By Laura Brearley
 
TWO months ago, we installed the Coastal Connections Exhibition at the Wonthaggi Library. It features creative writing, images and messages from community members about the importance of our special blue and green places.

​Last week, the Exhibition was split into three parts, which are now on display at the West Gippsland Library Branches of Inverloch, Phillip Island and Wonthaggi.
 
Visitors to the Coastal Connections Exhibition are being invited to participate and share their own special places in the natural world. Their creative contributions are revealing the joy that we experience when we spend time in the natural world.  Here are some special places described by library visitors.
 
Daisy loves swimming in rockpools and Ipshita loves having adventures at Kilcunda Beach. ​

By Karen Bateman

Sometimes I run. Late afternoon, leaf scrim on the high tide, thunderclouds to the east. My feet skirt rain sludge, dance around the sand curve, thud on the boardwalk. To my left, it’s intertidal. Mudflats and mangroves, ground pockmarked by soldier crabs, shorebirds screaming. To my right, sea rush and coastal scrub. Breathe puffs of cloud. Attention snags on a web – its four corners suspended in the crook of a tree. Something twitches in the saltbush. Cast my mind to catch history. The Bunurong people, resource rich from the creek, eels, shellfish, bird eggs. Cross the footbridge. Wait for my breath to catch up. Consider the light skirting the tussocks, the gathering clouds, the winter hush.
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Beneath me, the creek. Ribboning through the muddy paddocks, widening at the melaleuca, the paperbark thickets, its measured approach, wider as it greets the mouth, slowly, patiently, making its way back to the ocean.

By Lauren Burns

Guillotined by lockdown, I am deeply grateful for the sanity of long walks off my doorstep in Inverloch where I can find refuge in nature. The far horizons of the ocean offer a vista of space for my mind to expand into.

Between the surf beach and inlet, the Ayr creek bridge overlooks a lagoon set into ancient coastal dunes. Herons line the shore, gazing intently into the water as cormorants dive for fish and swans graze the sea grass. At dawn and dusk the reflected colours on the lagoon’s still waters never fail to imbue me with a sense of calm.

By Helen Thompson

“I just can’t believe we don’t have to get up and pack up to go home”, I’ve said those words nearly every day since we moved to Phillip Island in January of 2016 after my husband took early retirement. Living here has taught us that caring communities still exist in this world; we live in a community that extends the hand of friendship reminiscent of a bygone era.

One example – Anderson Road Boat Ramp – a mix of Lygon street style coffee, a stroll on the beach toward Red Rocks. Soft clean sand, full of the many wonders issued by the sea, rock pools with hidden treasures to explore, the conservation of plant and animal life on the shore line evident in its abundance.

Every day I wake up and can’t quite believe I get to live here full time and enjoy all the wonders that Bass Coast has to offer.

By Ajanta Judd

Scrunching through coarse sand on a morning dense with fog, there is no separation between ocean and sky. Thick dank air mixes with salt spray as a lone surfer emerges then recedes into the eeriness.
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We ascend the steep staircase twisting through tangles of New Zealand spinach. Sounds of laboured breathing pierce the silence. On the last landing, we pause and stare out to sea. Native grasses and gnarled Moonah trees line the steep track. We encounter feeding wallabies who look up inquisitively.
 
As we alight the summit of this ancient rugged cape, we drink in the magnificence. The headland is covered in mist that drifts toward the cliff edge. It merges with low-lying clouds where they meet the stunning granite bluffs. Pacific gulls launch off the rock face and cavort in midair, relishing their freedom. In this moment, separated from everyday reality, we are standing on the precipice of existence.

By Andrea Kemp

The water is still, only at slack tide.
 
The lunar pull creates the tides that are either moving water out to Bass Strait or into Westernport, creating the sandbars and exposing the mudflats. The pylons, buried deep, provide a place where boats can tie-up, a promenade and a fishing platform that is seasonally painted by the squid’s last line of defence - abstract ink.
 
During summer months this is where locals earn rites of passage, testing their swimming skills, initially in the shallows but eventually in the ripping tide. Never a silent activity, there is goading, laughter, shrill squeals, amplified conversations as participants are jumping from one end of the jetty and being swept to the opposite end. Speed and direction are tide dependent. The final climb up a barnacle encrusted ladder marks the end of the ride and the swimmers often return to the loop!

By John Adam

Cliff tops glow in morning light
Moon birds take their early flight
All is balanced, all is right
 
Janet serenades the shore
Gannets dive and seagulls soar
While wavelets weep and breakers roar

By Helen Thompson
 
I love this Bass Coast Country
A land of lush green pastures,
And golden sands on beaches,
Beauty right out of a tourist brochure
Unexpected benefits, a world full of bounty
 
So very many choices to be made
Where to eat, drink coffee or just be, T
he wildlife is in abundance and free,
If your need is for peace it’s here
But there’s options to have others near
 
To live here is a privilege one not to mar,
One to be appreciated every day
An absolute wonderous place to play
Shhhh Lets keep it a secret, don’t spread our  knowledge too far
 
I know its selfish, but honestly, we need to keep this as somewhere that people can come in the full knowledge that their soul and happiness can hit reset. There are not many places like it left anymore but this is certainly one.