The Ban
We staggered out of the surf, frozen near-solid, clutching our boards under stiff arms. As we walked cross the wet sand flats of the low tide a group of three people passed down the beach in front of us, heading the other way. What we had initially taken for boards turned out to be flattened cardboard from boxes they were clutching under their arms. They also appeared to be carrying items implying an intention to party, like bottles of booze. So, not surfers then. When we made it back to the car park the conversation turned to the enigmatic beach walkers. One of our mates had talked to them. It turned out they were heading down to have a fire on the beach, hence the cardboard. When he told them that wasn’t allowed on this particular stretch of beach, owing to its high visitation and useage, and the issues associated with, for instance, kids walking barefoot over abandoned smouldering coals and getting third degree burns, as has happened in the past, they shrugged it off, ...