Holy Aioli Batman

We came in good faith, Sally and I. The town of Batemans Bay did not have much to recommend it in the guidebook, except the boardwalk through the wetlands just behind the Old Courthouse Museum, so we thought we’d give it a go.

Except that we were mislead. It wasn’t a quiet amble through a water garden; it soon turned into a scary flight through the bat colony. And there were thousands of them, no, tens of thousands, up in the trees, hanging around like bats do. 

And don’t get all sentimental; these were not the sweet cuddly bats that would attract a preservation order in the UK. They were big, ugly and flappy ones that fall firmly into the 'abusive neighbour' category. The sort that warrant a court order to move them on.

And despite it being daytime, they hadn’t all gone to sleep. Many of them decided to fly around a bit showing their great prehensile wings, which gave it all a Jurassic Park feel.

Now you may think what’s the problem with a few bats? Well first of all the smell. Then the poo. Luckily bats hanging upside down don’t care to poop for obvious reasons but with the ones in flight, who knows? And it’s eerie walking among the trees with bats flying past your ears, especially big ones, and these were big. Plus the weather was close and dank, with mosquitoes biting our arms and legs. Yes I forgot about the mosquitoes. They are part of the whole unpleasant bat experience.

Perhaps you are thinking that we weren’t in any physical danger but then you weren’t there. We could have been. But we were brave. We didn’t panic; we didn’t run. We just walked at a very fast pace – me just slightly slower than Sally to show manly fortitude - for the rest of the 2km circular boardwalk experience.

An experience which in future  suggest they remove by fogging garlic fumes into the area, or else  start calling the town by it’s true name of Batman Bay and not adding a misleading E.