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Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Up early this morning, drinking coffee in the Aussie sunshine with a kookaburra cackling in the background and listening to Dwight Yoakum and Buck Owens sing a duet version of Buck’s old classic song “The Streets of Bakersfield” …

Hey, you don’t know me, but you don’t like me

You say you care less how I feel

But how many of you that sit and judge me

Ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

Can’t beat a day that starts like that …

… later that evening …

So here’s how the day went. I thought we were going to ride the big bikes, but nooo … after seeing how much fun I’d had riding in the Shelby Cobra 450 hp concept car, Mike wangled the loan of a car he drives sometimes from the Audi guys. It’s an Audi R8 quattro, with a ten cylinder 550 horsepower engine, naturally aspirated. Looks like a sports car but check out the back window …

Have you ever ridden in a five hundred fifty horsepower car? Because I never had. And compared to the 450 horsepower Shelby Cobra, it was in another league. Part of this is due to the fact that the Audi has brains, and the Cobra doesn’t. In the Audi, it has a computer-controlled double-clutch gearbox that guesses which gear you’ll need next and brings it up to speed for instant shifting. It automatically matches the engine speed to the load at all times, skipping gears as necessary.

Then there’s the computer control of all four wheels. When any one of them starts to slip, the computer senses the slip and adjusts the distribution of the power.

I don’t know what all else it has going on, it has sensors and alarms and bells and whistles. It’s one of the few 200-mph production cars on the market … and I hear that they retail for four hundred thousand US$ or so. All I know is it looks like it’s going the speed limit even when it is parked …

And it has disc brakes about the size of the wheels, which I can assure you work really, really well …

As you might imagine,  it goes like the proverbial bat fleeing the inferno … and when Mike stomped on the gas, it went from peaceful cruising, to holy-moly take a deep breath and feel my eyeballs getting squished back in my head, in about zero point zero seconds … “Do it again, Dad, do it again!”

It was another gorgeous day, only with lots of cumulus clouds. We’re at about 25° South here, so not far out of the tropics. The hills are bursting with life, the fields verdant and lush, it’s a stunning time of year.

After taking corners at speeds I would have sworn would be impossible in any car, and acceleration I’ve never experienced, we sadly returned the car to the Audi folks. ShaZAM, that was exciting. Then we had to hurry to get to the soccer field where Mike’s ten-year-old grandson was about to start his game. Sport in Australia is very organized, with a single soccer club fielding half-a-dozen teams split according to age and sex. The tradition is quite old, lots of the fathers of the kids playing today spent their junior years playing for the same club.

Afterwards we all ate an early dinner. And since Mike and I both had consumed an adult beverage, we decided to leave the big bikes for another visit. We didn’t get here by being foolish …

Instead, after dark, we decided to take his dog Kuma for a walk. Kuma is a big Akita, about fifty kilos (110 pounds). Mike walks him on a rope, which Kuma tries to wind around a) my feet; b) any tree, hydrant, or post; and c) Mikes feet. It’s a constant obstacle course, where Mike has to physically drag the dog away from each enticing smell..

The night was well lit by a half moon, all of the daytime cumulus had gone away. Jupiter and the Moon were dueling overhead, with Mars just risen in the east. We walked through the suburb, which is well laid out with paths between houses. Kuma wanted to stop at every watering post, and Mike had to pull hard to drag him away each time, an arduous task. After a half-hour of walking, Mike said “Tell you what. You take this path on the left, and we’ll meet you where it comes out.” I could vaguely see an unlit path, I had no idea where it went.

Since curious travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God, I said “Works for me” and set off down the mystery path. Soon, through the moonlight, I realized that the path wound round the edge of a large pond that had been invisible from the road. I came to a section of the path clear of overhanging trees, and the moonlight off of the pond was glimmering, luminescent. Then there was an overgrown section, where I could only unfocus my eyes and feel for the path with my feet. I was transported out of the suburb and into a wonderland of shade and shadow, with water on my right, who knows what on my left, and very little in front … magical.

And when I came back out on the road, Mike and Kuma were waiting. We walked on following a path bordering another section of the pond, with Mike grunting and struggling to pull Kuma away from every fascinating scent.

Then, somehow, Mike let the lead slip, and Kuma started to trot away. Not very fast at first. Mike called to him and started to run after him, trying to step on the rope trailing behind. But as Mike sped up, Kuma sped up, and I sped up, and soon all three of us were racing madly along in the moonlight. Mike kept trying to step on the rope which was dancing along behind Kuma. Making wild stabs for the rope made him look like he was being struck with sudden epileptic fits. He started laughing, and he looked so silly, like some marionette whose strings were pulled by a drunk man, that I lost the plot entirely. I had a flash of how it would look to the dispassionate observer, three maniacs running in the moonlight, one of them obviously struggling with delirium tremens, and the damn dog looking back and slobbering and staying just out of reach … I dropped by the wayside because I was laughing too hard to run, and Mike and Kuma got smaller and more indistinct in the dappled moonligh. As they disappeared into the shadows ahead I shouted “Write if you find work!”, and sat down and howled at the moon until they showed up again, Mike laughing so hard he could barely walk, and Kuma trying his best to look innocent … I could not imagine a better possible end to such an improbable expedition.

Anyhow, that was my day. Tomorrow it’s up at dawn, on the plane to the US, and back to my beloved hills and the gorgeous ex-fiancée. And what do I remember of my trip?

I remember night-time at sea, with the Eta Carinid meteor shower going on overhead. I recall that even with no moon the starlight lit up the whole scene. And the night-time horizon was a perfect horizontal line, nothing in the way. You can see the stars take fire right at the horizon when they rise in the east, and quench themselves in the ocean in the west. I recall Mars rising, and its reflection glimmering in a red wash on the sea underneath it from the horizon right up to the boat..

I recall the easy camaraderie of a crew of experienced sailors. I see the cumulus boiling up into the sky in the afternoon, darkening and starting to rain. I remember standing on deck and having eleven different islands in view. I recall the excitement of coming in through the reef and seeing the island spread out before us.

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/fiji-entrance.mov

And of course I remember Mike, and his dear Solomon Islands wife Grace who is as supportive of Mike’s madness as my ex-fiancée is of mine, and their granddaughter Dawn … here they are at dusk with Kuma in the background.

My great thanks to them. We’ve been friends for thirty years now, I’m Uncle Willis to all their kids, I have nothing but respect and admiration for them. Live long and prosper!

And mostly, I remember the ocean in all its moods. So let me leave you with one of the most curious poems I know, about how we love different things in the same way. It really should be read out loud to get the full effect, I’ll leave that to you:

The Sea and the Hills 

Who hath desired the Sea? — the sight of salt water unbounded —

The heave and the halt and the hurl, and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?

The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing —

Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing —

His Sea in no showing the same, his Sea and the same ‘neath each showing:

His Sea as she slackens or thrills?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills!

Who hath desired the Sea? — the immense and contemptuous surges?

The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bow-sprit emerges?

The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder —

Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail’s low-volleying thunder —

His Sea in no wonder the same, his Sea and the same through each wonder:

His Sea as she rages or stills?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea? Her menaces swift as her mercies?

The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that disperses?

The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that declare it —

White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to bare it —

His Sea as his fathers have dared — his Sea as his children shall dare it:

His Sea as she serves him or kills?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather

Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather

Inland, among dust, under trees — inland where the slayer may slay him —

Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him

His Sea from the first that betrayed — at the last that shall never betray him:

His Sea that his being fulfils?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills.

Rudyard Kipling

Finally, before I return to my own hills, so and no otherwise, let me thank you all for accompanying me on this madcap voyage. I claimed going in that South Pacific adventures were of the finest kind, and I rather think that events have borne me out. I said that we were embarking on a voyage designed by Tom O’Bedlam and impelled by a rat who lives on adrenaline … and I do believe that both Tom and the rat are well satisfied with the outcome.

And for all of you, I wish that you go out and feast your eyes on this miraculous world of ours, and come back and tell your friends of the people you have met and the marvels that you have been witness to … it’s all for the sake of the song.

Best to everyone,

w.