Skip to main content

The wind river

It is Sunday, market day, and the park in front of the jetty is busy with stalls. There is the usual assortment of junk and craft, jewellery and condiments. One row sells fresh fruit and vegetables. Blueberries are in season, replacing the bananas that this city is known for, though their farms are in decline.

Food vans and stall corral an eating area. I try Syrian kubba, while Alex eats burritos. 

There is a long and interesting conversation about turtle conservation at a stall run by the local council and Dolphin Conservation Park and the challenges of the young hatchings. 

We wander out on to the broad wooden jetty, feeling the stiff breeze against our skin, fighting with the warmth of the bright sun. Then we walk across to the fishermen's market for cooked prawns, taking them back to the motel room. 

It is also the first day of daylight saving, and Alex has woken me up too early. I nap in the room for a while, before being dragged out for a drive down to Sawtell. 

The small beachside town is thronging with visitors and locals, old cars passing through the main street belching foul fumes that remind us of how much better moderns cars can be. We queue for and wait maybe half an hour at Sea Salt for fish and chips. 

Alex and B demand to take out the, as yet unused, sun shelter, but when we arrive at the fine white sand it is far too windy. They dig a crater instead and watch the few swimmers out between the flags. 

It is too hot and windy to stay long, so after finishing our lunch, crunching on grains of sand blown on to the oily batter, we return to the car. Where to now? 

The Coffs Harbour Mini Golf course is small and without the gimmicks of others we have visited, but it proves a fun challenge. Possibly because her arms escaped the paddling of the previous day, both of us boys are roundly beaten by B's unorthodox grip golf skills. 

Another afternoon nap, dreaming to music. 

It is late in the day when we walk again down to the beach, white capped waves blowing into the broad sandy shores. I hiccup the entire way. 

We walk through a green tunnel of pandanus and coastal shrubs alongside the beach, take an exit out on to the sand. 

Shallow Coffs Creek separates the two ends of the beach. We wade across to the other side, where wind rivers of sand dance across the ground like ghostly memories of waterways past. 

As we turn back I recall our last visit, the clouds reflected in the mirror of the shallows. There are no clouds today. Instead the reflect my thoughts. I remember back a few years ago at the peak of my travel anxiety, trapped in a Singaporean hotel room wondering if I could ever travel overseas again. Maybe I would have to restrict myself to train and car within Australia. 

Now such a time has come to pass and rather than relief I feel a sadness not to be flying. I watched the flight to Sydney depart and regretted not being aboard, despite the ferocious wind. 

Yet there was also a sense of contentment just to be there on the beach in the fresh clean air. 

At the end of the beach a working dog breed and a scruffy terrier race to catch a tennis ball hit into the sea, the short legged terrier having no hope but still standing by his faster friend. 

We return to the hotel for a cold dinner of leftover potato salad and chicken, the morning's cooked prawns and local blueberries, pleasure in simplicity and in the end of another day. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

IKEA Museum

We have a packed itinerary today. Flat packed and assembled with an Allen key. There are patches of snow on the ground that weren't there the previous evening. We are a bit sad to leave the Duxiana after the comfy beds and the breakfast of cold cuts, fruits and hot waffles. I tried the Swedish caviar on my boiled egg. It was... Interesting. I was very disappointed to realise that, after talking it up for months, I had forgotten the Disgusting Foods Museum in Malmö yesterday. Too late now. We catch another Oresundstag train, for a bit over an hour. Past yesterday's Lund, past increasingly white fields and towns to Älmhult, home of IKEA. The conductor warns us that the train will split in two so we have to move carriages forward. Unfortunately, there we no spare sets of chairs for all of us. The IKEA Museum showcases the history of the furniture company, along with temporary exhibitions. One of these was "Hacking IKEA," about using IKEA ob...

Asagaya and heading home

How can I be happy? I am about to return to a country where the toilets have at most two buttons and no seat warmers. But the tickets are booked and there are no cyclones, typhoons or other disasters standing in our way. It's almost time to go back to my first home. First B wants to do some "local shopping". So we catch the Chuo Line up a few stations to Asagaya, a residential area with a number of Shotengai, covered and uncovered arcades leading away from the station and narrow alleys lined with bars. It is an interesting area for a wander around. We are mainly looking, do some shopping for toothbrushes and sweets from Seiyu, a Wal-Mart owned supermarket/minor department store. We skipped breakfast and lunch is ramen and gyoza at a small restaurant near the entrance to the Pearl Centre shotengai. With the help of a staff member, I manage to purchase tickets at a branch of Lawson to the Ghibli Museum for a friend travelling to Japan in May. There are some...

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site .  I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch.  The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It...