Yarns Without Threads 

Sunnyside Beach, Mount Eliza. The road from the highway is a soft and sticky carpet, rolled out and down the mountain to the shore. There are cars parked under trees at the side of this road all the way down....

You meet a man with a red face returning to his car. He says what kind of day it is and you agree. It is a hot day and that's all it is. 'Savage,' he says. Then he tells a story of boats anchoring off the beach; of people in sailors' caps with dead eyes and the mouths of frogs. With binoculars and cameras they explore their fascination with the people on the shore.

You laugh at his story and walk on, to the bottom of the hill and across the car park. Down the steps from the car park and on to the sand, you find a volleyball net erected and, at this moment, neglected. You think, This must be it. It is not. Everybody here is wearing bathers.

You walk north along the sand, over the rocks and around an eroding point. And then you see them, a colony of two hundred, growing in clumps out of the sand: the nude, many the colour of seals. ...

The nude are still at this moment. No one plays Twister, no one frolics. Instead, they lie on their towels, under umbrellas and miniature pavilions. Mostly men today: pensioners with penises that drink the air as horses, broken at the neck, stretched and heavy in the head. Also, there are women: not many, a range of ages, with boyfriends or husbands. They don't say much; they just sit with their knees drawn to their chins and their hands clasped at the ankles, staring at things on the water that haven't happened yet.

Out in the shallows now, you meet a man with a scar ... He will not say his name. The nude lose their names with their underpants. But he tells you about getting a new valve in his heart and how he feels much better.

Then he says, as he's said it to others in the fraternity, as a Christian might recall the day he found Jesus, 'About four years ago I came down to this beach for a walk. I remember turning a corner and finding all these people in the nude. So I thought I'd give it a go. I just stripped off and walked around. It felt strange until I started talking to a woman who was very, very fat but had a lovely face. So I liked it. I brought my wife once. Paler than you. She has red hair. Didn't like it. We keep it quiet, that I do it. You know, from the kids.' The nude are happy to explain how they got started.