Pliny's Holiday

I, Gaius Plinius Secundus, having returned from a two-day sojourn on the far-off coast of Yorke Peninsula, have these tales to tell.

I and my two companions drove in a car out of the city precincts following a long straight road to the top of the Gulf known as St Vincent. On the way we saw many wonders. The Palms of Cavan, an oasis of giant palm trees. Rows of white salt heaps reflected upside down in a lake of blue. An untended Cactus Garden. A field of metal creatures, a man, a metal beetle and a mouse. Dilapidated glasshouses, empty but for dried-out sagging weeds. Vast tracts of sand and rusty saltbush.

At Port Wakefield we walked through a deserted town, where it was very hot and the trees afforded no satisfactory shade, and there were horseflies.

At Moonta we looked for food. We found a small shop that served Cornish pasties, on blue and white striped plates. Here we found evidence of the famed Copper Triangle, for the knives and forks were tipped with copper balls.

Next we left Moonta for Moonta Bay. I spied a sign on a fence which read 'General Contractor'. I would have liked to stop and speak with a military man, but my companions were anxious to continue to the coast.

We arrived at Moonta Bay. The tide was out as far as the eye could see. There were white sand banks and pools of pale blue sea water, red and yellow rocks, and a fine long curving jetty. While my companions walked out on the jetty, I examined the rocks on the shore for traces of copper, which I found, and when my companions returned, they assured me that the deep sea's hue was a mottled coppery green.

Thence to the Moonta Bay Cabin Park, where our cabin had been left unlocked for our arrival. Indeed, there was no one there to welcome us, other than a large brown hopping creature that my companions informed me was a kangaroo. I should have liked to get a closer look at this kangaroo, but my companions wishing to go for a walk along the beach, I was obliged to put on a hat and some white sun-deterring cream and join them.

It was most pleasant on the beach at Moonta Bay. The sun was warm and mild, and the breeze was gentle. The coppery cliffs reflected in the coppery sheeny flat pools of water in between the sand banks. A man with two dogs of differing sizes speared a blue and white umbrella into one of the sandbanks and sat under it with water lapping all around.

I pottered on the shore looking for copper traces, and marvelling at the floating seagrass that was straight and flat, yet cast shadows that were polypy and curved, and edged with light.

My companions meanwhile walked towards Port Hughes. I did not accompany them, but one of them later told me that she had sat down upon some grass under a pine tree there, and been attacked by biting midges, on hearing which I suppressed a smile.

Of many more wonders I have yet to tell , but fearing lest I induce tedium, I shall leave them for tomorrow.

Vale!
Gaius Plinius Secundus.

The Lesson

Pliny the Elder, who seems to think he can read anything of mine without asking, has been looking through some of my old diaries for seascapes.

Look at this one, he says excitedly. "Sunday, January 22nd 2006. By the time we realised it was cooling down enough to go for a walk, at about quarter to five, a horrid pall of smoke had enveloped all of Glenelg, and as we later found out, the whole of Adelaide. It was smoke that had blown over from Kangaroo Island where 3 fires were burning."

What memories this brings back!

What memories? I ask.

Of my volcano, he replies. But let me read on.

"Pat and I sat on a seat looking at the smoke-enshrouded sea, whence appeared pallid ghostly marine craft, with and without sails. Pockets of people stood waist deep in the water."

Oh! says Pliny, I can see it all !

"A young man with a smooth brown back cast a line in. What did he think he would catch, we wondered. An older man on a bicycle rode past and patted his saddle in what could have been construed as a lascivious manner, but did not stop."

Oh, that's the end. Pliny looks disappointed. What happened after that? Did the rescue ships arrive in time? And what has the man on the bicycle got to do with it?

Nothing, it rained the next day and the fires went out. They didn't need to send rescue ships. The old man just happened to be passing. But I wrote down what he did to teach him a lesson.

How might that work? No one will read your diary. Well, that is, I ............