Dorje and I recently bought a kite. He was a little shy of the kite man, and all the strange flapping paraphernalia, but eventually chose one that looked like a bat.

OK, a large, bright, multi-coloured bat, but still a bat.

After a few near misses with the trees in Observatory, a few weeks ago we decided to take it out to wild open spaces of Noordhoek beach.

I wanted to walk to the wreck from the Noordhoek side, forgetting how far this is, especially for a 5-year old.

The beach is quite different from when I was a regular living near there. The lagoon has shifted to the south, so we spent much of the walk wading through the warm water. Then there was a large river crossing the beach, courtesy perhaps of all the Port Jackson clearing that’s been going on. With some convincing, we managed to cross the torrential stream.

The shoreline was also covered in bluebottles, but luckily, on the vast expanses of Noordhoek beach, there was more than enough sand to spare.

Finally we made it.

The sand around the wreck, being quite close to the sea, was also covered in bluebottles, which interfered with our treasure hunt. There were ample washed up plastic boxes which looked like they could contain treasure, but sadly, none of them did.

I was worried about getting back, as Dorje was already tired from the long walk, but, with the bat chasing us all the way, we made it back in no time.

A few weeks later, we headed out again with Kirsti and Jemima and their kite. By this time, Dorje had managed to get the kite string so tangled that the weakened bat could only lift itself about 6 metres off the ground