I want to go to the beach and not see a crash

Quite a few trips to the beach end up with me being dumped in the surf. On the odd occasion, it hurts a bit, but most times it just involves getting tossed around like being inside an enormous washing machine on spin cycle.

For some unknown reason, seeing smashed cars on the way to the beach soon after dawn puts me off my swim. I think it triggers some fear of hitting a rock whilst getting thrown around in the surf.

Why is it then that I can’t drive to the beach without having to detour around a couple of idiots that have driven into each other?

On Saturday morning, it was two goons at an intersection on Bondi Road – not more than 150 yards from where I used to live. Someone must have run the red, as one car had been nicely t-boned by the other. Thankfully, only one lane was blocked, traffic was light and I was barely delayed for my swim.

My swim didn’t go for long either – there was an idiotic chop about 6 inches in height coming across the bay, and it drove me nuts. I don’t mind swimming across a large swell – you simply go up and down in slow motion. Chop is terrible – it hits you every few seconds and this one was coming at an angle of about 30 degrees. Front on is ok From one side is ok. From 30 degrees is horrible. I don’t think I swam for more than 5 minutes.

I promised myself to do more on Sunday morning, but alas, my journey was lengthened incredibly by some idiots that had crashed on the City West Link. Now the Link road is practically a freeway at that point and somehow, some goose had crashed badly enough to block traffic in both directions, and require 4 or 5 fire trucks, several ambulances and every cop in the inner west to attend. There were so many flashing lights, it looked like a Die Hard movie. Or the Blues Brothers. The only option was to chuck a U-turn over the curb and head back the way I came and then find another route to the beach. Thank goodness for the Disco and huge ground clearance. Any dickhead in a WRX that came round that bend behind me would be stuck, unable to get the front spoiler over the kerb.

Ha ha ha.

On the way home later that morning, I passed the scene and noticed a few patches of sand – oil or fuel spills I guess. There were no skid marks. I’m assuming some idiot in a blue Subaru WRX (which I saw parked across a few lanes) had been hooning home, lost it on the corner, hit the curb (which is quite tall at that point) and the rest is history. How they came to require so many fire appliances and ambulances is beyond me - unless he ploughed into a busload of grannies on their way to church.

The beach was not much good on Sunday – no chop, but a million blue bottles. I didn’t notice them until it was too late. No swimming, much stinging, but hopefully one less idiot on the road to get in my way next weekend.

Reminder to self - look at the tide mark when getting in the water and check for bluebottles that have washed up. When I got out of the water, there were about a million of them washed up. Somehow, I had walked right through the middle of them without noticing them or treading on any.