The shopping strip is crowded. Ice cream drips. Tank tops, thongs, denim shorts, dripping salty hair, sunnies, hats, hot chips, bare feet, bare chests, boardies, wedgies, surfboards, towels, tans.
The Beach is hot and the sun beats down at the sand making it too hot to walk on. You have to run for the water’s edge.
The water rolls back and forth up the beach, washing away footprints and drawings and sandcastles and bathing pools.
The main beach is crowed. You can see the people lined up like ants from our balcony window.
We have our beach and the rock pools just in front of our house it’s not crowded, hardly anyone sits at our beach.
We walk down the steep winding road listening to the buzz of crickets in the long yellow grass beside it. We can feel sweat running and the blue water looks more appealing with every step.
We have our towels, our thongs slap, slap against the buzzing black road. Our faces are white with sunscreen, so are the hard to reach places on our backs where younger siblings have refused to rub it in.
The two younger ones drag their boogie boards as they giggle and watch my father carry their two surfboards up ahead. It’s all just giggles as we walk down to the beach.
We stand at the busy roads edge watching car after car pass us. We watch and wait, take a step forward, take two back until finally we can cross.
We dump our stuff at the top of the beach and run down to the water.
The Beach is hot and the sun beats down at the sand making it too hot to walk on. You have to run for the water’s edge.
The water rolls back and forth up the beach, washing away footprints and drawings and sandcastles and bathing pools.
The main beach is crowed. You can see the people lined up like ants from our balcony window.
We have our beach and the rock pools just in front of our house it’s not crowded, hardly anyone sits at our beach.
We walk down the steep winding road listening to the buzz of crickets in the long yellow grass beside it. We can feel sweat running and the blue water looks more appealing with every step.
We have our towels, our thongs slap, slap against the buzzing black road. Our faces are white with sunscreen, so are the hard to reach places on our backs where younger siblings have refused to rub it in.
The two younger ones drag their boogie boards as they giggle and watch my father carry their two surfboards up ahead. It’s all just giggles as we walk down to the beach.
We stand at the busy roads edge watching car after car pass us. We watch and wait, take a step forward, take two back until finally we can cross.
We dump our stuff at the top of the beach and run down to the water.
I draw a plate of hot bread in the sand like I always do. It's my mark, to tell the beach that I'm back.
We run in and scream on the way out. I watch as Phoebe is first under. I’m always last.
We jump the waves. We splash. We paddle. We get deeper and deeper.
We run in and scream on the way out. I watch as Phoebe is first under. I’m always last.
We jump the waves. We splash. We paddle. We get deeper and deeper.
We make it a game.
Suddenly the little ones are out helping with the surf boards and I'm up on the rock pools getting my 'summer feet'.
"I'll race you"
"Let's bury Phoebe"
"Somethings bitten me"
"I caught the biggest wave..." "I'll catch bigger"
"I'm going to tan for a while."
..
Sand between our toes, dripping wet, exhausted and with a lot more of a tan compared to in the morning we head home for the showers and the lunch we never eat.
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