Five Beaches

As I sit here, shivering in the depths of a Southern Hemisphere winter, the call comes out from Gather Travel: I read of temperatures in the nineties and of dreams of summer days at the beach, and naturally I think "Are you (expletive deleted) kidding me?"
However I thought I'd give it a go, and what resulted was not so much a Dumb Tourist travel guide as a recollection of beaches I have visited and why I remember them. Self-absorbed blather probably, and not what Team Gather had in mind, but hey, at least the pictures are pretty, and it kept my fingers warm as they tapped away on the keyboard.

Long Bay, Auckland, New Zealand
Auckland is spoiled for choice when it comes to beaches, and Long Bay is the northernmost public beach on suburban North Shore. It is a long stretch of grey-white sand on the calm water of the Hauraki Gulf, and is perfect for children and young families. The adjacent park, with the playground, the public barbeques, the restaurant and - in summer - the miniature railway, is as much an attraction as the beach itself.
A regular Saturday trip for us every summer, it is the backdrop to my earliest memory of selfish stupidity; my first, but by no means last, moment of Simpsonesque duh-oh. My dad had given me some coins to buy an ice block, all by myself. The lunch bar was halfway down the beach from where we were - they don't call it Long Bay for nothing - and it seemed miles away for a six-year old boy. I stood in the queue, making sure not to get pushed aside by the bigger kids, and looked at the board to find the biggest, bestest one I could get for the money. It was an absolute monster, but no match for my appetite. I was licking my fingers clean by the time I got back to the picnic mat.
"Where's your brother's one?" mum asked.
"What do you mean?"
Apparently, I was supposed to buy two. My brother looked at me, then at mum and dad. There was a long moment where I could see him calculating his next move. Don't do it. I silently urged. You know that they'll get you one anyway. Just don't start crying.
Fat chance.
 I guess I couldn't blame him. If it had been me I would've milked it for all it was worth. So he got the sympathy and an even bigger ice block, and I got to look like the nasty older brother for the rest of the day.

Many years later, I discovered my wife also knew Long Bay well. Her family would have picnicked there at pretty much the same time as mine, albeit at the opposite end. These days we set up at the southern end, not too far from the rows of charter buses ferrying church groups and extended families for day trips, where the adults barbeque and gossip and set out food on long benches, and watch the kids play touch rugby and kilikiti.
I hear the same discussions from my boyhood, about where to put the mats and the umbrella, when to open the chilly bin, who's making up the sandwiches and who has the rubbish bag. And I watch my nephews engage in the same headlong shouting run for the water as I did when I was their age.
Some things will never change.

Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy
Viareggio has a long association with the sea. The town apparently dates back to the sixteenth century and has been a bathing resort since the 1820s. It offers the usual rich Italian mix of history, architecture, food and wine, with the bonus of a lovely day at the beach.

You could have fooled me.

It was late 1998 and my Darling Beloved had spent the last eight months in Europe on her OE. I had flown out to join her for peek at Italy before we returned home. After a week or two in Rome and Florence we had a hankering for the Italian Riviera, however we aimed a little too far south and ended up here.

That it has spent nearly two centuries as a resort town is obvious; the place comes across as rather fussy and overdeveloped, one faded attraction after another, more Blackpool than Monaco. Viareggio is still a popular place for holidaying Italians however when we arrived it must have been towards the end of the season, as the streets seemed rather empty and forlorn.

It took me a little while to realise where the beach even was: every metre of boardwalk was walled off by concessionaires, and access was by turnstile and payment. When you did make it to the sand, what you got for your money was use of one of the tightly-packed and regimented lines of sun umbrellas and the opportunity to pay concession-stand prices for your food and drink. By law the five metres of sand above the high tide mark is open for public use, but good luck getting to it. For somebody used to free and open beaches it was a little disconcerting, but the locals didn't seem to mind.

 Having said that, the food and drink was okay, and I appreciated the Italian women and their bikinis, at least until my Darling Beloved caught me. I got some much needed sun - yes, I have photos of my sad paleness and no, I will not post them - and we got to paddle in the water.

However I somehow don't think Viareggio will be first choice for my next Mediterranean jaunt.

Sheraton Perdana, Kuah, Langkawi, Malaysia
Langkawi is a beautiful island and a place I would thoroughly recommend, but the beach I am remembering for this article is not a tourist attraction by any means. It doesn't even have a name as far as I can tell. Kuah is Langkawi's main town and a centre of local government and commerce rather than a tourist idyll. However my fiance and I weren't there for sightseeing; we had eloped to Langkawi, and the Sheraton Perdana just outside of Kuah was where we got married. 

 The beach in front of the hotel was pretty nondescript; a narrow strip of grey sand and seashells, and was rarely used. But it was a perfect backdrop for our wedding photos and, believe me, when you're sitting in the hotel bar at sunset enjoying the evening with newfound friends and wellwishers, and still getting used to the fact that the laughing woman next to you is now (gulp) your wife and you look out over that narrow beach to the islands in the harbour just as the sun goes down... well, you're going to remember it for a long, long time.

Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia
 Now this is a beach...

The beach at Seminyak is merely the western and more refined end of a whole that stretches along the central south coast of Bali, past the oceanfront hotels of Legian, to backpacker party central Kuta and Tuban, and down to the beachfront seafood restaurants of Jimbaran Bay. It is open to the ocean and the surf has pushed the overabundance of fine, blonde sand into drifts along the high tide mark. This makes for difficult walking but excellent lounging especially if, like me, you find yourself there at sunset, after a huge meal and copious amounts of Bintang beer. During the day it is host to tourists both from the adjacent hotels and from everywhere else - none of Viareggio?s precious concessioneering here - and to locals selling anything from massages to drinks to chilled fruit and snacks. If you were only allowed to sleep on the beach (you're not) you could spend your entire vacation on the sand and go home feeling like you haven't missed a thing. Bliss.

Bethells Beach, Waitakere City, New Zealand
There is nothing else quite like Auckland's West Coast, and there are plenty of places to appreciate it: Whatipu, Karekare, Piha, Anawhata, Bethells, and Muriwai are black-sand surf beaches all, and their dirty grey colour comes from the swathes of cobalt blue ironsand mixed in with the regular stuff. They are all separated from the city by the regional park that is the Waitakere Ranges, which means they have lost none of their rough nature to development and, no matter how full the carparks appear they are never crowded, which suits me just fine.
 Bethells is one of the few Enzed beaches I'd happily spend time at all year round. In fact I prefer it in winter. I have waxed lyrical about this place before, and I have little to add except that there is nothing quite like the feeling of being there, when the clouds have closed in and everything turns to greyscale and the breakers layer over each other and range in colour from gunmetal to silver and the wind off the sea whips sand into your face, and your only companion is a thermos of coffee and you could be the only person in the world...

I'm sure many Gatherers have a similar sort of place to feed their inspiration. Well, Bethells is mine, so if you happen to be there one winter's day and you see a lonely-looking dude sitting on the dunes with a thermos of coffee, a camera and a writing pad, don't try to make conversation.

I bite.