The Barefoot And Baffled Blog

  Where-poppa-pee-oo! Where-poppa-pee-oo! Wiii-poppa-pi!    There's a bird that lives here in this country, right where the edge of the Western Desert meets the borderland of the ocean. When the dark red dry season sunrise begins to creep over the land, shedding its first tentative forays of light into the world, the bird is awake, and heralds the breaking of the dawn to the world. You can hear him, if, like me, you're awake well before daybreak, and are getting ready to start the day.    He goes by a variety of names. Wherepoppapeeoo-bird is one of them. As far as onomatopoeic animals names go, i.e. names that mimick the noise made by the animal, such as cuckoo, kookaburra and boobook-owl, it's not the most catchy one around, nor the easiest one to get rolling off the tongue. It's no surprise therefore that the bird is known by a swathe of other names. Chief among these is What's That Bloody Thing Outside My Window When I'm Trying To Sleep In the Mornin...

  Few things in life are more enjoyable than running in the nude barefoot on a deserted tropical beach. The ones that are include some illustrious pursuits like sex, surfing and skiing, alongside of binge drinking, tax dodging, and, at a stretch, burning down churches. But the principle stands.    On this day I had with great joy and determination abandoned any pretence at civilisation, never more than an ultra-thin veneer over my natural and finely honed uncouthness, and had left my shorts, my one item of clothing, on the sand along with a towel, which had hitched a ride for the look of the thing. I stuck my legs out and ran with the joy that can only be gotten from the knowledge that, as far as the eye can see, and then for another three hours' drive after that, to the north and to the south, there was nothing but wind-heaped sand dunes and straggly spinifex looking at me, with the mighty open desert from the inland reaching right up to the dunes. More specifically, t...

  I'm walking down the street, on my way to the shop to buy food, when all of a sudden a hand appears in front of me. It's a gnarly, rough-looking hand, with liverspots and dirty, chewed-down nails. It's also holding a five-dollar note. A voice comes down to me from somewhere up high.    'Here you go. Merry Christmas.'    I look up. And up. And up a bit more. There's a very tall, skinny bloke standing in front of me, looking ragged and worn-out, dark hair above a lined face, faded blue t-shirt over jeans. In one hand he's holding a fist-full of five-dollar notes, the other one, extended to me, is holding out a fiver, in an earnest plea for me to take the cash and, presumably, run.    I look from the five-dollar note up to his face in amazement.    'Why are you trying to give me money?' I ask, baffled, and seriously curious.     He scowls and looks perturbed. 'Because it keeps me from sitting around the house feeling depres...

  Last night I stayed up late and drank two kinds of spirits: whisky and whiskey. For those who don't know the difference (i.e. 99.99 % of the population of the world), the first one is Scottish, is double distilled and is spelled with a /y/, the second one is Irish, is triple distilled and is spelled with a /ey/. Both are derived from the Irish/Gaelic uisce beatha, which means, appropriately, "water of life". It's certainly got the power to wake up the dead.    I slept in because it was supposed to be northerly wind, and therefore no surf, and instead of surfing I did crunches, pushups, squats, pull-ups and calf raises, and then rode my mountainbike through the bush to the beach. On the beach I performed Sky Sea, the Homegrown Australian Slow Movement Routine. Halfway through the fourth movement, known as the Grievously Irritated Dolphin, which involved wild, erratic and violent windmilling of arms and crotch-tearing leg-twists, two people approached from the south...

Crowded waves and competition for rides are the bane of the existence of anyone within cooee of a passably decent ride. Drop-ins, snakes and shitfights in the water are par for the course, or so it seems.    It certainly is that way in our home town of Eagle Bay. Proud possessor of an enviable first class longboard break, we habitually get flooded under a never-ending stream of holiday makers from the big city, all out to make the most of their few precious weeks under the sun, and determined, come rain, shine, hell or high water, to score some of these fabulous waves. As a result hostile altercations in the surf abound, and our erstwhile peaceful, quiet and low-profile town is now more commonly referred to as Ego Bay.    With one thing and another things came to a head, and I had decided to take a sabbatical. Time out from the neverending screaming arguments and occasional punch-ons. An interesting job opportunity came up, and so I took it.    I foun...