Journal | saltwaterpilgrim

Byron

I’m sitting in the shack in Broken Head again. The walls have been painted a crisp white and different rope formations hang on the walls. It’s warm. My back is burnt. My friends have gone back to Sydney in Connie the van. Again I didn’t go with them. We drove up Thursday in the hail. Not just any hail but the kind of hail that left us aquaplaning across the highway, white sheets in our eyes, pulling into the Maccas carpark in a random town and waiting in the congestion fueled

Money, Never enough of it

Last year, when we were driving through Namibia in a Hyundai i10, taking the back roads against all advice, cranking Biggie Smalls and staring at the endless tundra of nothing, I thought heaps and heaps and heaps about money. How it seemed to be leaking out of my bank account. Slowly my good times were vanishing as the funds sank lower and lower. We took a wrong turn and ended up in the township. Driving around, people standing in front of their tiny houses, wondering what in

On Feminism

In parts of North Africa, mostly on the Mediterranean side, is a tribe called the Bedouin people. You may have heard of them, or at least their tents. They are a traditionally nomadic people, with exceptions provided by governments in the region for tax paying and border crossing due to their cultural structure revolving heavily around non-stationary existence. The way their social systems work is very complex, with vertical, horizontal, diagonal and non-linear hierarchies, i

Paradigm

Apparently, some dude with a pony tail and a really intimidating knowledge of everything told me, scientists are now thinking that we’re not made out of matter. Well, matter as we traditionally thought. That ‘matter’ is actually made out vibrating thingys. That we’re actually walking vibrations. Vibrators. You know when someone is speaking and you know exactly what they’re about to say? Like, you hear the future? Well, this has nothing to do with that. I just find it freaky.

Time Warp

I found myself in Byron again on the weekend. I went for three days and stayed for a week. My feet lagged slightly behind my body, heavy with the build up of dirt and water on my badly designed shoes, eyes peeled in the darkness, a twitch of panic in my stomach, searching for the back of a head I had just lost sight of in the 40 000 thick crowd carrying me. Splendour in the Grass was ridiculous. In the end I didn’t even care about the grindy echoes of Tame Impala or too much

Wednesday

There’s a dark patch in my soul. A spot reserved only for the call to run. Sometimes I hate it. That little spot. Lingering there, making me dissatisfied. Displaced. A constant reminder that in the end, I am completely and entirely alone. A dark temptation to isolate myself, cut the people that ask questions from my conscience. Lock the doors of my bedroom and lose myself in the chaos of my own mind. To forget the now, to forget the then and bury myself in the semantic realit

Tofo Chicks let loose in Indo

I touched down in Bali at one in the morning. A small guy, probably called Made, flagged me down and drove me into the wet streets of Denpasar and eventually a dark complex somewhere vaguely near Dreamlands. I was greeted in the driveway by Renet, Plettenberg bay native and stewardess of international waters and Melanie, Spanish surfer babe and longtime resident of Tofo, Mozambique. I didn’t really want to be in Indo. To be frank. There were a gazzilion other destinations wit

Laters Indo

I finished my two weeks in Indonesia in a fish market sitting at a crooked wooden table. A table covered in a vast selection of seafood – oceanic delicacies that would break the bank back home. The husky sounds of a tanned South African guy’s voice fades in and out of the conversations, the other Saffas at the table tapping and singing intermittently. I had that overwhelming sense of belonging again. Familiar, remnant of the time I spent in Mozambique. I didn’t care if I miss

Lest We Forget the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels

Today marks a hundred years since the youthfully optimistic Australian and New Zealand soldiers sailed to their own versions of hell in World War One. Today we honor the service people that fought, died and returned home in each war since. Today, we get up before the sun and listen to the same bugle we have listened to on the 25th of April every year for as long as we can remember. Recite the same poem. Lest We forget. However, as the people of West Papua, our pacific neighbo

Indonesia

That weighted scent of incense as you step of the plane, Hot and heavy on your skin. Voices either side, ‘taxi’ ‘taxi’ Unmistakeable. Addictive. Welcome to Bali. I’m flying on Saturday. I got flights so cheap that I couldn’t say no. I’ll be meeting some friends from Africa that I cannot wait to see. They’re already there, frothing out, going to parties on the cliffs of Uluwatu. It took only three months for my feet to get so itchy I had to get back into the chaos of third wor

The Legend of Larry the Llama

It seems appropriate, that on the last lay day of the Ripcurl Pro Larry the Llama has been found. In the hands of God. After a sex change and a new alias ‘Tina’. The only real reason anyone from the Bells Beach area actually likes the pro coming to town is the hordes of ridiculously good-looking people that make themselves at home in particular locations at particular times. Like six thirty in the afternoon in the fresh produce section of Safeway, nine thirty in the morning a

Hells Bells

Easter is upon us. Tomorrow is the kick off for the oldest surf event in the world; the classic, memorable and ever freezing Ripcurl Pro. Along with the drastic escalation of talent on tinder, our windy paradise has been flooded with surf industry egos and dudes in their “50 years of Bells Beach Pro” jackets worn to bluntly announce their local status. That they were in the first event. Or built the great ocean road with their bare hands. And if not them, then their father.

Raging Feminism - Happy International Women's day bitches

Here’s to the women doing their thing. The women climbing the corporate ladder, The women owning small business Or big business. The women who travel to dangerous countries The women who paddle out in the lineup with fifty men, get dropped in on or snaked because their ability is doubted due to gender, but stay out anyway. The photographers, the sports writers, The magazine editors The women who get wasted if they want And order T-bone steak at restaurants if that’s what they

Bitch

There’s a lot to be said for being a little bitch. Humility. Smiling with sincerity when you actually feel like chucking the plates on the floor and running into the forest. Greeting people like they’re bringing good news, when really all they’re doing is paying your rent and your bar tab on a Friday night. Paying for the week old veggies in the fridge you can’t be bothered to cook. Being a little bitch teaches you, as you clear tables and apologize to people for being in the

An Extraordinary Life

I was going to write about the community of dogs in Tofo, Mozambique. The way that they are so like, and so part of, the community of people. Many of them look the same, like somewhere along the line they are all related. Could be their environment and how they spend hours running in groups on the beach. The one that happened to be a little shorter than the rest labouring behind. Regular debate about who the fastest dog in Tofo is. Most of them owned because they were found.

Australia Day. Invasion Day

Today marks the anniversary of the Brits arriving in the far land down under, looking around, disregarding the local population, declaring the red desert and the blue ocean ‘unoccupied’ and announcing in their classic imperialist, colonial manor, that the grand island is now ‘civilised’. In celebration we drink tinnies, wear too much blue, red and white, get really sunburnt and generally announce to anyone that will listen how “bloody good it is to be from Straya”. Listen to

Home, is it really where the heart is?

Its been a week since I left Mozambique. The tiny lady that couldn’t even reach the overhead luggage compartment next to me stared as I cried fat tears of heartbreak on the plane to Abu Dhabi. There had been a minute of panic when I didn’t have the money for my flight home which eventually led to having to book a 38 hour trip via the middle east and Thailand before hitting Perth. I didn’t even notice. All I could think of was when I would be back. Back in the motherland, back

Six lessons from Africa

It’s my Last day in Africa today. Pent up in a fancy hotel in Johannesburg – one of those places with excellent service from friendly men in waste coats and those fancy trolleys they wheel everything for you on. Awkward music in the elevators and an overpriced 24-hour room service menu. Quite the contrast the the entirety of the last six-and-a-half months. Looking through photos from my life in the motherland, that sickly happy-sad feeling of nostalgia creeps up. Oh, so happy

Keep it Real

I went back to Tofo to see in the New Year with my best friend. It partly killed me. That sick feeling in your stomach, an emotion you can’t quite identify. A knot. That sits there. Slowly sucking in your mind. Before you know it your limbs won’t move. Yet, it was only part. The feeling of displacement dissipated. This is the island. These people are the lost toys. I’m almost ready to go home. To regain my bearings. To see from afar the new matter i have inside, the new thoug

Hakuna Matapa - means no worries when you've got matapa

I left Mozambique with tears in my eyes. Sand in my hair that I didn’t want to wash out because I was not ready to let go. No more tropical gangsters. No more matapa – the local food that will send you wild No more tipo tinto – the local rum that may or may not be ethanol and you can buy for 60 mets (2USD) per bottle No more palm trees No more beach dogs No more fish so fresh its practically still moving when you buy it No more late night parties in tiny stores in the market

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Byron

Money, Never enough of it

On Feminism

Paradigm

Time Warp

Wednesday

Tofo Chicks let loose in Indo

Laters Indo

Lest We Forget the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels

Indonesia

The Legend of Larry the Llama

Hells Bells

Raging Feminism - Happy International Women's day bitches

Bitch

An Extraordinary Life

Australia Day. Invasion Day

Home, is it really where the heart is?

Six lessons from Africa

Keep it Real

Hakuna Matapa - means no worries when you've got matapa

Saltwater Pilgrim

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