road trip

Well, my weekend is not yet officially over, there are several more hours to go. But so far, I’d say 7 and a half of my 13 things to do this weekend have been ticked off. Not bad, not bad.

Best of all, Tom and I finally went on that road trip to Wattamolla beach that we have been meaning to go on every weekend for the past 4 weeks. Due to rain and hangovers, we have been thwarted at every pathetic attempt. But the sun was shining today, and even though Tom was out all night til the wee hours watching the Premier League in the pub, he still managed to drag me out of bed in time to get a reasonable start on our ‘holiday’.

We live about a 5 minute drive from Australia’s busiest beach, Bondi. It’s pretty hard to get some decent real estate on that sand because of all the tourists, that’s why actual locals swim at Bronte, our prefered dip in the ocean blue. But today we drove down south for about an hour to the Royal National Park. It was very exciting!

It’s pretty amazing how quickly you can escape from the city in this country. Growing up in the Blue Mountains, which is at least an hours drive from Sydney, depending on how far up the mountain you live, we were always well aware of how quickly you could get some peace and quiet in the bush, something I’m pretty sure most city/outer suburban types have no idea about. Bush plus ocean is even better though. I love it when the vegetation gets all thick, low and scrubby, you can just tell that you are getting close to the beach.

Wattamolla has a beach and a lagoon, both of which were pretty sheltered. The water was a little nippy, could have been a degree or two warmer, but it is late March, so summer is well and truly over.

The Lagoon to your left

The Ocean to the right of the Lagoon. With added Tom!

The Left hand side of the beach. Southside.

Tom was a little disappointed to find that there were other people at the beach. Still, compared to the thousands of swimmers at our local beaches, a dozen is hardly something to complain about. I was pretty happy!

We found some pretty cool washed up seaweed. It wasn’t slimy either. I hate slimy. It was firm and thick and well, lovely.

And loads of awesome, but very shy crabs too.

I am obsessed with moss. Ocean moss is one of my favourite types. It looks like miniature hills, like some green Irish field somehow popped up on the other side of the world. I wish I could take it home and make ocean terrariums with it. I would water it with salt water and love it til it died.

Sculpture by the Sea – Bondi 2008

Hands down this is my favourite annual exhibition. As if the cliffs along the Eastern Suburbs from Bondi to Bronte weren’t dazzling enough, these sculptures just make the whole walk even more exciting.

As does the look on little kids faces as they see each new sculpture. Kids interacting with art is so much more honest and refreshing than tired old adult eyes.

If I learnt anything from my Art Theory degree (and I don’t know how much of it I retained anyway, in between all those beers) it would be that whilst a whole lot of studying can teach you a lot about art, not a great deal of people ever bother to learn in the first place. Not in Australia anyway. So you could argue that a lot of people don’t have the ‘skills’ necessary to ‘read’ an artwork, to understand what the work is about. But kids just dont seem to need those skills. The amount of times I’ve heard the following – “My 3 year old son could paint better than that” and “I don’t know much about art but I know what I like” is depressing. Adults are so boring. So closed off. It’s sad.

I guess that’s why public art programs are so important. Hopefully people will be more open to all forms of art simply through osmosis?!

See the rest of my holga shots at flickr.com/photos/inthelightofthesun
Or check out the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition in Bondi yourself – on until Sunday 2nd November!

deep blue calm

what is it about the ocean that makes you so happy?