We were up, had our coffee and cereal, took down our tent, and pulled
out by 7 am. Sounds pretty good, except the sun is up by 5:30. Have
I said how comfy it is in our tent? Oh well, we're retired, we've
got a lot of time, and what's the rush anyways. We were only
planning to hike up a volcano, might as well do it in the midday sun.
It wouldn't be the first time.
Climbing Mount
Fox
Our big outing for the day was climbing Mount Fox, a dormant cinder
cone volcano of classic proportions and construction, having been
formed by the accumulation of pyroclastic rock. It's only around 400
feet tall, but there are no trails leading to the top, other than
stray, unconnected animal paths, and climbing it's steep, loose rock
sides in 90 F tropical sun, while being on the watch out for deadly
serpents, was a challenge. But I love volcanoes, and the effort was
worth it. Still, when we got back to the LC a couple hours later we
were glad to change our sweaty clothes and sit down in our seats.
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| Mount Fox, or "Mount Baldy" as it's affectionately called by the locals |
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| Heading up |
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| Cinder rock |
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| The crater is over 100,000 years old and has mostly filled in with soil. I'm standing on the rim looking in. |
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| Diana crossing the crater floor |
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| Descending the cone. It got steeper further down. |
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| A shady place to rest |
Lizard people
We had some grocery shopping to do, so we headed into Ingham.
Stopping in at a Cole's grocery store we saw a woman shopping with
her two grade school aged daughters, normal in all respects, except
for one thing. When I first saw her I was only a couple feet away and Diana pointed out something unusual about her. That's odd, I thought, that woman is carrying a large plastic lizard
on her shoulder, it must be one her children's toys. Then the
creature turned its head slightly towards me, gazed at me with its
beady pink eyes, and flicked its gray forked tongue.
Yikes! The
first word that came to mind was salmonella. What kind of
mother would shop for her family's groceries with a bacteria laden
monster clinging to her. Then I tried to imagine her at home getting
ready for the daily shopping trip; purse – check, kids – check,
car keys – check, lizard – got it. Do you take the lizard for a
walk before you get in the car so it doesn't poop on you, or does it
only go in a Lizzy litter box? And exactly how much affection can
you get from a reptile anyways? It's one thing to see someone
carrying a purse puppy while going out about town. At least a dog
can get excited about getting out of the house and being with its
master. But do you really think a lizard enjoys leaving its quiet
glass tank surrounded by its crickets and grub worms to ride around
on its owner's shoulder in the bright and noisy outside world? And
what about the kids. I bet they resent being yelled at when their
reptilian brother gets nothing but loving attention, so close to
Mommy's face. Some people are rather odd.
Are we just
extras in yet another movie?
After making a short hike around some restored wetlands in town, we
drove out to Jourama Falls for the night. Our neighbors included the
ubiquitous young European backpackers traveling in small Toyota vans,
a decrepit middle-aged Aussie couple smoking and drinking beer and
coughing and sleeping out in the open on their swags, and two men
that deserve a bit more description.
We had bought half a kilo of minced lamb at Cole's, I wanted to make lamb burgers, so when we drove into the campground and saw a spot
with a picnic table that was near a barbie, we happily took it. A man
was cooking at one of the two grills and when we popped put of the car he said “Ah,
just in time for tea”, which in Aussie means dinner. His only
clothes were a pair of droopy aqua underpants with a prominent
codpiece. His thin, stringy white hair just reached his shoulders.
He had a uncharacteristic over-all tan on his saggy, old man's body
(I did detect a slight Eastern European accent beneath his Aussie
dialect, which might explain the tan; native Aussies for the most
part avoid UV like the plague). He figured out we were Yanks and
asked if we were illegal immigrants, alluding to our own immigration
issues. He was obviously an educated and witty fellow, and I
immediately fell into 'repartee' mode. We had exchanged a few observations about national and world politics, when I noticed
someone walking over towards us from a nearby campervan.
A thin figure wearing a knee length sleeveless dark print shift, with
blond hair pulled back severely in a short pony tail approached. From a distance
I assumed it was a middle-aged woman. The tightness of the dress
caused the person to walk in mincing steps, like a geisha. Nearing
us, I saw a rather prominent jaw covered with the barest of stubble.
Whoa, momma, time to shift to 'carefully observant' mode. The man
said to his companion, “I'm preparing something a little different,
dear, it'll be ready soon.” The response was a high pitched whine
that barely sounded like human speech. The person stayed for a
moment, then sashayed back to the camper. We talked to the man for a
little longer, but his meal had finished cooking and he too returned
to his vehicle.
Diana and I looked at each other uneasily. It was getting dark, the
nighttime jungle creatures were just beginning to sound off, and we
had gotten to the point in the movie when you yell at the screen,
“Run, you idiots”. I mean, we independently had thoughts of
“Psycho” crossing our minds. In fact, it was probably a man
traveling with his disabled offspring, and we should have been more
generous in spirit. But that's what they say in the movies, too.
Later I heard them conversing as they sat by their campfire. The man
was going on about how the Germans had a plan in WWII to take over
Tasmania if the Japanese defeated Australia, and the younger man kept
respond loudly in his high voice “F---ing Nazis”. The pair
'talked' for a couple more hours in similar fashion after we went to bed, the older man sonorously lecturing, the younger replying with tirades of cursing , but we
couldn't make out what they were saying because the insects and frogs
and birds were too loudly spouting off their own conspiracy theories.
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