I arrived at Bingie Bingie Point carrying the usual baggage. Not the kind that fits in the boot of a car.
The other kind.

Worries. Half-finished thoughts. Old ghosts rattling around in my head like loose stones.

The wind came at me hard from the Pacific, scrubbing the skin clean. Four kilometres of empty beach stretched south towards Coila Lake, wild and unsupervised. No flags. No lifeguards. No promises. Just surf detonating against the shore and currents strong enough to remind you that the sea has never once considered your feelings.

I walked.

Granite pushed out of the earth at Mullimburra Point.

Four hundred million years of weather, tide and stubbornness. Black basalt lay scattered among the pale stone like burnt stars. The lichen-dusted rocks looked as though giants had abandoned a game halfway through and wandered off into the sea.

Somewhere along the track, I began seeing him.

Don Quixote.

Not the skinny knight from the paintings.

This one rode a horse made of sea mist. His armour was hammered together from driftwood and moonlight. He charged at sea-dragons that weren't there, lowering his lance towards spinning columns of salt spray. Every time a wave exploded against the rocks, he took it for a giant and galloped straight into the foam.

Was I imagining him, or had the coastline loosened a few bolts in my head?

Either way, he seemed to belong.

Maybe that’s all there was.

Most of us spend our lives charging at things that aren't really there. Old conversations. Future disasters. Regrets that have long since stopped caring about us.

We lower the lance and ride anyway.

Beneath the dunes lay ancient shell middens and stone-working grounds, traces of people who knew this coastline long before maps and fences. Their stories still moved through the tea trees. The wind carried them inland. The sea carried them out.

Quixote kept riding.

The granite had its own philosophy.

Stand your ground.

The ocean had another.

Keep moving.

I had spent too long doing neither.

I sat on the headland as afternoon light spilled across the rocks. The sea turned silver. The wind softened. Quixote turned his horse toward the horizon and did not look back. Horse and rider thinned into spray and distance, the way things do when you stop holding onto them.

The beach remained exactly as it had been before I arrived.

The granite stayed put.

The ocean kept rolling in.

For the first time in a long while, I stopped chasing things that weren't there.

I headed back up the track carrying less than I brought.