We left Apollo Bay just as the influx of post-Christmas visitors arrived for the area’s peak holiday period. We had seen the town at its best – on warm, sunny days when the neighboring beaches were quiet and getting a dinner reservation was easy. The town is a good base from which to explore not just the shoreline but also some of the wonders inland. Don’t miss the lovely waterfalls (we went to Hopetoun Falls, a 40 minute drive from Apollo Bay, but there are several others) and Mait’s Rest, a spectacular boardwalk through ancient rain forest.

One attraction where it is impossible to avoid crowds is The Twelve Apostles, the spectacular limestone stacks near Port Campbell. Don’t be deterred. You’re very unlikely to be there alone, but nothing can take away from what has to be one of the most impressive pieces of coastline you will ever see. We assumed it would be quiet there on Christmas Day. We were wrong, but no matter. The Apostles are an unforgettable sight, as is London Bridge just a few miles away.

I recently spent a few days exploring part of The Great Ocean Road, basing myself first in Lorne and then in Apollo Bay. It has become in recent years one of the most popular destinations in Australia, and it’s not hard to understand why. The road hugs some of the most beautiful coastline one could ever hope to see, with wide, sandy beaches and water that attracts and challenges the world’s most accomplished surfers.

The road was built between 1919 and 1932 by some 3,000 soldiers returned from World War 1 and it is dedicated to those who died in that terrible conflict. I have heard it said that this makes it the world’s largest war memorial. Today, aside from the beauties of the coastline itself, the road is used as a starting-off point for exploring a large number of natural attractions, most notably The 12 Apostles, and by walkers, birdwatchers, and others keen to experience the extraordinary fauna and flora of the region. There are also plenty of restaurants, vineyards, breweries, and distilleries that showcase the region’s reputation as a gastronomic center.

Even when it is most busy, The Great Ocean Road is a spectacular place in which to spend a few days, a restful and gentle place in which to switch off and listen to the pounding waves and birdsong. Yes, it’s a road, but it’s a road that urges you to get out of your car, and walk, walk, walk …

It seems churlish to complain about Byron Bay. It is, after all, a place of extravagant natural beauty, famed for its lovely coastline and picture-perfect beaches. The town, which has a year-round population of some ten thousand people, seems to me to cope quite well with the huge demands made by the two million visitors who visit those beaches every year.

And yet. Growing popularity has meant for Byron Bay what it has meant for other places, the inevitable creep of gentrification and the uniformity that always accompanies it. Locals are quick to say that property prices have risen far beyond the means of everyone except wealthy outsiders. The downtown is dominated by overpriced clothing stores, restaurants, and coffee shops, and by far too many upscale, global brands. Stroll around the town on a day you’re feeling a little sour and it can seem like Australia’s equivalent of the horrible Hamptons. You may be repulsed by the hordes of the young and over-privileged at play. If so, and you want something a little less pampered, head a few miles north to Brunswick Heads. The coastline is just as beautiful, the downtown is small and quaint, and the hippies not as affluent.

If you choose your moment carefully, or if you are just lucky, it is possible to walk for miles along Birubi Beach and see only the occasional surfer or dog walker. A Monday afternoon in early December at low tide would be my recommendation to anyone hoping to have to themselves one of the most spectacular and beautiful beaches I have ever seen. Park your car near the historic cemetery, follow the path to the rocks, and with a little clambering effort you will come to a beach of unblemished sand that stretches for nearly twenty miles. The depth of the beach at low tide is extraordinary, as are the huge dunes of pale yellow sand along its edge. This is the ancient land of the Worimi people and it is a place of great cultural and spiritual significance for them. Leave it just as you found it. Perfect, immaculate, ineffably beautiful.

I never miss a new book by Colm Toibin. I had made a mental note to buy his latest when it was released in the US (January 2023), but I couldn’t resist it when I saw a paperback edition in the bookshop of The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney recently, even though the price of books in Australia seem to me to so high as to constitute a scandal (but that’s a subject for a different day).

A Guest at the Feast is a collection of essays, some more than 20 years old and many first published in The London Review of Books. It could be argued that the publisher is somewhat shamelessly capitalizing on Toibin’s popularity, but no matter. I don’t subscribe to the LRB, so all of the essays here were new to me, and in any case I’d probably buy anything by Toibin that any enterprising publisher chose to put out.

The range of subjects covered in these essays is, at first glance, wide; the abuses perpetrated by Catholic priests in Ireland, the political engagement of the present Pope when he was a priest and bishop in Argentina, the writing of Marilynne Robinson. But the more I read, the more certain themes seemed to recur, especially the intersections of private morality and public and political life. Toibin seems to me to be a writer with a sharp eye for hypocrisy and for the adjustments and accommodations we all make to justify our behavior. But alongside his acuity he is also compassionate and forgiving, and that might explain in some degree the power of his work.

My favorites among these essays were the ones most personal. His account of being treated for cancer is both touching and hilarious and everything he writes about growing up in Wexford is beautiful. But I think the essay on Francis Stuart, an Irish novelist infamous for making broadcasts from Nazi Germany during the war, will stay in my memory the longest, not only for its fascinating account of an extraordinary life but also for its nuanced consideration of the complexities of human behavior.

Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These was one of my favorite books last year. It was nominated for several awards and its success must have made it easy for Faber & Faber to decide to re-issue her earlier novella, Foster, which was first published back in 2010.

Scarcely eighty pages long, Foster tells the story of a young girl sent to stay with relatives on a farm in Ireland. She doesn’t know what to expect or when she will return home, but anxiety recedes when met by unfamiliar affection and kindness. Little or nothing happens by way of plot, but no one should be fooled by the surface simplicity of Foster. Something of real power and truth is found in its confines, and revelations of love, home, and family. It’s a perfect, tiny jewel.