

'Whadoyawannado?' 

Me: Lounge in the sun with wine.  

Ed: Ditto but beer. 

The chef is just finishing a fag (cigarette) on the verandah. 

G'day        I let Ed yarn and scan the vista. 

Verandah progresses to mangy lawn to sandy beach to blue-metal-bay. 

        The water is pleating. 

        The brush wavy-drifting 

        The birds are swifting. 

        I am subsuming. 

I rotate back, the chef is just joking: 'Better get back to work  

or I'll have to sack meself.' 

I smile pleasantly to show I have         caught it. 

Ed: Inside or out? 

Oh         outside         seaside         definitely. 

Three Melbournites have perched on rough wooden benches.  

Melbournites - how? Oh, clothes, flash sunglasses, subtly different attitude. 

Ed launches into more chat. 

Grizzled is an artist; has travelled extensively. 

Worn, expressive face; intriguing experiences. 

He and Ed slap down stories like cards in a game of snap. 

Whosgonnawin?         All of us. 

Half an hour dissolves undetected  

till minute tremor-wriggle-fidgeting warns me  

son and wife         want to order. 

I lure Ed away. 

Three speed boats stacked with parti-coloured occupants converge 

then beach        killer whale-fashion         - only in Australia. 

Kids erupt with bucket-spade-paraphernalia. 

Adults beeline for pub. 

's O.K.  

There are thirty pairs of eyes now - 

no-one will come to grief. 

Pigtail-Pink, Board shorts-Blue, Peachy-Jammy-Bottoms and Avid-Digger-Lime  

heighten the landscape immeasurably. 

Traffic-coloured buckets trap sun and fluoresce.  

Food: Nothing special;         service: Hahaha, weeeeelllll... 

View: Priceless.

...