Day 95 Friday, 12/8/2016, Burleigh Heads, 21

I’m enjoying walking the beach here. We drive south to Coolangatta. Is it really 57 years since I bought slushies at the life saving kiosk on Greenmount beach as a ten year old?

We stop for a beer at the old weatherboard Rainbow Bay SLSC. Home of the Quiksilver Pro. The bar is decorated with surfboards, the room with nostalgic black and white photos and the stairs with the names of past champions, Burrows, Fanning, Beachley, Gilmore…the greats of surfing.

We sit on the narrow verandah and watch the new generation of surfers trying to do something with a flat sea.

Tonight is raffle night at the Bowls Club and we share a table with the “Parkers” as we call the regulars from our park. There are octogenarians H and S, a couple from Bacchus Marsh and a few others. H is the uncle of Christopher Skase (the somewhat ‘creative’ developer who shot through to the Mediterranean when things got too hot to handle), “he’s dead you know” says H at every chance as if to say ‘look at what good shape I’m in’ and he is in good shape they’re both as strong as an ox. Our mate M wins the meat tray, the food is good and we finish up singing “You’re sixtee, you’re beautiful and you’re mine” and stagger back to our park.