Lamington.
It's a fairly innocuous word. Sounds a bit like a nice village in the Cotswolds. A quick search on the interweb reveals an angling society, a breed of gun dog and a primary school near Biggun (I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions).
Except to get to these you have to scroll down past a hundred entries relating to what is variously described as 'Australia's culinary icon' and 'a speciality cake keeping kids happy for decades'. Let's leave aside the fact that sponge covered in chocolate and dessicated coconut is bestowed these accolades by the nation that purports to be the new culinary Mecca.
Instead, let's concentrate on the seedy under belly of this much lauded piece of confectionary.
Undoubtedly it's a tasty, spongy, cakey thing. And Australians seem to like it rather alot. But nobody seems to be counting the hidden cost; the unspoken tragedy that unfolds every day, leaving its silent victims brutalised, traumatised and humiliated.
Who speaks up for them?
Who is going to stand up for the little guy, against the creeping menace of the Lamington?
Who is going to call it what it really is? The Devils Food!
Until it happened, we were oblivious to the risk. The tent was up. Breakfast was happily consumed and we whiled away the day on a long walk from Tidal Bay campsite on Wilson's Promontory. Past the Greater and Lesser Oberon Bays, a pleasant lunch at Norman Bay, a brief sojourn to Squeaky Beach where the sand does just that beneath your feet.
Clare leapt like a gazelle over a small stream running across the beach but losing her nerve mid-flight, put her leading foot down into the puddle deep flow. The sand carried in the current was responsible for a cruel deception and it wasn't until she was hip deep that her foot found solid ground, only to cartwheel the rest of her into what now revealed itself as a raging torrent. Manfully she emerged, bedraggled and sand crazed, hooting hysterically as the rest of us rolled on the floor gasping for air.
But the sun shone and she soon dried off. The sea was a startling shade of blue. The sand was as white as linen and the coast was lined with post fire greenery and boulders, rounded by the wind and spray over countless millenia. We even met the daughter of the inventor of Australia's iconic folding ketchup dispenser and marvelled at 'Pie-Link', the Southern Hemisphere's foremost internet pie delivery service.
But sadly the time of carefree wandering could not last forever and ominously, dark clouds were gathering at Tidal Bay as we returned.
After yesterday's Wombat attack, we raised our guard as night fell. At any minute we knew the raider might return from the darkness and a momentary lapse of attention could spell disaster.
And all was going so well until the fateful intersection of two seemingly insignificant events. The narcoleptic juggernaut driver that was Dirk and Victoria's decision to brush their teeth, was heading directly for the crowded cake stall, that was ...... um, in fact, a cake stall. At least it was an open pack of Lamingtons, wafting irresistible cakey smells across the nostrils of our furry persecutor.
The first I was aware of, comfortably zipped up in my sleeping bag inside the cavernous Dome was sound of Hell's Gates creaking open, followed shortly by the arrival of the Dark One's Most Trusted Minion. Somewhere in the backgound echoed the laughter of the returning floss warriors as, like an Exocet launched from the very pits of Hell, the Wombat streaked a brown trail across the campsite, making a beeline for the Devil's own baked dessert.
Through the canvas he came, parting it like tissue paper, flinging aside cooler boxes, camping chairs and anything that stood between him and the sating of his hellish appetite. Like some scene from The Exorcist, I wrestled with this demon, through the medium of zipping up the inner lining and trembling like some recent arrival from the seminary.
Help arrived from an unexpected quarter as Dirk engaged the Foul One from outside the Dome, and after The Rite Of Excorcism proved ineffective, he man handled him out into the open, partly packaged Lamingtons still hanging from his drooling maw.
Off he lumbered into the darkness, again, the stench of sulphur hanging heavy in the air.
Lamingtons are not to be trifled with.
You have been warned!
It's a fairly innocuous word. Sounds a bit like a nice village in the Cotswolds. A quick search on the interweb reveals an angling society, a breed of gun dog and a primary school near Biggun (I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions).
Except to get to these you have to scroll down past a hundred entries relating to what is variously described as 'Australia's culinary icon' and 'a speciality cake keeping kids happy for decades'. Let's leave aside the fact that sponge covered in chocolate and dessicated coconut is bestowed these accolades by the nation that purports to be the new culinary Mecca.
Instead, let's concentrate on the seedy under belly of this much lauded piece of confectionary.
Undoubtedly it's a tasty, spongy, cakey thing. And Australians seem to like it rather alot. But nobody seems to be counting the hidden cost; the unspoken tragedy that unfolds every day, leaving its silent victims brutalised, traumatised and humiliated.
Who speaks up for them?
Who is going to stand up for the little guy, against the creeping menace of the Lamington?
Who is going to call it what it really is? The Devils Food!
Until it happened, we were oblivious to the risk. The tent was up. Breakfast was happily consumed and we whiled away the day on a long walk from Tidal Bay campsite on Wilson's Promontory. Past the Greater and Lesser Oberon Bays, a pleasant lunch at Norman Bay, a brief sojourn to Squeaky Beach where the sand does just that beneath your feet.
Clare leapt like a gazelle over a small stream running across the beach but losing her nerve mid-flight, put her leading foot down into the puddle deep flow. The sand carried in the current was responsible for a cruel deception and it wasn't until she was hip deep that her foot found solid ground, only to cartwheel the rest of her into what now revealed itself as a raging torrent. Manfully she emerged, bedraggled and sand crazed, hooting hysterically as the rest of us rolled on the floor gasping for air.
But the sun shone and she soon dried off. The sea was a startling shade of blue. The sand was as white as linen and the coast was lined with post fire greenery and boulders, rounded by the wind and spray over countless millenia. We even met the daughter of the inventor of Australia's iconic folding ketchup dispenser and marvelled at 'Pie-Link', the Southern Hemisphere's foremost internet pie delivery service.
But sadly the time of carefree wandering could not last forever and ominously, dark clouds were gathering at Tidal Bay as we returned.
After yesterday's Wombat attack, we raised our guard as night fell. At any minute we knew the raider might return from the darkness and a momentary lapse of attention could spell disaster.
And all was going so well until the fateful intersection of two seemingly insignificant events. The narcoleptic juggernaut driver that was Dirk and Victoria's decision to brush their teeth, was heading directly for the crowded cake stall, that was ...... um, in fact, a cake stall. At least it was an open pack of Lamingtons, wafting irresistible cakey smells across the nostrils of our furry persecutor.
The first I was aware of, comfortably zipped up in my sleeping bag inside the cavernous Dome was sound of Hell's Gates creaking open, followed shortly by the arrival of the Dark One's Most Trusted Minion. Somewhere in the backgound echoed the laughter of the returning floss warriors as, like an Exocet launched from the very pits of Hell, the Wombat streaked a brown trail across the campsite, making a beeline for the Devil's own baked dessert.
Through the canvas he came, parting it like tissue paper, flinging aside cooler boxes, camping chairs and anything that stood between him and the sating of his hellish appetite. Like some scene from The Exorcist, I wrestled with this demon, through the medium of zipping up the inner lining and trembling like some recent arrival from the seminary.
Help arrived from an unexpected quarter as Dirk engaged the Foul One from outside the Dome, and after The Rite Of Excorcism proved ineffective, he man handled him out into the open, partly packaged Lamingtons still hanging from his drooling maw.
Off he lumbered into the darkness, again, the stench of sulphur hanging heavy in the air.
Lamingtons are not to be trifled with.
You have been warned!
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