As a last hurrah before we dropped our Melbournian visitor Mark at the airport today, Scotto and I took him for a drive up Castle Hill; the pink granite behemoth located in the centre of the city area.
There are three different peaks to climb, each of which Pinky; clutching her heart and whinging about the heat, begrudgingly puffed and struggled up tailing her two much fitter companions.
I’m scared of heights and get nervous when I see people standing too close to the edge which is why this guy freaked me out.
And this guy.
Don't worry we managed to talk him down.
There was a really weird statue at the top of the summit which I think is supposed to represent people like me who swoon melodramatically and almost blackout when they look down at the view.
I've always felt a bit sorry for Castle Hill because it’s only about 60 metres short of being classified a mountain and I can’t see why some of the locals couldn't load up a few wheelbarrows full of rocks and improve its profile to mountain status. Castle Mountain sounds much more prestigious.
I’d been waffling on with quite a bit of obscure and ambiguous information over the last few days and I think our visitor was beginning to question the reliability of the details I’d been sprouting with authority.
“Castle Hill’s real indigenous name is Cutheringa,” I knowledgeably informed our visitor so he could take something interesting back to Melbourne with him.
“Oh?” he queried raising one eyebrow. Clearly Mark suspected this was another of Pinky’s fallacious facts as the previous day I’d blathered on confidently in the back of a taxi about why Magnetic island was named as such, until finally the taxi driver interrupted and slammed my rubbish theory into the ground. Bloody taxi drivers think they know everything.
“And what does ‘Cutheringa’ mean then, Pinky?” quizzed Mark.
“Um…” I stalled, desperately wanting to impress and scanning the horizon for a credible answer. “It means ‘Really, Really High Place’.”
Sounded reasonable to me anyway.
Thanks for a great Easter and we'll miss you Mark!
