Return to roots

  Walking

At home in Darwin, I don't get much opportunity to walk... there are places I can walk but I never feel inclined and rarely have the time, also it's usually too hot!

While visiting family in Melbourne, it's a different story. I walk!

There are so many places I like to visit but this time I only had four days. 

On my first free day I caught the train out to Sandringham and walked the coast to Black Rock/Half Moon Bay. Then doubled back and walked from Brighton to St Kilda 

On the walk from Sandringham to the Black Rock yacht club there is a  picnic table with a view over Half Moon Bay, the Cerberus and the familiar red clay bluff that I love. It used to have an old leather briefcase with a pen and some paper for poets and writers who feel inspired, to share their work... It was gone, I suppose it would end up soaking wet at this time of year anyway. It didn't really matter, this is a personal thing anyway, I'd brought my own pencil and paper. 

 

Poets table

I sat and wrote a letter of appreciation to the Red Bluff and beach, to the Cerberus and the coast. As a youth this place was my shangri-la, it was my romantic bohemian retreat from Bogania. I wrote my inadequate and poorly written poem/letter, folded and stuffed it into a crack between the boards on the table top then sat for a while in contemplation. I looked across the bay and remembered the dreams I'd had, the excitement I felt escaping the constrictions of my unsatisfying life and considered how little I had changed. From lofty dreams and a wild heart I have progressed no further. OK I managed to evade death by misadventure and alcoholism... but essentially I have not progressed the man very far beyond the state of that fifteen year old boy who first ventured to this place.  

This is the place I will always return to measure my progress... It is my mirror, the hopeful spirit of that boy who dreamed is always here waiting to see what I have made of his life.

Clock Tower @ StKilda

Brighton Baths

 

It was a cold grey and windy day, perfect for a long walk.

I'd only ever come this way by foot once and on that occasion I was in the familiar state of intoxication which used to demand I set my bare feet to walking. I can vaguely recall trudging without my shoes along the coast, through the sand and across the coastal rocks. Back then I was mesmerized in a romantic spell of myself and the city. My feet hurt but I just walked hoping that something wonderful would jump up and embrace me! 

I had blistered and bruised feet.

This time was different I was sober and a little less desperate. It was an odd experience to move from the familiar environment of the coastal reserve full of trees and shrubs along the coastal path which passed some of Melbourne's most wealthy homes facing the sea. It felt very strange, and overwhelming to see such wealth, I looked to the sea and saw the wind whipping up small waves, wild grey clouds tumbled over each other to spread rain across the coast. I began to feel quite emotional, a sense of dissonance between nature and the exploits of man, the altered coastline and the people. I was among them but not one of them.
 

The fruits of our endeavors will be consumed by the sea. Isn't it ironic to see these bricks from early Melbourne settlement used to hold back the inevitable.

Dispersed along the coastal path are plaques which describe the lives of the original people of this place and give some explanation of the effect colonization had on their society. I read plaques and looked at the mutated landscape around me. I was the observer and I was connected to the place but not the culture. I felt overcome with compassion for them all and and odd kind of love that just made me smile to myself and the people I passed. I loved them and held them in contempt equally and without conflict. 

It was all too beautiful and terrible at the same time. I still had a few kms to go. I had time to resolve my feelings before arriving at St Kilda. The experience was exquisite and painful full of longing and empty but somehow complete.

The Espy looking a bit worse for wear after decades of iconic service

 Arriving at St Kilda I continued straight to another romantic icon from my past. 'The Espy'. I remember the illusion and excitement, the pretense of rumbling up the gutter with half a dozen mates on our Harleys on a Saturday night. Chests out strutting around like leather clad peacocks trying hard to make an impression, me secretly hoping to blend in but feeling like a fraud. I remember the dark crowded rooms full of noisy and beautifully ostentatious inner city punks an exciting mix of guys and girls and barely a bogan to be seen. Some nights the bar was so full I have no idea how the barmaids managed to keep track of the orders, orders were yelled across the heads of jammed in patrons, a bizarre combination of English, profanity and sign language was used to convey what was wanted and somehow the drinks kept coming and the correct change was always given!

I loved riding my motorbike but part of me just wanted to sink into that old gaffa taped couch and become one of the decadent majority. 

The espy was a great place to visit, thankfully I never did transition from visitor to resident. By 1996 I stopped going to the Espy all together when my attention became more focused on the services of other establishment such as the Galiamble men's recovery centre just around the corner... but that's another walk.

Walking in silent contempt-ation

 I'm Walking to Wickham Point!

After visiting people in Immigration Detention Centres here in Darwin over the past couple of years, and trying to advocate for people where I could, I have found that the situation for asylum seekers is now even worse than when we started!

I am frustrated, and fed up with constantly grovelling with pathetic bureaucrats and gaolers on behalf of people whose voices have been silenced!
I am tired of seeing people loose their sanity and dignity as they fall into despair, after months and even years of incarceration by this country; it's leaders indifferent to the suffering they have caused and the hearts they have poisoned!

JUSTICE!
What about justice?! 
Will the guardian of detained children (Scott Morrison) be brought to justice? I doubt it.

I have asked myself, what more can I do? What action will be effective in stopping this madness? Maybe none...?

Unable to articulate my outrage, and the sense of loss and disgrace that has been welling in me I have decided to take action through prayer and meditation.

I do this in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi when he said:
"Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action."

I will walk in silent prayer for 40km (More like 37km actually).  From Darwin to Wickham point on Sunday 21st September - International Day of Peace.
• In solidarity with all those who have suffered while in the care of the Australian Immigration Department. (Those I have visited but could offer no practical support!)
• In defiance of the policy makers whose choices have brought misery to the innocent (and the brutality of the tools they engage to do enforce their control!)
• To Bear Witness and to remember

If you want to walk too, it's a long road and there's plenty of room. Bring messages of hope, cards letters etc... See you on the road or at the Vigil outside Bladin Point at 4:30pm!






1st Leg: Darwin to Palmerston



2nd Leg: Palmerston - Wickham Point






Walking

Bikeless in Melbourne

Tomorrow I will attempt to leave Melbourne... (I've been told it may be difficult without medical clearance to fly... but I'm hoping I won't be asked.)

Although my mobility has been fairly restricted I have actually enjoyed walking. Today I visited some Darwin Friends who live down here half the time. They live in Montmorency, not far from the Plenty river... I was offered a ride home but passed it up preferring to walk back along the river.

Here's a few snap shots from my walk... Along the way I passed two footy matches which might have made my photo journal more interesting... but I don't care much about football so all I've got to show is green trees and brown river shots.

These days Plenty River is often dry... but when it flows the old charm returns

This section of the river, once the public swimming pool is not so attractive as it was

Swing bridge to Partington Flat. Football game in progress

Bless this River... She has been abused and neglected but she still carries life.

Walking in Melbourne

A rough outline of city walk 10/06/13

Being stuck in Melbourne, unable to drive and worse still forbidden from riding a bike I have been desperate for some kind of physical activity. It's taken me nearly two weeks to feel OK about doing anything at all but rest will only get you so far! At some point the body must have movement in order to recover!

A long time friend of the family likes walking so I asked if he'd bring me next time he goes... I thought we'd be bush walking so when he called he told me to meet him at Jolimont station at 10:30am...  for a city walk I was a little surprised.

Well beggars can't be choosers! I rode the train to Jolimont Station, hopped off facing the gates of the MCG.
We walked Fitzroy Gardens and up to the Queen Victoria Markets, which are very much the same as they have always been... crowded and full of tourists. My favorite spot at the market is the Deli. Back in the good old days the Queen Vic Market was about the only place you could find European style food... (Very exotic back in the 1970s and even the 80s) a lot has changed in Australia since I was a kid, I remember when spagetti was considered foreign food.

My friend is German, he does this walk fairly regularly, the first part of the walk includes stopping at the Vic Market for a Weisswurst sausage with sauerkraut. We arrived at the vendor and 'D' walks through a throng of Chinese tourists straight to the serving area, as he orders I realize the throng was actually a queue and he had jumped it! Funny thing was that the 20 odd Chinese were all so preoccupied texting, tweeting and god knows what else they didn't even notice. I was in no mood to queue half an hour for a sausage so I kept quiet. (It was delicious by the way)

We wandered around the market for a little while but it was all so predictable and crowded! We wanted jam donuts but gave up on this idea when we saw the line of people waiting! Hot jam donuts are a real Melbourne treat but who the hell wants to stand an hour in the cold waiting for one! This is something I just don't get. There were enough customers to keep at least 3 maybe even four donut vans busy all day but there seemed to be only one donut vendor in the whole market! Someone's got this market thing all stitched up!

Leaving the market we walked down to South Bank where 100s of Yuppies enjoyed their Sunday Lunch, then crossing St Kilda Rd we walked up past the Shrine of Remembrance and through the Botanical Gardens. The gardens made news recently when a bunch of vandals got into the succulent garden and chopped up all the tall cactus trees with a machete or something. Some of the plants were 30 years old! We didn't bother gawking at the damaged plants but wandered around the various paths and checked out the ponds where I was glad to see eels had returned after the drought.

From the Gardens we crossed the Yarra and wandered back through the sporting grounds, Enormous new stadiums for soccer and tennis, then back down to the river walk where the rail-yards have been converted into parkland. I couldn't believe how Melbourne has changed since I was I kid. These were the seediest, grittiest corners of the city. Places I used to wander around, amongst the true drunken underbelly of Melbourne. The parks and gardens were once the domain of gutter drunks and hobos. I used to wag school and bring my stash down here to drink... now it's all cleaned up. Families ride bikes and have picnics, there's a children's art centre in one of the old red brick track switching houses where drunks used to sleep. Trees have been planted, grass, sculptures everything has changed... It was fascinating and very pleasant to see.

Strong Men performing at Federation Square opposite Flinders St Station

By now my back was aching... I'd slowed down a lot but was still enjoying the walk. We climbed the steps from the Yarra trail and entered federation square. An undulating cobbled surface spread out like a natural landscape on the site which was once a bland concrete rooftop! There were thousands of people in the city all eating drinking and having fun. The dark and dreary miserably empty city has gone, now the city is full of life on the weekends.

Finally we made it to a coffee shop in China town, enjoyed a reasonable brew and a Danish before heading back to Flinder's St station for the train home. Total distance walked would have been about 15 km. Finally a day out for me. Mum and Dad are completely over having me pacing the house like a caged animal.

Tomorrow I go back to the Hospital for surgery on my gimpy hand. I have two fractured bones in my wrist that are not knitting properly and have to be re-set! Damn! Still no idea about the status of my back but at least my bowel is starting to work again... nothing like a long walk to sort that out.

On The Road...hit it hard!

I came back to Melbourne again last week to see mum before she started Chemo.
Walked most of the way from Airport to Greensborough... lost the path too many times did too many extra miles and was saved the embarrassment of quitting when my sister called and offered me a lift just before the trail ran out... ;)

Crossing Western Ring Rd

Creek reserve near Broadmeadows

A rare signposted section of track

I wish they'd painted these at intersections.... This was a fair way down the path

Locals turn roadside reserve land into orchards and veggie gardens

The path was blocked from Edgars Rd, there was nowhere to walk after this section...

Walking the Western Ring Path took me several hours I had to jump a few fences and double back a lot but the bicycle trail has some very nice sections for walking and cycling. A lot of disused land, old horse paddocks and creekside paths to explore. My legs weren't up to such a long walk after having no sleep the night before and a 2am flight but next time I'll be do better (or I'll ride. ;)

THE CRASH!

I would have posted more about this trip and earlier but while down here I had a mishap on my bike and have been unable to do much at all for the past week.

What happened? Well; determined to make the most of my time in Melbourne I decided to cycle to Ceres down on the Merry Creek. It started as a lovely ride through Greswel Forest, Bundoora, I noticed the axle nuts on my front wheel had come loose, I had no spanner so tightened as best I could by hand... (Stupid!)
Of course hand tightening is not enough for axle nuts... They loosened and as I was riding down the hill on Plenty Rd, just past the cemetery, I came over a bump and something went wrong... Cognitively I knew what went wrong but it all happened so fast I don't remember much more than thinking... "Oh shit somethings wrong..." ..........***DUSH***THUD***

I got up... spitting blood and bits of tooth from my mouth... with a heavy feeling all over. My bicycle helmet was hanging in pieces from the strap around my neck... sunglasses smashed all over the road... my bike somewhere between the curb and the middle of the road... fronth wheel somewhere else... I hit the road hard.

Thought I'd got a ticket to the Bear Mountain Picnic!




People appeared from somewhere or other and helped me to the side of the road. Somebody called an ambulance, I remember hearing them reporting that there was "blood... lots of blood..." "...err no it doesn't appear to be squirting out but it's hard to tell..."
"OK" I thought, "Stay calm. There doesn't appear to be anything sticking out of where it shouldn't... Blood is not squirting out of anywhere at a rate that can't be handled with the sleeve of a shirt... I managed to stand and walk... I think I'll be OK."

Ambulence came and took me to the Hospital where I was x-rayed and spent the next 2 days flat on my back with no food, an IV drip in my arm and a catheter carefully inserted where I'd rather it wasn't. That was a week ago today. They finally sent me home, to my parents place on Saturday where I am expected to convalesce until they deem me fit to fly home!

How do I feel? Sometimes OK. Mostly not so good. Although there was no internal bleeding in my head I am still foggy and get muddled. My back is aching, I get tired quickly and I still can't shit properly. (apparently a combination of trauma to spine and use of certain pain killers can mess up bowel function) But, it could have been much worse! If I hadn't been wearing that helmet there would have been no need for that ambulance! My injuries were minor compared to what they could have been!

"...They unsnapped his skull cap and between his ears they saw a gap..."

GRATITUDE
I have no idea who the people were that helped me on the side of the road but I am very grateful that they did! The Paramedics in the Ambulance were first rate! Im grateful also to all the hospital staff who patched me up and provided pain relief... Thanks to Pete the orderly who took me for my x-rays and provided me with some real human interaction! A big thanks to the Nurses who rolled me onto my side, gave me a back rub and a flannel bath... that was strangely pleasant.

Thanks also to the great spirit who fucks with me from time to time and stops me in my tracks, when I think I'm calling the shots! I'm sure I must have missed your subtler messages... ;)
I guess I must be needed here for a while. I can spend some time with my folks while mum commences her chemotherapy. 

Distant rumblings... calling through a dimly lit tunnel

A month or so passes without a word.

Too many things going on, I had nothing to say about it but I wanted to save this video somewhere I can find it again so I'll post a bit to fill you in on the month past... what I can recall...

 Just a quick explanation about the video... A year or so ago I listened to the three audio books by Jed McKenna. In the Book Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment, McKenna presents a pretty wild hypothesis about the book Moby Dick. The book had been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years, discarded barely touched from the University library, and had procrastinated about reading it.  Anyway about a month or so ago I started reading it and, with my experience of the story already heavily influenced by the mythical teacher McKenna I decided to accompany the book by listening to Spiritually Incorrect... again. Again it has blown me away!

Moby Dick is considered one of the greatest American books ever written and according to McKenna nobody really gets it. There are a plethora of descriptions of the book and explanations of the story but bugger all that gives any acknowledgement of McKenna's description of the story, which I reckon nails it! Why? Maybe it's just too bloody scary for most folks to consider. 

Coincidentally I recently turned the calendar on my wall over to April, two weeks after the fact, and discover the cryptic text 'callmeIshmae...'. The calendar is an artistic combination of sketches and words or some pages just a jumble of letters which come together to make an image. This one is of a guy (the Artist Kris) swimming in the sea and a giant octopus (with six tentacles, my kids have pointed out) the swimmer is sketched but the sea and the creature (the Muse) are made of a thread of letters...  I glanced at the image and the opening lines of the book Moby-Dick. "Call me Ishmael" leapt out at me.

MELVILL'S  Transformation

And what of the month that's passed?

Well back in March there was a major meeting at my work with all the big players. My old boss came back to town a little dismayed by the state of the organization... particularly that part he left in my hands. It's a part of the world that focuses on the metaphysical but requires considerable effort to prevent the ethereal aspirations of it's members from plunging the practical devices of money, property and various other required resources into a horrendous deficit. The fulfillment of the collective mission and dreams can occasionally be confused by personal ambitions. Anyway the whole arena is bizarre to me; convoluted and prone to all kinds of misinterpretation and mischief. We had a chat, it got a bit heated and I may have upset him by laughing at the absurdity of his expectations. Felt pretty good to be free of any sense of responsibility for materializing the ridiculous expectations of deluded power addicts.

The chain broke on my long bike as I was riding home from work. Bike's been sitting out the back for at least three weeks, I finally fixed it this morning and adjusted the gears and once again I'm happy with my bike. 

About three weeks ago I booked two tickets to Bali and back for me and one of the kids. Booked them on a whim with no regard for carbon emissions or environmental impact...  Just booked them because they were extremely cheep and I've gotta go! I'll reconcile my conscience later. Maybe my Greenie friends can help me rationalize when they get back from climate change talks in Europe or Melbourne or wherever they happen to be this week. ;)

A couple of weeks ago I made an urgent trip to Melbourne to visit my mum. She had some stomach problems and it sounded serious. I booked a flight and flew down there on the same day I heard of her illness. Got off the plane at 6:30 am at Tullamarine and walked 12 km through farmland and across small creeks and the Maribynong River valley.
It was magic to just walk. I had a single carry on bag with an improvised strap, a pair of shorts, t-shirt and thongs and a print out of directions from Google maps to guide me. The air was cool and I felt so free just wandering along roads that nobody ever walks. I passed a taxi depot with 100s of cabs, dilapidated farms on land set aside for the next freeway or factory outlet, stands remnant woodland, barely a blur of green to drivers but amazing pockets of nature to me on foot. I passed a mist covered dam with ducks, it was probably full of yabbies, if I had time I could have scored a feed. I saw a yellow rubber duck in the middle of a cow paddock, fog emitted from my nostrils and mouth as I walked, the sky was becoming light, the air was cool I walked comfortably without a bead of sweat. magpies swooped and watched me from their positions on a single power line in otherwise empty fields.

As I crossed the Maribyrnong I discovered a couple of large carp which had been caught and left to dry, getting closer to suburban Keillor I passed a strawberry farm, further on there were tomato crops full of ripe fruit ready to pick... I was tempted. By the time I arrived at my sister's I felt calm and content. My ankles were sore, I'm out of shape, but I seriously considered walking the next 25 km to my parents place on the other side of town.

Walking to my sister's place I listened to the audio CD of Spiritual Warfare. It is a kind of selfish, self indulgent trip listening to Jed McKenna. I suppose it's Nihilism but I don't really know anything about that so I can't say for sure. At times like these people will usually turn to their faith. Faith Works, no doubt about it. But somehow I am comfortable contemplating absolute nothingness! Somehow contemplation of absolute annihilation of the Ego and all it's jingle jangle attachments sets me at ease in times of stress. It's bleak but it's OK. As I walked I focused on my breathing. I walked and breathed and appreciated the novelty of being on the road/path alone, no one to tell me go this way or that way, no one to tell me No, you can't.

I felt right about going down there. Before I arrived mum had been admitted into hospital, while I was there she had a couple of days of tests, two days after I left she spent 10 hours on the operating table! Bowel Cancer! One week ago we had no idea! There's not much more that can be said about it really.

When I got back to Darwin I was exhausted and had a cold. I lay down on the tiles in the bedroom and rested for two whole days. Thinking of mum's illness I remembered the Chi'Kung I used to do. I thought to myself  it would do her and Dad wonders... I started that deep diaphragm breathing and continued for two whole days, off and on. I got up occasionally to eat or stretch my legs but that was about it. Two days passed, I woke up on Monday morning and went to work. I could have stayed there on the floor breathing for the rest of the week. I felt centered, unhurried, not perturbed by anything. Mum's operation took place while I was lying on the floor (meditating?) my mind blank.

  

A whole bunch of weird stuff has happened lately, mostly too weird to tell. Including having a couple of bikes stolen from the back yard by punk kids... All it amounts to though is that life is changing. I'm not sure what into so I guess I'll just try to breath on it.

Zen and the art of footwear choices

Please excuse the cliche title and the following drivel I wasted the name on... Many things happen in my day to day life. A lot of it is either overwhelming or underwhelming and the whole experience usually ends with me stupefied by the end of the night desperate for a few moments alone but when my time finally arrives, I'm unable to do anything useful at all! I often end up sitting, numb, in front of the computer late at night, not creating anything, not writing just numb wanting to zone out. Unable to concentrate I'll fall into a mind numbing video game, or watch a movie or Youtube videos. Desperate to disengage and acting out like a teenage brat who's parents have finally left him alone!

Oddly when I finally have the energy to write on this blog, for some reason I never seem to want to write about the important stuff. It's all too confusing and fraught with complicated emotions that I can't really express anyway. I'd much rather write about my thongs!

Thongs: My apologies to the cobblers (for want of a better description) of quality rubber (Not actually rubber.. more a cocktail of chemicals) footwear. Over Christmas I visited my parents in Melbourne. As the gifts were passed around on Boxing Day I received a small flexible parcel of familiar weight and size. Ripped the paper off to discover a new pair of thongs… I had a $2 pair on at the time but kicked them off and tried on my new ones. They fit nicely.     

I don't know which shop they came from but it obviously wasn't the 'Throw away imports from China Store...' I’ve been wearing this pair of thongs for nearly two months, cycling every day and sometimes on bikes with those horrible bear trap peddles. I am pleased to say that the thongs have withstood all kinds of punishment and are still holding together nicely. Looking back on a previous post I realize, as I did when I wrote it that I was overgeneralizing about the poor quality of modern thong making material. OK it's not a subject that you'll hear discussed or debated seriously anywhere other than a pub or a sundowners session at a seasonal seaside caravan park, but since thongs are pretty much all I wear I figured it was a subject worthy of comment and consideration.
My comments about poor quality were obviously based on my personal spending habits which were guided entirely by my Scroogliness, which had temporarily overridden my usual sense of judgement when it came to quality of materials, workmanship etc... Ignoring the range of fine quality footwear available to those who bother to find them I chose to condemn the all aspects of modern thong production and focus my post on a bragging session about my skills of ‘walking in thongs’.
Oh… what a prideful of a braggart am I!  (I also failed to mention all the times I've stupidly stood on sharp objects which have penetrated my thongs and lodged themselves in the heel or ball of my feet! Which I'll never admit to!)

Well I just thought I ought to confess and admit that my comments about the generally poor quality of all thongs was incorrect, some thongs are better than others. Over the past year I'd allowed my miserliness to override my sense of value for money and sense of quality. I broke one of my golden rules of judging a bargain! Is this cheep thing I'm buying actually any good?
I'd contented myself to purchase the cheapest of crappy thongs from the supermarket, rather than venture out to one of the larger department stores or shoe shops to purchase my thongs. I elected to pay $4 rather than $10 or $15 which would have set me up with a quality set of 'flip flops'. In fact if I'd bothered I could actually have found a decent pair of thongs for under $10. The fact that I was too cheep to pay a couple of extra bucks for a much better quality of foot rubber is only testament to my stinginess.

So as an addendum to my previous post, the premise of which, when it comes to learning to walk, I'll stick to however I must concede that a decent quality thong will take the traveler much further than the cheep crap I'd worn through 3 sets of last year!
Lesson learned? In future… always buy the better quality thong… And walk in them like they are the soles of your feet. ;)

If you'd like to learn more about thongs from people who take them much more seriously than I, check out the Powerhouse Museum tribute to the 'Rubber thong' HERE, it's a pearler! 

A thong aint no flip flop!

I walk, feet bare to the sun, dust clinging to my cracked scaly heels. Thong clad feet, rubber soles, click clacking, gripping, rarely tripping. A thin buffer between foot and street, rugged path, bitumen, stones, wet grass and concrete. Feet protected from bubble gum and smokers phlegm, sputum, piss and dog shit on city streets. Course earth in the scrub. Still sensing, not immune thorns may protrude right through if you’re slack, softly feathered... low impact... treading lightly. 

I used to always go barefoot... (Except for during work hours or when riding a motorbike). I admit I thought that thongs were ugly and clumsy. However after moving to the tropics and discovering all the nasty things that can enter the blood stream through those cracks in my heels I decided it was time to start taking precautions, so I bought a pair of thongs. I discovered the are the perfect footwear for the tropics. Allowing airflow and protection and they don’t hold water.

My old thongs battered and worn; and torn and ripped by the grip of metallic bike peddles. They have lasted a while, walked a few miles and clung devotedly to my dusty feet. Scuffed and ground thin at the heel, lifted lightly by my toes and placed firmly and deliberately along varied paths by a rough combination of sinew and synapse.  A dreamers mind as it sometimes glides but often stumbles through hopes of adventure but dragged back always to the mundane ritual of the daily commute. Always the sureness of the ball of my foot directs the rubber sole, senses never disengaged.

I walk in thongs not ‘flip flops’ like some staggering surfer! Not shuffling like a Chinese student attending ablutions dragging her dainty heels, incapable of bounding forward silently. More like the Lombok porter who carried my gear to the top of a mountain... sure footed and strong! I watched that guy glide up a mountain with food for three days! 4 eggs in a plastic bag not a crack! He wore only a singlet, shorts and a pair of thongs, slept that way through the freezing night then carried our gear back down! His thong strap snapped and he kicked it to the side of the track and continued on barefoot until another appeared on the path and he stepped straight into it without breaking his pace! Like it was a second skin! That’s how to travel in thongs!

 These old thongs have become attuned to my step. A decent thong is not just a combination of good materials or manufacture, actually a thong by definition rarely even possesses either of these qualities. A thong is usually constructed of the cheapest least reliable materials not sure where or how maybe a machine just spits them out. A good thong is a matter of fine tuning the senses and curing the substance. The thong and it’s wearer must meld to each other… bend and be changed until a symbiosis is established. To walk in thongs is more like walking in bare feet you have to read the ground, perceive the path before you lay your foot upon it. Know where the glass or prickles are that will easily pass through the flimsy foam surface supporting you.  It is possible that the thongs durability is refined by the amount of compression it endures before you expose it to really rough or sharp surfaces.

A good thong is sturdy enough for the average bush track and will carry me across scorching concrete or bitumen but becomes imperceptible to the senses in most other ways. Allows me to feel the surface I am walking on but dulls the harsher aspects.

Sometimes I scuff the heels of my thongs when I drag my feet… Sometimes my step is lazy and I bend the toe when I’m weary and don’t bother to raise the foot…  Sometimes a thong can trip me when I’m lazy... Don’t wear them when you’re driving and don’t walk across wet tiles.

The old thongs fit to me like a skin, my feet and the rubber sliding perfectly from one step to the next. Rising and falling as one… gripping any surface. Delicately balanced each step, every turn, the toe grips in sync with the ball of my foot, heel catches the rubber as they glide gracefully to the ground in union and the next step rises to find it’s place along the path.

My old thongs would stay sure. They rest neatly on the smooth peddles of my bike, they have been firmed by walking and resist the friction that causes a new thong to rip...  But they need a smooth peddle. No thong seems to last on hard peddles. And so I have destroyed my old pair of thongs and replaced them with a new pair which I have to break in…

New thongs are stiff but tear easily.




I ripped my latest pair on the rough peddles of my bike. Even worse caught my foot and pulled the toe strap from the base... Cheep Crap! Disaster! I only had them a week and aren’t about to go out and spend another $4 for another pair so I had a chat with a mate who lives rough on the street and he gave me a solution. The strap can be prevented from passing through the base of the thong by widening the surface of the base plug (technical term I made up!). We discussed various means of securing it but by far the simplest and most effective was the humble bread bag clip... You know that bit of brittle plastic that holds the bag your bread comes in closed! I tried it and it fit perfectly! (Oh and a bit of gaffa tape) Back to the cottage craft of grass roots cobbling! 3 cheers for the long grass cobblers! 

Shoe repair when you got no dough!