The car was packed lightly as we drove to the ocean. Just towels, water bottles and a couple of buckets and spades. In the back seat, our two girls were fighting over the solitary pair of goggles we had remembered to bring. But we were happy. It was school holidays. We were going to the beach.
We arrived and the sky above us was so thick with blue it was as though we could wrap ourselves in it. It had been a long, wet summer. The wettest start to a year ever in Sydney. The children had barely made it to the water all season, but in the lingering afterglow of summer we hoped to grasp a last chance at a swim. The girls ran through the sandy path cutting the bush scrub towards the ocean. Blue water, white water and golden yellow sand.
