The Barefoot And Baffled Blog

   The sun was setting in the evening sky.    Above the hill the first stars were appearing.    A figure picked its way through the scrub and scraggly trees lining the slope leading to the top. It skirted around rust-red boulders, ducked under low hanging branches, and stepped over fallen logs.    At the top of the hill a small fire was burning, innocuously in the evening heat. The air above it wobbled. Another figure was sitting by the fire, back turned to the setting sun, facing towards the slope where the first figure was now approaching, moaning and grunting.    'Uuuurgh!' panted the first figure. It was a bloke, appearing to be of some uncertain middle age. He was dressed in football shorts and a faded checkered shirt. No hat, despite the day's heat, and no shoes either. His feet were covered in a coat of grey and red dust.    The second bloke stared at the first bloke quizzically, and raised a metaphoric eyebrow...

     It's that time where the arse end of the night slams into the front end of the day. But gently, like. There's a black sky overhead, with a sliver of dying moon providing bugger-all light, but with a huge spread of stars all over the Milky Way.    I can see well enough, and I know the layout of the track where I'm going, so it doesn't worry me too much. The shadows produced by the combined might of the moon and the stars are distinct enough to allow me to see any snakes on the road early enough to keep from stepping on them and picking a fight with them. It's a good thing to avoid.    My feet feel out the surface of the road as I run along it, looking for the most enjoyable bits to run on. They pick through the gravel, rocks, stones and hard dried-edged mud of wheel ruts, and find the soft sand of drifts of bull dust, across the road and off to the sides.     As the eastern sky starts to show signs of changing colour, with shreds of...

  Early morning. The sun came up. It does this reliably.    We had paddled out into the dark, as is our want. This time of year the water is beautiful and warm. A fresh westerly blew across the sea, giving us a minor chill which disappeared immediately as soon as we got in the water. We had struck out into the night, and navigated our way forward to the point, there where the waves rolling in from the open ocean first meet the unwavering land, the obstacle that forces the water up onto its heels, causing it to rear up like a brumby, bend its head in a graceful arc, and bow, break and crash into perfect peelers that run the length of our bay.    There had been just four of us out, partners in crime, catching waves in companionable solitude. No one, it seems, is insane enough to surf when the only light to work by is the stars. Dunno why, I’m sure. Once the sun sticks up its head and brings warmth and light into the world, the second shift can be seen doin...

We have had a phenomenal amount of sand build up over the past year or so. With the usual ebb and flow of summer erosion and winter deposit we received a huge amount of sand around the point, and when winter came and went it just stayed there and got bigger and fatter. This is ironic, as not very far down the coast other beaches are battling with huge erosion issues, and buildings are about to topple into the surf.    Meanwhile, our point is almost silted up to the extent that, on a low tide, we can just about walk out all the way to First Rock. This does two things. For one, it makes it a lot easier to paddle out when it’s pumping, since all you’ve got to do is wade out till you’re knee deep, and then paddle hard for two seconds between sets. For another though, it makes the wave that breaks at the point lightning fast and borderline lethal. Especially at the dead low tide. Where once we hugged the rock and got up close and personal with it, using its sucking down-draught t...

  ‘Can you please take your mask off?’      I’m sitting leisurely stretched out on a bench in the afternoon sunshine when this voice comes drifting down from above me. I’m in town getting new tyres for my car, and have got time to waste, so I’m enjoying some rare downtime. Having wandered in and out of a few shops, without stealing hardly very much at all, I’m wearing the regulation Covid-mask required now for entering premises. In spite of the big signs on all the doors and shopfront windows, politely requesting all customers to be considerate, do the right thing and cover their faces, when lining up in the post office, of all places, I hadn’t failed to notice that at least one in every four or five people were not wearing a mask. Judging from the way they were greeted casually by their first names by the staff behind the counter, they appeared to be locals.      Beware the local yokel, because they will always be above the law. Tadati...