July 7. Day 189. Head in the sand

There is something very special about a sandy beach. Granted it is not all that pleasant to be sand blasted when the wind whips up. Granted you can be fishing sand out of hidden bits for weeks after a day on the beach. But when it comes to beauty there is little to rival a long expanse of white sand.

I had two long walks on the beach today, each a spectacular failure in terms of its stated aim but each a glorious escape. Walk one from Surfers Paradise to Broadbeach where the aim was to buy supplies for breakfast. That failed because I managed to leave my wallet at home, a fact I discovered only when arriving at the check out. Walk two was an afternoon stroll home along the beach designed to walk off a yum cha lunch. That one was destined to fail unless “home” was Sydney.

Of course, I would have been much more successful in walking off those chicken feet had I taken the approach to the beach walk adopted by my nieces – running on soft sand is exhausting. But I wasn’t the one charging down the dunes. I was the one standing at the bottom with a camera pretending that a gentle stroll equals fat burning exercise – yes I do have my head buried in the sand.