They built a tunnel under the road, from the ‘information center’ through to the cliffs. It feels like you’re on the penguin parade with the other tourists waddling down the tongue of tarmac toward the place where the world drops away, and then you’re onto the planks, your feet clip clop hollowly depending on what type of sole you’re shod with. You’re hoping that there might be some sort of engagement or enlightenment for your other soul as the shrubbery begins to thin out. For balance as the steps decline you reach out for the hand rail. It’s dressed pine, worn smooth, splinter free. Annoying that; when you run your hand along a finished piece of wood and a javelin of pain starts to sting, you squint and frown trying to find the source, but sometimes it hangs in there for days, a burr in your soul, a calling card from nature -take me seriously.

Further on the boards step down and up leading to a viewing platform. The land disappears and a canvas of blue green sea stretches out to infinity. Catching your eye before it plunges over the end of the earth are the twelve apostles, skyscrapers of the sea; rock eroded by time from the sandstone cliffs, some of them on the verge of completely dissolving, their radiant yellow gold adorned with a toupe’ of foliage. They come in various sizes from a standard building to a battleship . The breezes buffet up the cliffs carrying the tang of the ocean; salty and briny it abrades your skin on its way to being puffed out somewhere inland. A bit of a gale you might become unsteady on your feet and reach out for the hand rail again. Reassured by the cool wood you continue to drink in the view.