Your world turned upside down: motoring in Gippsland.

GIPPSLAND TRIP

WE climbed into the car and headed south-east, the four of us just last week. I drove, frustrated at times on the journey to one of our favourite haunts, Gippsland. Frustrated because I was outvoted and had to listen to the strident voice of Adele for much of the way. She’s bitter, it seems, over broken relationships.

Still, it didn’t take as long as I expected. Wilson’s Promontory- specifically, Squeaky Beach. M has always wanted to go there, often asking if it really squeaks. We snacked at Fish Creek (Alison Lester, author, has a bookshop there). The weather was ripe for our swim. We followed some German travellers to the shoreline. They spoke of crocodiles. I told them the story of the bright red fingernails found in a crocodile’s belly several years ago in the NT.

We stripped off. Children straight in. Me, holding back like I seem to do more and more these days. Is it my sight? Some newly formed trepidation. The water, up to my thighs, was incredible though. S wanted to go deeper and deeper. She watched the ‘boogie boards’. Her mind ticked over. M was in shallower water. They both sat down at times, making the waves rise to impact their body, and make the waves feel bigger than they were.

I looked over my shoulder and took in the lovely, large boulders and distant mountains. It occurred to me that this must be one of the world’s great beaches. Perfect crystalline white sand. Translucent, sheer, silken water. Tiny dark fishes. Sans seaweed and sharp shells.

I walked over to the marble-like rocks and stood between some, in the deep little watery gullies that they formed. I met a boy that told me there were giant crabs underneath. A man with an impressive-looking camera was taking portraits of his girls adjacent to the rocks. In some shots the thin horizon was behind them, and then he turned them around, and had the mountains as a backdrop, in the opposite direction.

I focused on the smooth, rocky ground and the magnificent boulders. Marvelling at the colours, I called M over, and to my delight she also found them fascinating. The rocky bed beneath our feet was predominately gold. The sides of some of the rocks were a reddish rust-brown in colour. M and I talked about where we had seen that colour before.  We couldn’t, however, remember. Was it on a horse?

S came over to see what the fuss was about and posed for pictures. We began to leave, reluctantly. I thought about other great sea adventures of my own. Cornwall, UK, 1987. After a long journey by train from London, I arrived in the late afternoon at Bodmin Station. There was barely anybody there. It was a Sunday and a camp leader allowed me to return with him to a nearby camp consisting of young adults. The alternative was to be stuck at the station until the morning, and sleep there. I shared a lovely evening with them, and then the same man drove me to Wadebridge in the morning so I could connect with a bus heading west to see my friends who had organized a little yellow cottage called ‘Wave’s End’ at Port Isaac.

I arrived, at around dusk, in an exalted mood, buoyed by my camp experience and fellow kindness, and the sheer beauty and expectation of being in Cornwall. A short distance from our cottage was the bay and shoreline of Port Isaac. A heavy anchor lies beside the water. You can see it in the original series of Poldark, and apparently in the current show called Doc Martin.

This must be what paradise is like.

One night- it must have been the first night- or hang on, I think it was the second- it was by moonlight, just after the period we call dusk. We were there in winter, January 1987. It was pretty cold, especially by Australian standards, which is of course what I was used to. The adrenaline flowed as I stepped outside the door, and I ran the 400 or so metres down to the inlet madly and exalted. I stared out at the calm, black water, and the dark green mountains surrounding I, and felt the crashing winds.  I thought of my childhood dreams which were all centred around Cornwall. Books, mythology, adventure, smuggling. I could scarce believe where I was standing. The old, ancient and rusted anchor on my left, I thought about the centuries lived in that very spot. The majesty of the scene made me blink back tears. Not long afterwards, I wrote a postcard to my English aunt in Melbourne, and told her, with absolute sincerity, that Port Isaac was the most magical and beautiful place I had ever visited.

I thought about all this as I looked at the mountains and smooth rocks of Squeaky Beach, Victoria. The crystal clear water, yellow pristine sand. Beware of the power of moods. It was the night time and coldness and wildness and ruggedness that made me love Cornwall. But in a different mood, and at a different time, I could see that Squeaky beach could be the most magnificent place on Earth as well.

We left, reluctantly, all four of us, and headed off to east Leongatha- our home for the next two nights- Walnut Farm Cottage. Lovely gardens filled with avocado trees, five gaggling geese, and a run down but adequate tennis court.

Next day, the dawn was a brilliant fiery red.

Somewhere in Gippsland there lives a man who ‘owns’ about 60-70 dogs. He sells them not too long after they are born, sometimes for several thousand dollars. They are housed in concrete runs and bark excitedly when you put your fingers through the metal grate. He has one small pup with an unusual blue tinge in its fur. He says there is something rare about it, and that he might get a bit more for it.

The dogs are all associated with poodles. The letters ‘…oodle’ are all in their breed. A man with 60-70 dogs, the number increasing by the day. A man with about 60-70 dogs. All ‘oodles’. You could say there are ‘oodles’ of them. He has 60-70 dogs. He sells them when they have grown up a bit. They are being born every day. The poodle influence is everywhere. He has 60-70 dogs, which he regularly sells as new ones are born. You can see the poodle influence in them. And the cavalier… dogs everywhere held up for inspection for potential buyers. He has at any one time 60-70 dogs, and this number might grow. The dogs have soft fur and kind clear eyes. There are a good number of them. For sale.

At the pub near Foster. A young girl is dressed up as the main character from the film ‘Frozen’. Families are inside sitting at tables waiting for meals. They are mostly over 65, 70, probably retired. I don’t like this pub much. There are more people outside. They look like they haven’t a care in the world. A much younger crowd, drinking and smoking, and swearing. For someone from Melbourne’s suburbs it’s a different experience. They are probably nice people. There is just something about their casualness and indifference to everything which is slightly repugnant. Difficult to put your finger on. I’m thinking of farms and cattle and utes with kelpies in the back. I don’t know if I am ready for this lifestyle, but at the same time I don’t like the city much. I am in no man’s land. Everything seems wrong, somehow.

The meal comes. It is supposed to be pork medallions. It might be pork, ugly and hard and burnt as it is. And flavourless. But it certainly ain’t medallions. They are supposed to be round. The waitress comes, and I am alert and expectant. But she doesn’t ask the customary ‘how was your meal?’ She must think better of it.

Inverloch is nice, on a barely bearable hot day. How lucky we are to find that park. How skilful we are at getting in our bathers either inside or beside the car. The waves are inviting and cool. But I had that scare years ago. I don’t go far in. Still, it’s beautiful. S and I stay in for eternity. Magnetised. The sky and the horizon are worlds away. We are just little dots in an expansive ocean, boogie boards flying harmlessly around us. Will we ever feel ready to get out of the water. I have had this feeling on other trips, wanting time to stand still. Bobbing and drifting like we are self-contained little boats.

Cars fly by in the traffic on the way home. In the heat of the car, our bathers slowly dry. It’s my turn for music and I listen to live Van Morrison. He is covering an old song by Sam Cooke and the charm of the words make me smile:

‘Eyes turned away, I know
And music soft and slow
With someone you love so
That's where it's at.

Your world turned upside down
You're making not a sound
No one else around
That's where it's at.

Yeah, let me tell you
Your heart beatin' fast
You're knowin' that time will pass
But hopin' that it lasts
That's where it's at.’ 

The Regatta

HALF MOON BAY, 2017

WE arrived at Half Moon Bay at about 1:00 PM. The sun was at its peak then, the hottest part of the day. We were lucky to find a park, if you recall. There were those long, elongated car spots on our right. A number of them empty, I believe. I nearly took one, so desperate we were. Then we realised it was set aside for the cars towing the yachts. A regatta was going to begin later in the day. It would have been the height of rudeness to book it. An awful start to our little swimming in the bay adventure. Luckily, somebody was leaving behind a regular spot. We just had to be patient and zoom in when it became vacant.

We all walked down, then, to the little curved bay, the bay in a kind of half-moon shape, all four of us walking slowly, carrying things, beneath a weird, intense and vast blue, blue sky, and before the still waters and the soft yellowish sand. We placed all our things down in a little spot that had space around it, not far past the beginning of the swimming spots, only a hundred yards from the fish’n’chips stall, and fifty yards from the coloured bathing boxes.

You and M quickly abandoned all sense of family responsibility and wanted to wade into the inviting water. But we still had the tent to put up, the towels to lay out, the chair to position and the crucial sun- screen to apply. Ouch, how hot it was getting already. We had most of the tent organised. Next it was time to cup our hands and place sand alongside the pockets so the tent wouldn’t blow away. Not that there was much of a breeze. It just wasn’t my sort of day. The fact that it was windless, and hot, and the mucking about with the tent, and the crowds of people- all this conspired against me. But none of this was impacting you or your sister. Or your mother, for that matter. You all anticipated cool water and hot, hot, hot sun!

Nothing I could do could get me comfortable. You and M went out quite far and were really enjoying yourselves. I tried not to feel anxious. I could see the submarine wreck out past you, somebody climbing on it. I tried to get comfortable. My sore limbs wouldn’t allow it. Sitting up hurt my back, and lying down meant my long legs would stick out into the dangerously hot sun. I tried to read, and did a bit more of the crossword puzzle. I could only think about how comfortable it would be, to be at home on my cool bed and my soft, soft pillows. I knew I was being a ‘beach wimp’, but I couldn’t help it. By 1:30 I was ready to go. But you were having too much fun in the water with your sister, and then your mother was venturing in, too. I hated it, but conversely I enjoyed the fact that you didn’t.

Many years ago, the 1920’s, in the world of fiction, two people talked about love on these very shores, overlooking the same wreck out in the water. The author Alex Miller explores the theme of growing love between a French engineer, Georges Elder, and a young Melbourne woman, Emily Stanton. They look out over the water, and, more meaningfully, into each other’s eyes, and upon each other’s skin. Her parents are also present, and the attraction is not lost upon them. These parents are probably thinking about their courting days. It is here that Emily has probably decided she will marry Georges, and go back to Paris with him, and begin, unbeknown to her, a dissatisfying life in the French capital.

I thought about these matters quietly, and then I began to have a good look around me. Most noticeable was the young woman in front of me right in my vision, about half way between me and the beginning of the water. She had a red bikini top with big, green bikini bottoms. The white tag was sticking out at the bottom of her back. Her hair was up and she wore sun glasses. She looked about 22 and under her glasses I could see she had wide, European eyes and a large, attractive mouth. Next to her on the adjacent towel was her little boy, no more than about three, wearing nappies under his little bathers. She had him mostly covered up by another towel, but his left arm and some of his naked chest was exposed. It reminded me of cooking a little lamb on the spit. Every now and then she applied a bit more sun screen to his body, so in places he was a slippery, milky white. He seemed to be asleep. She was dozing. Soaking up the hot rays and getting her copper-coloured body all bronzed. She had the phone in her hand at times, texting. Then taking a photo of her tired, little boy, shrivelling away in the sun like a prawn. I imagined her messages were then relayed to her husband, working somewhere like the Docklands, sweltering in the sun with a naked torso on top of some tall building adjacent to a crane.

I couldn’t get the woman and her little roasted boy out of my mind, and wondered if she knew what I was thinking. I wanted to share my fears with you, but you were still frolicking in the water, oblivious. I nearly said something to her. ‘Are you planning to cook him and eat him all up when you get home?’ Just then, an equally concerned person, a wiser, older mother, offered her an umbrella for shade, and the neglectful mother gladly took it. There was all ‘round relief.

Finally, all three of you came out, glistening, from the water. You and your sister played in the sand, thousands of little grains clinging to your still damp bodies. Your mother came back into the tent. I felt restless, and M, your sister, agreed to come for a walk along the water. We ventured as far as we could to the right, until we reached impenetrable rocks on the shore. We passed hundreds of people either in the water or laying at the mercy from the hot rays of the sun. Families, and lot of groups of friends, often all males or groups of four or five females. Different ages and different accents. It was difficult not to notice all that exposed skin. Some people wore the barest threads of clothing. It was like some sort of designer beach. You half expected a camera to be set up somewhere for photo shoots for Vogue or Cosmopolitan magazine.

M and I returned to find you quietly sitting beside your mother and letting sand sift through your cupped little fingers. I thought about the passing of life and had a visual update of the poor boy burning. Behind our tent a new group had gathered. Four of five young women lying on their stomachs, phones in hand, texting. I started wondering if there were any places where phones would be inappropriate, or probably more accurately, inconvenient or unsuitable. Perhaps the women wouldn’t take their phones into the water. I turned to ask you your thoughts, but you and M had already gone back into the water, just when I was going to make the suggestion that we might think about packing up and leaving.

The heat of the day became stronger. The population of sun worshippers began to grow larger. Another body appeared. Another woman. A blue one-piece bathing suit with white frills at the tops of the legs and around the neck. Broad, black sunglasses and black, glossy hair. She lay quickly, on her back, as the golden sun began to pour all over her warm body.

Many years ago, the 1920’s, in the world of fiction, Juliet lay, like this woman, feeling the soft air of the sea and feeling the sun penetrate into her bones and her thoughts, in Sicily, in the imagination of D H Lawrence. I thought about Juliet, and this woman, and wondered if she, like Juliet, was leading a dissatisfied life with a dull husband at home, dissolving unhappy thoughts through the rays of the blue, pulsing sun.

I couldn’t, even if I wanted to, share any of these thought with you as you still dripped with water,  twenty or thirty metres into the bay. You and M were both beginning to practise handstands. You did not want to come in any time soon. Still, I had had enough and told your mother I wanted to go. I had have enough of the wearying heat hours ago. There was something ugly and alien about the water to me and I refused to yield to it by getting uncomfortably wet, with millions of grains of sand sticking to my toes. The people all around me bothered me. The silly couple that emerged to my right that giggled and reminded me of Georges and Emily. Juliet next door whose large eyes were closed under her wide black sunglasses. The four women begin the tent still texting away and marvelling at images on their phone. The cruel woman in front of us in the red bikini top who lay adjacent to her scorched, immobile son. All the petty people along the shoreline where M and I had walked almost an hour ago, shifting their positions and lifting their legs and their thighs to become ever closer to the harsh, all empowering sun.

Finally, finally, you and your sister clambered onshore, and with the promise of a take away meal, agreed to help in the exhausting process of packing up. The tent was awful to put away. It just wouldn’t collapse on itself and fold the way it was meant to do. There was so much luggage to take back to the car. Our accessories seem to have grown. Your mother and I picked up most of the things. You managed your own personal possessions, your thongs trailing out of your right hand. You told me you were refreshed. I said I was hot, uncomfortable, and tired.

All four of us walked back towards the car park, past the bathing boxes and the fish ‘n’ shop. My eyes were mostly averted, downcast, the pavement hot under my bare feet. Then when I heard some shouts I looked up. The regatta was returning. About a hundred lovely boats with their little white sails being hauled up onto the land. Lots of bronzed men and women pulling ropes and lifting equipment. It was a lovely colourful thing to see. I looked over my shoulder to tell you about it, to see if you could see. The bay looked beautifully curved, more beautiful than I could remember. There were people milling around everyone, from all walks of life, eating chips, standing at the shore, resting their tired limbs on towels. Those lovely, lovely white boats with their beautiful fresh-looking little sails. A hive of activity, a real community, a busy path. What a glorious picture it would have been. A photograph as a snapshot of the Melbourne bay at the beginning of the year 2017. People, adults, families. Lovely kids, all engaging in peace and goodwill, the best of modern summer life.

We reached our vehicle, stored everything in the boot, and pulled away. I turned to look at your face and could see the beginnings of a soft, slow redness already.