Another week away, down past Portland, at Jules' holiday house at Cape Bridgewater. Jules' family were old colonial pioneers down there until a two-generation application of bad business practices saw them lose their land to intruders from the West. But that's all water under the bridge, and both families - old owners and new - come down with associated aunties, cousins, friends and kids every summer and holiday amicably. Jules tells me he wants to be buried at Bridgewater, which is not something I've ever thought about, but it shows the ancestral meaning that the place holds for them. Jules' dad built a house down there in his early twenties, scavenging unwanted bluestone from old prisons and massive timbers from the railroads and the land from his brother, a tiny remnant of the mini farming empire. He did well - the house is startling. Flat to the ground, unobtrusive, the inside is dominated by sheet glass windows that stretch the entire length of the house, giving a view from coast to coast and the best sunsets in the world. He lived in a caravan for the two years it took, working as an abalone diver when licenses were cheap and we hadn't discovered the insatiable Asian desire for their flesh. Now, Jules and his friends harvest abalone on the side once a year, the midgets on the shoulders of giants, diving off the edge of the cape itself, perhaps five hundred metres from a seal colony. The seals are prime targets for sharks, and while I've thankfully only ever seen one in my fevered imagination, a five metre white pointer took the prop off the seal tour boat a few weeks before we arrived. Diving for abalone is a remarkable experience - modified to withstand attentive fish and the churning swells near rocky shores, the critters are solid muscle and you can rip their shell off before they'll let go. You duck dive off a bommie (rocky underwater outcrop), through four metre kelp strands and hang on to the base of the seaweed, scouring the area for weed encrusted shells. The swells roll through, swirling the kelp around you and it can be disorientating. Once, I was too ambitious and stayed down too long, trying to lever a particularly stubborn abalone off with an ab knife. Coming up fast, I was snared in a kelp net, the slippery brown strands wrapping around my arms and legs, keeping me from the surface. I panicked and struggled wildly, streams of bubbles trickling up to the surface, and the kelp relented.

The week was good, full of sun and surf and alcohol. The young un's form a separate party and live separate lives to the adults, thrashing utes around the fields, surfing, swimming, playing soccer on the beach. For the first time, we canoed out to the seal cave, just around the tip of the coast. Bridgewater has the biggest swells in Victoria, I think, and when we rounded the coast, the swell picked up. We wanted to get out of the water for lunch, so we tried to get alongside a rock platform. The first canoe aimed for a crevice and paddled hard on the crest of a large swell, lodging there as the water fled back. Inspired by the seeming ease of the feat, Willy and Jack (who had been drinking) decided to ditch the whole crevice boarding method and paddled full tilt at the platform, only to slide backwards and sideways and into the water as the wave retreated. The two clung to their submerged canoe with panicked expressions - scared of sharks and seals and the sea. The seal tour boat was watching us, tourists with video cameras and concerned expressions. While trying to help Wil and Jack in, Jules and I fell victim to another wave, so there were four of us being churned around with two sinking canoes. With a good deal of luck and grunt work, we got out, but it was terrifying, and probably stupid. But for all that, a hell of a lot of fun - the tour boat operator yelled, "we'll submit that to Funniest Home Video's," so stay tuned.

Two of the guys there had Japanese girlfriends, who were more than happy to brief me on Japan. I now know how to say cheers (kambai!) and that Tokyo and Osaka have a dysfunctional relationship similar to Melbourne's relationship to Sydney. I had a fascinating conversation with one of the girls, Satomi, who was a lot more lively and extroverted than I would have expected for such a gender segregated culture. She told me that she'd been at uni (but studying Home Economics, so you feel qualified to be a housewife) and worked for a while (as an office lackey - the glass ceiling is more like concrete in Japan) before becoming disillusioned with the whole deal and taking off alone to Australia and Asia. I was nodding along, expecting her to conclude that her taste of freedom made her want more, when she abruptly changed course. "But now that I have traveled, I am much more happy to be a housewife and raise a family," she said. Go figure.

I paid for my ticket today, so it's official. I am going to Japan, in a month from today. I've been waking up at the witching hour, 3 am, for the last week or so. 3 am is the time when thoughts that have the strength to permeate sleep force themselves upon me and pester me until I'm a wreck. Is this stupid? What if I don't get a job? What if I hate it? By day, optimism reasserts itself, but at night I'm easy prey. I made the decision to go when I was in a different frame of mind, a little down, a little over Melbourne, and now I'm in the upswing of summer but my ticket's still booked, any hint of a career is on hold and now I've got to go. God, I hope it's worth it.

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Oh, and what's with intelligent young women adopting ditzy personas? A couple of people I met down south were obviously highly intelligent but didn't act it at all. They even simpered on demand, when the occasion required. Perhaps they think they'll never get a guy if they seem more intelligent than him. Whatever it is, it's hugely unappealing. Please stop it.