Tom Waits for no man

The Southern Pacific Ocean is alive with white horses. A ferocious wind is storming from the East across the sea and tearing into Muttonbird Island. Huge waves topped with foam are hammering at the rocks, throwing up white explosions of spray, the wind so vicious that all you can hear is a ROOOAAARR in your ears. The heathers and scrubs wave like an audience. You can lean forward into the wind without falling and be young again. I like this place. Huge waves, implacable, ancient, the big swell of thousands of miles. The next thing to happen across the horizon is New Zealand. Despite the spray and haze I can just about make out the most Easterly lighthouse in Australia and the hooks of white shearwaters that fly in the troughs of the waves. I thought a lot about time and erosion and stayed out long enough to hurt my ears before turning back to Coff's Harbour. It's a gentle stroll through the marina back to the hostel. Lots of blue boats are for sale, and on Jetty Beach the wind has sculpted peculiar craters from the day's footprints. The Fisherman's Co-op serves the best fish'n'chips I've ever eaten for less than the price of a pint.



Back on the buses... the ride on the Greyhound from Byron Bay was fairly typical - the second half of a film you wouldn't normally be able to pay me to watch and broken suspension. For some reason every Greyhound in Australia has a dodgy gearbox. Unless I've actually been on the same bus every time, but this seems quite unlikely. You can hear the driver swearing and wrestling with the gearstick, fighting for second in his sunglasses and knee-high socks. Curiously, only Japanese schoolgirls and Australian drivers wear these socks, and I don't know why. We also passed a perplexingly large prawn on the roof of a restaurant, pictures of which shall be posted as soon as I have the facility to do so.



Byron Bay was quite relaxing, though I had the misfortune of having my visit coincide with the start of 'Schoolies' week, when the high school kids finish their term and run riot all over the East Coast, roaming in feral packs with shopping trolleys full of beer. It's a little bit like the annual A-level invasion of Newquay, but a more apt comparison would be all of the dark things from your worst nightmares coming to life and spilling around in the streets outside your house, pawing at the windows and shouting. I swapped my pulp fiction anthology for a book about Aboriginal archaeology and drank buckets of cheap red wine. Four litre boxes that cost about three pounds (dubbed 'Goon') appeal to the wallet of the budget backpacker but I've had some stinking hangovers in the last week. Much like my treasured holiday in Trevone Bay, it's best to clear the head with an early morning dip in the sea. A saltwater enema for the brains. I went bodyboarding with some guys from my dorm quite often, though we seldom had really good waves. I'll save my surfing for Bondi Beach.

Ex-London flatmate Bronwyn is back in Australia with a posse of her pals and a drunken week in Byron. I met up with them a couple of times and drank too much, laughing a great deal when the kids with big hair tried to chat them up. I even wound up in a nightclub last night. There were people much younger than me and they were dancing, and laughing, and having fun. Laugh while you can, you poor fools! Everyone knows you can't have fun in a nightclub, and you have to sit glowering in the corner, nursing a single beer all night long and snarling at any attractive seventeen-year old girls who try to talk to you. I had a cracking barbeque up at Bron's palatial holiday villa and walked home in the evening. It took me slightly over an hour to get back to the hostel, magical in twilight but unnerving in the dark... especially as I had my first encounter with a snake, and at rather closer quarters than I would have preferred. Walking along the pavement in almost pitch black, ducking the trees that fringe the road, a car approached from behind - and caught in the headlamps about three feet away from me was a the twist and coil of a little snake. They come out to take the last of the heat from the tarmac. It was only about a foot or so long, but I was about to tread straight on the bastard. I took a wide detour and walked a little brisker. I was quite shaken until I had some more Goon. The first mug is awful but after that it gets surprisingly easy to drink.

If anyone is feeling generous then go and help out a struggling publication called Smoke: a London peculiar. It's a nice little magazine looking at the weirder sides to our esteemed and spotless capital; and what's more you'll find a short short story by yours truly in the latest edition. It's only about 500 words long but actually having something printed has put some wind in the sails, nonetheless. Thanks to Uncle Rich for the tip. I had a coffee this afternoon in a little place near the beach, and was surprised when they played 'Ol 55 by Tom Waits. I've been listening to him all afternoon. "I suppose I borrowed your unofficial national anthem for this song... but don't worry. I'll give it back when I'm done...

'Waltzing Matilda... you'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me...'"