Today began, as so many mornings do, just before dawn,
getting ready to go to work. I went to work. I worked. It was good, and as
usual quite a workout. One of my co-workers made me a fantastic sandwich for
lunch with baguette from our local French bakery and the supplies being in a
kitchen affords; amazing simple high quality local and imported ingredients.
I finished work at three and changed into the running clothes I’d
packed, put my essentials (wallet, cell phone – in a drybag – keys, flashlight,
hairtie, lipbalm, pen) into a new running backpack. It’s made by Roman, I
bought it yesterday, and I was pretty excited to take it for a test run. It
felt great sitting on my back while walking around, it looked good, I felt good
about it, I’m often spot on about that sort of thing.
Drat.
I'm pretty sure I'd have to have been six feet tall for the pack to properly strap to my torso and not bounce everywhere. I couldn’t run with it at all, except by removing the
backpack and holding it in my hand. Luckily it was very light, so that was easy
to do, but it turned much of the trek into a hike which, after being up and
running since before sunrise, wasn’t too hard to swallow.
I hiked up toward the lighthouse, watching the sea and
looking for dolphins. I crossed the two beaches and turned off for the Captain
Cook Lookout halfway up the pathway o’ endless stairs through the coastal rainforest which
cradles the bluff on which the lighthouse sits. The surf has been huge the last few days. The lookout juts far enough out into sea and the rocks surrounding it are low enough
to the waterline that the crashing breakers of waves traveling in from the
open Pacific are spectacular. I stood a while, then hopped up on the rail and
sat a while, then sat and watched a while longer, drinking in the sea (and
watching for dolphins). No cetaceans surfaced, but I did spot an absolutely massive sea turtle. For half a second I
thought it was a seal, being of apparent similar size and a sort of brownish
color. It took two breaths and lingered at the surface a moment, then
disappeared back into the blue.
Sunset was stunning as usual, and I was starting to feel
tired. I thought I might go home, head back into town, maybe find the Internet or read my book, blah blah blah. I was not even up a third of the steps back up to the main trail before my feet turned
themselves toward the lighthouse.
You never know, the whales might be early. And the view from
there is always a sight to see.
By the time I turned back toward home the mists were rising to the south over Tallows beach and
clouds of it were forming through the tops of the trees in the rainforest that
surround Byron Bay. The lights of the town from a distance were becoming hazy
with the night mists of the sea rolling in, and the stars began to burn through
the gathering twilight. It’s very near the dark of the moon, but the sky is so
clear and the light pollution so low that Venus shone a silver path across the
sea, as brightly if narrower than the shimmering reflection of the absent moon.
The night gathered and the mists rose and the stars came
through in force as I made my way back home.
(*Note: Luckily for me, the Roman was returned with no problems, and will hopefully go on to make some tall person very happy.)
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