Our first beach umbrella
Sunrise on A’s birthday.
It was A’s birthday. She had wanted the mountains. We had talked about it for a while, but with only a few days it was not practical, so we chose the sea instead. Byron Bay was near enough to get to without turning the journey itself into work, and far enough to feel like we had gone somewhere.
We did not make much of a plan. That was part of it.
The break began a day earlier, at home. We had vaguely intended to go to Brisbane on Saturday, visit a church, find a cafe and walk around, but A was not feeling well and eventually we decided to do nothing instead. We stayed home and packed slowly for the next day. I overpacked, naturally, and still forgot the one pair of shorts I wanted for swimming.
At some point we went to an op shop. A found a few things she liked: books, small objects for the house, things I probably would not have noticed on my own. She loves op shops. We are different in many ways, but every time we go to one I am reminded that our sense of what is beautiful is surprisingly similar.
By Sunday afternoon we were in Byron. The Airbnb was called the Artist Loft, an old, slightly dusty place with high ceilings and a steep ladder to a mezzanine where we would sleep. Artworks and sculptures were scattered around the rooms. Outside, the lawn had mostly been allowed to become whatever it wanted. Plants and trees everywhere. Not really a garden in the ordered sense of the word. I liked it immediately.
The loft was close to Arakwal National Park, and the beach was only a short walk through the trees. We barely put our things down before going to find it, first in the wrong direction. An older couple who lived nearby, and their dog, pointed us the other way. Google Maps was not much use there. The path took us towards Tallow Creek, where dark brown creek water met the much brighter sea, and over fallen trees before it reached the beach.
There was almost nobody there.
It felt different from the Byron we had visited before. On earlier trips we had gone to the lighthouse, walked around town, swum at the busier beaches and returned home. This time there was nowhere to return to immediately. We were already there. The afternoon was sunny and almost summery, though the day was beginning to disappear. I wanted to get into the water, but we still had to find dinner and buy a few things for the house, so we walked back.
Later we took the camera into town, because taking photographs and finding food are the two things we plan most enthusiastically before going anywhere. We ate nachos and corn at a Mexican place, then found an Indian restaurant crowded enough to make us think it must be good. By then it was colder and dark, so we ordered food to take home instead of staying. We went to Woolworths for a few essentials, including insect spray, which felt necessary in an old house surrounded by trees.
Back at the loft we made tea from leaves we had recently bought from The Tea Centre, opened the food and tried to watch something. I did not particularly like the dinner. A did. Maybe she was hungrier. Eventually we climbed the ladder to the mezzanine and went to bed.
That first night the sea was loud. I thought at first that I was hearing the wind. We closed the windows, but the sound kept finding its way in. It was low and continuous. In the dark, it sounded almost like an animal somewhere beyond the trees. Later I realised it was the tide.
The moon was a thin crescent and outside was almost completely black. The bathroom was downstairs, which meant negotiating the ladder in the middle of the night. The sea was louder than I expected, almost too loud, until it was not.
The next morning we went looking for coffee. A cafe nearby had dogs, children and tables in the sun. We stayed for coffee. Mine was better than A’s. We considered eating there but could not find anything we wanted, so we started walking towards town.
It was only a kilometre and a half, and I had the important task of replacing the swimming shorts I had so carefully left at home. The shops were only beginning to open when we arrived. A has been wanting to collect handmade mugs, so we looked for pottery. We found a shop selling it, and somewhere along the way she found a pair of shoes she liked. We went into an organic shop, looked into several others and eventually found my shorts.
Then we bought our first beach umbrella. For some reason, buying it was one of the most exciting parts of the morning.
Before walking back we stopped at a sandwich shop and bought food for the beach. By the time we reached the loft we were hungry, so we ate the sandwiches there instead. Mine had teriyaki in it and was slightly too sweet for me, but it was excellent. A liked hers enough to announce that we had to return before leaving Byron.
After lunch we assembled everything for the beach: the new umbrella, towels, swimming clothes, goggles, drinks, books for A, and a camera and tripod for me. It looked as though we had a plan. We put up the umbrella and sat. We took some photographs and had our drinks. A called her mother and I eventually went into the water.
It was cold. A changed her mind about swimming. The day was sunny and windy at the same time, warm until the wind reminded us that it was not, so we sat some more.
At home, an afternoon like that easily dissolves into small tasks. There is something to clean, something to answer, something that feels as though it ought to be done. On the beach we just sat. It is not a revelation that doing nothing can be good, or that walking is good, or that an afternoon does not need improving. None of this was new to me. I had still forgotten it.
That night was quieter. The tide had settled, or we had become accustomed to it. I woke sometime after midnight, noticed the silence and fell asleep again.
The following morning we went looking for a proper breakfast. We chose a cafe from Google Maps because the food looked beautiful. It tasted fine. There was activated-charcoal sourdough, avocado, rocket and other greens, along with a chutney that was genuinely excellent and a burnt lemon that was better than the rest of the plate.
I also ordered a coconut espresso, one of the cafe’s signature drinks.
I keep giving coconut drinks another chance.
They keep giving me reasons not to.
Something about coconut in drinks here often tastes oily or strangely synthetic to me. This one managed both. A’s coffee was better.
After breakfast we wandered until we found the Book Room at Byron. I liked it immediately. I bought a Moleskine and a pen, which is something I do with a slightly optimistic version of myself in mind, a person who sketches regularly, writes things down and notices more. Usually the notebook waits.
This time I sat outside and opened it. I drew the trees, a bench and whatever else happened to be in front of me. A likes it when I sketch. I like it too, though I rarely give it enough time. Nothing about the scene demanded to be recorded.
Later we walked down to Main Beach. The water was an improbable light blue, stretching as far as I could see, and reminded me of Noosa. There were more people than I expected for a weekday, but we found somewhere to sit. We had not come prepared to swim, so I sketched some more while A looked at the water.
For a trip on which we did very little, I remember a great deal of sitting.1
We returned to the loft because A was tired and spent some time there doing very little again. She had wanted the mountains. Instead, on her birthday, she put on a saree and we took photographs in an old loft near the sea. There was no elaborate reservation or carefully arranged itinerary. We ordered Indian food and stayed in.
A woke before me on our last morning and had already begun packing when I came downstairs. Checkout was at ten, so we gathered our things and went out once more. We were no longer looking for anything new. We went back to the Book Room, had coffee nearby, and I opened the Moleskine again. We walked towards the beach, then returned to the sandwich shop because A wanted the same sandwich once more before leaving Byron.
Two days earlier we had known none of these places. Now A wanted the same sandwich, and we walked to the shop without checking the map.
We returned to the loft, collected our bags and tried to book an Uber. There were none. For the first time in three days, we had somewhere we needed to be and no way to get there. Then we found a bus leaving in half an hour, booked it, carried everything to the stop and went back to the Gold Coast.
I started writing this a few days later because I was already forgetting the order in which things had happened. I could not remember which cafe belonged to which morning, whether we went back into town that evening, or what exactly we ate on Saturday. The small pieces had begun moving around.
For a while I thought this meant I should write more regularly, before things had time to disappear. Maybe it does. But I cannot put every moment of those days back in order. I remember the tide in the dark, the steep ladder, the brown creek meeting the blue sea, A in her saree, the sandwich we bought twice and the bus we almost missed.
None of this is new knowledge. Some things do not need to be discovered, only remembered.
Our first beach umbrella was ours for two days. We had to leave it in Byron. And that's a story for another time.
I wrote about cafe and bookshop hours once before, in One haloumi bagel toasted, cut into two, while trying to understand why those repeated hours remained separate in memory when whole weekdays did not. I did not expect to repeat both parts of it in Byron.↩