Very slow day today. The wind picked up through the night and started really beating on the tent. By morning the creaking tent had frayed my nerves and we spent some time security the tent to the ground and back to the car. Then we tried to shelter in the car instead. I still found that fairly oppressive feeling, salty, unshowered, hot and tired from a good but active day yesterday…I got the shits.
As usual, Anna’s sense of impermanence helped her cope better than me, and she rightly pointed out that we should see what it was like on the water-side of the dune. It was much calmer, so we took shelter there instead.
We really didn’t do much for the whole day. Sunset and moonrise were going to occur within half an hour, and we thought we’d be able to watch both from the lighthouse.
From the lighthouse the sunset was framed by vast ocean and streaking clouds. We realised we weren’t going to see the moonrise clearly, so we drove further east.
On our drive we came across a café that still open, so we parked there and walked out to the beach to watch the moon come up. For some reason, moonrise over water always makes me think of that poem The Highwayman: “The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas//The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor…”
The heat fell from the air and my wind-affected temperament wavered and left. The cafe was serving burgers which we took back to camp with us.
The drive was pitch black, the lightbar spotted all the bugs in the clear night and picked up animal eyes in the scrub by the road. As we neared camp some dingoes were in the road chasing some smaller animal, we slowed enough to see them slink off into the bush.
