I look across the water to the headland and see the little shade huts, not as humpies but as places strange, places that don't exist in Australia. I see the banca boats as if for the first time even though I have known them for over 30 years. I cross the end of the runway and am amazed at the little goats following their mothers. I walk past the junk yard and delight in the smile and the wave of a 2-year old girl with her mother who encourages her to say hello.

And the runway workers who wave and say hello whenever they pass. And the guard who sits in a lookout near the end of the runway and who always waves and calls “hello” and asks if I am going to Bali Hai.

Whenever I take a tricycle or a jeepney there is always something I see that touches my little child - it could be a sign, a chicken, a child, a bamboo fence, a shack - there's almost nothing that doesn't awaken the child within me.

It is like being born again and growing up again, always with new things to plan and to look at. Right now I'm sitting in Sunset Bay Resort looking at the headland. I know that beyond that headland is the bay where I, along with my sons David and Gwam, arrived in the yacht Apocalypse back in 1985. And I know the red lights on the headland will flash all night tonight. And I know I love those lights as I love the sound of the waves I hear now.

 

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