I like hanging out in an area that has its own lighthouse. Aireys Inlet is uncommonly beautiful, and the broad shore beneath its cliffs seems blue and oily at dusk. There’s a little croaking marsh full of frogs and birds, too.
I was in Aireys for its Festival of Words. God love a festival where you can buy lemon slice as a snack. Shane Maloney showed a suitable deprecation of his role as keynote speaker. Did you know that he was once a PR manager for the Boy Scouts? Yes, he had a uniform. He was well received by the crowd during his reading from Something Fishy, one of his Murray Whelan books. They clucked delightedly at his description of a holiday house in Lorne, from the drive down the Great Ocean Road to the half-read Peter Carey novels.
I wish I had some pictures, but Meanjin does, and Sophie Cunningham has written a bit on the surprising capacity smaller festivals have to sell books.
