Over a year ago now, Parangtritis rounded off a birthday outing to Kota Gede and Imogiri. This was part of our two-and-a-bit-week trip to Indonesia-via-Singapore while we were still living in Malaysia. We got to Parangtritis by private mini-van. It was a Sunday, and therefore busy. (I have since used this beach photo many times to illustrate social, rather than strictly legal, restraint. It's so different, clearly, from a photo of people on a beach in New Zealand or Australia.)

Yesterday's trip was a complete contrast. It was another excursion organized by ViaVia. The fourth I've done with them over the years, and they've all been good. I've done trips with other operators here, and they've all been OK, but ViaVia definitely comes out on top.

We were due to set off from their cafe/shop at 3 pm. And, of course, you have to get there in plenty of time. You don't want to be late, right? So you get there with an hour or more to spare, and put that time to good use by having coffee and cake (in my case, white chocolate and strawberry cheesecake).

At 3 pm, with a diminutive guide and a just-arrived-at-2am Belgian tourist, we set off by public bus towards Parangtritis. Once over the river, you alight, and strike off on foot. East, up over the hills, quite steeply at times. This winding, hilly road used to be very popular with picnickers. No longer, it seems. The warung is shut (though it looks as though some enterprising soul might be aiming to try again a bit further along the road). This is now mostly the haunt of courting couples, apparently. But our walk was a bit early for that.

Great views over the rice-fields and the big, lazy river. It's extraordinary how you can't see Yogya at all... It kind of blends into the land. Looking up, there's impressive karst. Looking down, the curling white foam of the sea seems fixed -- like you'd make it on a railway model. But you can hear its permanent, living onslaught as soon as you get over the brow of the hill.

At one good view-spot, with the sun heading for bed, we stopped for fruit cocktails. Very civilized.

Down steeply, in rapidly dwindling light. Down through Parangtritis's famous losmen belt. Down to the dark, dark beach. Very quiet on a Thursday night. Black sky, blacker hills, black sand. A few lights mark the way we've just come. A few stars are adrift in the sky. That everlasting line of froth marks the beginning of the ocean. The wind is cool and strong. We labour across this blackness till we get to a little rumah makan sheltered in the dunes. Here we eat seafood.

Then we ride splendidly back to Viavia in a bus that's just for us. We pick up Rufus, and bike home.

Good trip.