This will hurt me...

"Blue Steel" or "Magnum"?

Ezra's philosophy is to just stuff it all in at one go and force it all down...

Fourteen thousand, three hundred and seventy-four. Fourteen thousand, three hundred and seventy-five. Fourteen thousand, three hundred and seventy-six...

Jennifer save me. Seven Mile Beach. January 2013. Australia Day? I don't like it. Stupid flags... Australia Day , John Tranter ‘Lovely, isn’t it? The water views? And there’s something historical about the Harbour – go on, help yourself, there’s heaps more prawns – of course in the old days it was totally unimproved. But they brought in boatloads of crims – and screws, prostitutes, a few politicians to run the show and look after the profits. A set-up built to last.’ So spoke a Sydney business identity, over lunch on the water – oysters, chardonnay – ‘Another lobster, love?’ – while far below his former partner drifted fathoms deep through the blue gloom, in a concrete suit, to his final bottom-of-the-harbour scheme among the barnacles and the bones dozing in the wavering light. A seagull sailed across a paler blue. The rigging tap-tapped against the mast; nearby, rich kids wasted a weekend on Daddy’s yacht. ‘See that boat? The Sergeant here reckons ...

We need some new snorkels...

RUN!

By this point, I'd given up on trying to keep Ezra dry.

It's a hard slog getting up that dune, but once you're there: the ocean!

At this depth, one is only at risk of being licked to death by a ferocious pack of very small great white sharks .

Have you ever tried to explain the phenomenon of "tides" to a five year old? I used to think that the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth was a relatively straightforward concept, now I'm not so certain...

Coming in to land. Seven Mile Beach. October 2011. All I can muster is, "What would Robbie Burns say?" To which all I can reply is, "Mah god! that is indeed a body enormoos metal spyug up thaur in th' lift!" To a Mouse, On Turning her up in her Nest with the Plough , Robert Burns Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, O what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee Wi' murd'ring pattle! I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, An' fellow-mortal! I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request: I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave, And never miss't! Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's ar...

How he manages to smile like that when the water is so achingly cold is beyond me...

Henry doesn't know if he's King Canute or Xerxes at the Hellespont. Either way, I suspect that he's have little chance of turning back the tide.

Don't go in the water Ezzie... Don't go in the water Ez... Don't go in the water Ezra... Don't get any more wet Ez... Don't get any more wet Ezra... Don't get any more wet Ezzie... We don't have a spare set of undies Ez... We don't have a spare set of undies Ezzie... We don't have a spare set of undies Ezra...

Here is a demonstration of maternal cruelty . Despite the fact that Henry is a fan of the Essendon Football Club, she has forced him to sport a dastardly Sydney Swans pancho-towel. There ought to be a law...

The little bloke has nerves of steel, the constitution of an ox and the character of an aged Bactrian camel. Just look at that resolute gaze as the frigid waves crash into him!

Flower near the beach. Seven Mile Beach. April 2011. Consider yesterday's mission a success. Next stop, Glenorchy ...

Good luck, seagull. Seven Mile Beach, May 2011. I shall be in Launceston by the time this post goes up, putting the finishing touches on the project that I have been working on for (nearly) the past year. It’s been a bit of a slog, and arrives just at the point when the government realises that there is no more money. Yet these things have a way or sorting themselves out. Then…? Something else. There’s always something else. I just wish that this something else was for a little more money.

Here is a photographic tale of one young man, a beach, and his love for an icy pole. You will note that somewhere along the way, Ezra has ditched his shorts...

Here are a couple of snaps of handsome Henry getting his knees dirty down on Seven Mile Beach. I think that we were looking for sandworms. We had no plan of what to do with them if were to find them, however.