California Beaches

You know those smells? Those powerful and magical smells from a distant memory that lash your nostrils, fill you with nostalgia and slap you back through time to the moment when you first smelt them?

A personal example for me would be the textas we used in primary school, especially the brown ones smelt like a cross between chocolate and strawberries. It was the most prized possession in the classroom just in front of a good feed on clag glue. Even now when I get a whiff of that exotic goodness I’m right back at Blakebrook Primary School.

Back to the present day, I was at Huntington Beach in California when I walked past a couple of older blokes waxing up their surf boards. As soon as that delightful coconut wax scent wafted over and hit my nose I was immediately transported back in my mind to summers surfing in Australia and away from these red eyed, dollar grabbing, hyperactive Americans.

Summer in Australia is ice cream melting down your hand, coconut sun lotion scented burgers, salty chips and sandy feet. Squadrons of sunburnt groms on skateboards getting in the way and surfing with bluebottles in small whitewater takeoffs on nor’east swells. Summer is when ice cold beer tastes impossibly good on sunburnt lips and the lazy sun sets so late it feels like the day was a week long.

I miss summertime.