Walked to Cammeray

That day we walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge
on the way back to Cammeray, we’d been to Doyles
on an often discussed but never actually completed
pilgrimage for a legendary lunch of fish and chips; it
was a raging success but the sea-cat trip back was over
in a flash, which hardly seemed adequate, and thus imbued
with a surfeit of brisk sea air and fortified by several
beers we started out on foot from Circular Quay.

We’ve walked the old rust and rivets before so it wasn’t
a great deal, though the thought of catching a bus in
North Sydney seemed an appalling waste of a brilliant
afternoon. And on we walked. Ninety minutes we agreed
it took, plus two bottles of water, and a couple of
kilos of sweat, at least. My feet were protesting and
I was assured by the severely abused appendages I
would regret the stupid decision to walk the whole way.

Suffice to say we survived a memorable day.
Hell, it is the stuff we’ve had dreams about, where
ordinary events are woven into the tapestry of legends,
expanded into impossible feats of grandeur; we’ll tell our
grandkids as doting septuagenarians of the exaggerated
day we walked from Watson’s Bay to Cammeray
after celebrating their daddy’s thirtieth birthday
with a famous Doyle’s fish and chips lunch.
Perhaps we won’t mention the fast sea-cat.
© I.D. Carswell