Monday, December 31, 2007

My summer holiday

Just before Christmas, Mum, Dad, Al, the girls and I went down to Bicheno, a small town on the east coast of Tasmania, and Freycinet National Park, for a few days by the beach. I remembered just how lovely it is to live here.






But the beach holiday in Tas. is a different experience to those I'm used to. Growing up, summers were spent in Queensland, where there is heat and surf and bikinis. I miss jumping in the water without fear my bits will drop off in the cold, but there is something very free about visiting beaches here, which are often really wilderness areas that just happen to be next the ocean. All the sexual energy and lethargy, the bikinis and posing and judgments have no place on the sand; there's an intimacy and an expansiveness as we tear about, the only beings in sight.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

These pictures are stunning, and your writing so incisive. I just love this.

Shell said...

Hi Kris,


Those pictures of the beach are so gorgeous! So different to anything we have up here. One of my big goals is to get down to Tasmania for a visit. It looks like it has a wildness that is somehow lacking up here, it may be something to do with the fact that there are no highrises in the background in your pictures!

Your photos really remind me of the photos of the beach in the movie The Piano if you remember that one. I think it was shot in NZ but is very similar and rugged and beautiful.

I'm giving away a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma this week, so pop over and enter when you have a chance.

:-)

Shell

Christine said...

Oh, my. Want a house guest from Northern California?

zoƫ said...

we did a tassie beach xmas for 2006, bruny island no less.
its like the arctic but with sand and you go to the beach to view penguins, not people :D i'm yet to swim in tassie sea water. i'm an animal who prefers warm water, baths, heated pools.

This year we had a newcastle xmas, with daily beach trips. I'd forgotten how great it is there, you can just be you and no-one looks at you, not like sydney.

Kris said...

Tas. water is cold, yes, but Bruny water is frighteningly chilly. But I swam on the weekend. The gorgeous places make the cold a little less horrible. You can always look up at the beauty when hypothermia start to kick in ..