The Barefoot And Baffled Blog

I am a hunter. I hunt and kill animals for food. There’s all sorts of reasons for it. When the kids were little we lived out bush remote in the sticks, had a go at living semi-self sufficiently, and had zero money. Meat from the bush was free, and our kids were raised on fresh kangaroo, duck, goose, wallaby, rabbit. You know your tucker is guaranteed to be free-range and untainted by chemicals like preservatives and antibiotics when the animals you eat spend their entire lives running around doing what they want. You can’t get more free-range than a kangaroo. I also do it because I like it. There’s a special quality to the experience that I have been trying to define for a very long time. I get up in the dead of night, drive to my hunting ground under cover of trees hanging over me by the light of the moon or the stars, and move in silence through the world. I hunt on foot, by myself, with a single shot bolt-action rifle. I used to use a bow and arrows, but the ratio of food brou...

  Peace and quiet is hard to find sometimes, especially in a popular surfbreak in the middle of the summer holidays. Therefore us devoted and committed madmen venture out as early as possible to try to beat the crowd, score some waves and enjoy the silence and solitude of the ocean before the onslaught of the masses.    Being particularly keen, I had arrived earlier than early, before any of the others. When the full moon is out we habitually get together and surf by moonlight, often at times of day or rather night that may well be considered ludicrous, insane or just downright stupid by people more grounded and with less salt water obsession between their ears. When the moon is running, so to speak, I usually get up at 2.45 am to make it to our home break and be on the water by 4. With a bit of luck we get a good two solid hours of surfing in the night by silver light before the less deranged crowds come strolling down our beach.    On this day however, t...