Chapter Eight: Dodging Traffic on the Beach

Chapter Eight: Dodging Traffic on the Beach  

In the morning, we pack the car with Styrofoam boxes and warm clothes for our three-hour  north drive and day-trip to Noosa.  

At half past noon, we pull up to a sandy beachside parking lot. These are the coordinates  the lifeguard had given us. A sign depicting a cartoon hummer on a highway informs that we are  not at a normal beach.  

“4x4 trucks only” I read. 

We look to our little white clunker.  

We are so not equipped or this.  

It’s a beach highway! Who ever heard of this?  

Only in Australia . . .  

“Hmm . . . well, what if we just walk up the beach?” Cassidy and I shrug at each other  and start down the sand dune path on foot. We assume the birds are along the coast line, but boy  are we in for it. “Let’s just walk a few minutes and see what we find. We can turn back  otherwise.” 

That lifeguard had described “hundreds” along these shores, so our hopes are sky high. An  imposing canyon blocks the inland from view as we charge onto the reflective expanse by the  distant, raging waves. Our feet squeak as we walk from the glassy silicon sand. The area is  unusually windy— we zip up our jackets and brace ourselves for the trudge.

We climb over jet-black volcanic rock outcroppings, which look like they have been squirted  from a tube of toothpaste onto the mirror flats. They provide some measure of distance in the  otherwise unchanging landscape. Every few steps we go, optimistic a bird might be just a bit  further. We walk on, peering around the volcanic structures, but again we see no birds.  

To keep myself hopeful, I find it worthwhile to climb on the rocks, peeking over their  crevices but only finding concealed crabs and wedged shells.  

At least I can collect shells. I can’t help myself. The greater beach itself is littered with ample  discus-shaped shells of every color you might find a cat— orange, white, gray, black, and every  mixture thereof. In order to collect them, I need to look up and down the beach constantly in  order to reside in the open part to make sure no 4x4 vehicles are going to come rampaging down  the beach at seventy-five miles an hour.  

I pocket so many shells that after an hour my gait has slowed to avoid them seeping out. My  guilty desire for each and every one of these shells reminds me of an analogy to a book from my  childhood. It was titled “millions and millions of cats”, and describes a man who goes into the  hills with the intention of adopting one cat, and for some reason there are millions out there in  the hills, all cute and meowing for him to take them home. He cannot possibly choose just one  cat, and slowly selects one, then one more, and then one more, until he has a dozen, two dozen . .  . half the hill of cats coming home with him. Clearly the author of this book was inspired by  something more believable . . . Perhaps he was a shell fanatic who found himself walking along  the beaches of Australia.  

My shells slow down my bird searching abilities until I rejoin Cassidy by the cliffs and the  volcanic rocks, and she shakes her head. “Well, we're not finding any birds, so you might as well 

take the bird-collecting satchel I brought, and fill it with shells. But if we find birds, I may have  to lop them on top . . .” 

“Fair enough.” I say as she hands it to me. In one motion, I empty my pockets into the  spacious bag and we keep walking. Every so often a pickup truck thunders by spewing sand with  its powerful tires. We hear them coming a long ways away, so the fear of being brutally  annihilated stays reassured in the back of my mind. 

At some point, a thundering engine behind causes me to jump, and I turn to see a massive  offloading vehicle like a hummer with hacked up tires racing up the road, and coming awfully  close to us, zooming and swirling my way, causing me to jump out of my skin and duck, rushing  behind some black uneven rocks for some sort of measly barrier. It was the only protection  around. The hummer sped closer, and then suddenly to my shock came to a halt a few feet away  from me. I was about to shout at them to watch out and be more careful, when the black tinted  windows rolled down, revealing a round-cheeked man driving, wife and children leaning over  for a better look.  

“Hey! Ya’ll okay there? Ya’ll want a ride? It’s dangerous out here, why are you on foot?!”  They gape at us as if we are insane. 

Their concerns about our sanity are not remedied when we tell them we are out here to search  for dead Birds. Ah the life of a field biologist.  

“Suit yourselves,” they say as they pull away.  

Minutes turn to hours as our hopeful curiosity pushes us “just a few minutes further” into the  unwelcoming wilds. Eventually, bird bags full of shells, and not a single bird to be found, we  turn to each other and decide to give up our search and head back. 

The whole walk was like a funhouse, full of mirrors and confusingly little for landmarks.  That combined with frequent stopping to search, it’s unclear if we have gone one mile or ten.  We look around but can’t figure out where we are, it all looks the same. We continue  walking. After a while it feels like we’ve been walking for ages. My heart begins to beat faster  and my legs start to ache. I’m not sure how much more of this we have to go. What did we get  ourselves into here?  

Finally, just before I start to panic, the bushes open to reveal a footpath. I blink at it. Is this  where we started? I heave up the narrow-paved surface to find our old white car! What a relief, I  sigh thankfully.  

Cassidy follows behind, hands on her hips, says, “Well, now that the car is found and we’ve  replaced our birds with shells, we might as well fill up the bags.”  

I sigh, tired, but secure in our location now. “Why not” I shrug. 

We romp back down the driveway leading onto sand to do a last-minute scour while the late  afternoon sun shines on the slippery flat tide, creating an enormous uninterrupted mirror of the  area. Dogs run freely as this area is just past the ramp, which is the start of the highway. 

When we get back in the car again, Cassidy sighs. “Well, I’m disappointed we didn’t find any  birds, but luckily there is still that trunkful to pick up, and we had fun trying ourselves in the  meantime.”  

“Yeah!” I confirm, happily stuffing heavy bags of shells into the car, not altogether  disappointed that its contents aren’t birds this time.