Our special places

The Bass Coast Post will publish all submissions to the Coastal Connections project
​over the next 12 issues. 

Screw Creek footbridge. Photo: Kerri-Anne Pratt

By Dr Laura Brearley 
 
WE LIVE in a creative community. When a call went out for descriptive writing and images of our favourite places in Bass Coast, we received 36 pieces of descriptive writing, poetic text, photographs and paintings, all full of love for special places in nature.

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The words used to describe their special places are lyrical and eloquent. Emma Townshend loves the ‘shapes of the cracks in the cliff rocks’ at Cape Paterson and the whispered stories and secrets they hold. San Muller shares a love for Cape Paterson, writing in the form of song lyrics that it is a place where she ‘can dream, a secret place, lulled to sleep, by the ocean deep’. Dan Rosen loves the ‘tidal dance’ of Andersons Inlet and the way the Inlet ‘sparkles at night’ with ‘millions of phosphorescent reminders that rekindle the spark within’.

Cape Paterson by Emma Townshend

The Gurdies by Margaret Lee

Eagles Nest by John Mutsaers

Summerlands by Tricia Storr

Surf Beach by John Adam

Moorings Place by Lyndell Parker

Townsends Bluff by Jackie Moss

Rhyll by John Buttrose

Andersons Inlet by Vasy Petros

Shack Bay by J M Anderson

Wonthaggi cemetery by Malcolm Brodie

Townsends Bluff by Jackie Moss

Rhyll by Barney Myer

Cowes Beach by Helen Thompson

​Our community loves to walk in nature. Margaret Lee feels awe when she looks at the ‘delicate beauty’ of the wildflowers at the Gurdies Conservation Reserve. They ‘fill her soul’ and when her walk is over, she feels ‘refreshed, blessed and meditative’. On her walks at Cape Woolamai, Ajanta Judd evocatively describes ‘scrunching through coarse sand on a morning dense with fog’, when there is ‘no separation between ocean and sky’ and the ‘thick dank air mixes with salt spray.’ Gay Findlay describes her daily walk from Gentle Anne Corner as a meditation that she shares ‘with birds and the occasional dog walker or jogger’. She wonders ‘if the farmers, caterers, technicians, earthmovers and bikers notice that the acacia, melaleuca and birds are thriving’. Vasy Petros loves the ‘poetic solitude’ of ‘walking along the rugged Bunurong’ and also enjoys the ‘quilt of farm and rolling hills’ on ‘Killy’s rise to Inverloch’. Sally Lewer Ahern loves walking with her dog along the beach at Cleeland Bight and delights in his ‘zany unfettered joy’ of being in the ‘here and now’.
 
John Buttrose loves ‘the slow rhythm of the tide’ at Rhyll and the way it gently seeps and creeps over the sand until ‘the smaller boats tilt awkwardly on bare mud flats, and a narrow strip of sand shivers as the tiny crabs scuttle’. Helen Thompson enjoys the peace of the beaches near Cowes. ‘If your need is for peace, it’s here,’ she writes. There is also love for the quietness and constancy of the Waterline Coast. Suzanne Swift’s special place is Norsemens Beach at Coronet Bay with its ‘blue melting into blue, timeless yet everchanging’. It brings her ‘comfort and peace’ and is a source of ‘respite, retreat, renewal.’
 
There is a love for jetties too. From the Elizabeth Island Jetty, Anne Tillig and Jacek Mambort describe ... ‘nature’s gift’ of a rainbow which appeared ‘under a dark grey sky’ through ‘a burst of sun’, as if a door had been opened ‘to the other side’. Andrea Kemp enjoys watching the Summer rites of passage on the San Remo Jetty ‘in the shallows and … the ripping tide’ and Sally Conning loves the peacefulness of just ‘staring at the water’ at the Inverloch Pier.
 
The unique qualities of each season are also celebrated. Karen Bateman evokes the essence of Screw Creek in Winter, ‘Consider the light skirting the tussocks, the gathering clouds, the winter hush.’ Lyndal Chambers enjoys ‘sharing the secrets of the cold water start to the day’ with her hardy fellow swimmers at Inverloch, with ‘the sun glinting off the frosty seaweed’ and the feeling afterwards of being ‘cleansed, awake and energised’. After heavy rain, they ‘see the brown fresh water of the Tarwin flowing out to sea’.
 
Kevin Chambers loves the Eastern half of Western Port Bay and ‘its ever-changing moods of wind and tides’. Barney Meyer captures the beauty of the sunrise at Phillip Island with his panoramic photography. He loves the way the seasons reveal the changing phases of the ocean, sky and land. The moods of the changing seasons are captured by Edith Wilke who describes the Summer beach at Cowes with ‘its holiday makers, happy children and sunburnt adults’ but preferring it in Winter with ‘the soothing sound of gentle waves expiring on the sand, putting things into perspective.’
 
Our community has a love for places that hold memories of people and times now gone. Seamlessly, Catherine Watson interweaves her love of Harmers Haven with her memories of Bernadette, who shared her love of ‘the light that glances off the rocks’ and ‘the winter afternoons, when there is no horizon between the deep grey sea and the deep grey sky’. John Mutsaers recalls the joy his children experienced with the ‘waves lapping and swooshing’ at the magical playground of ‘Eagle Rock’. 
 
Malcolm Brodie feels a deep sense of connection at the Wonthaggi Cemetery. He remembers the ‘dry weeping at graves’ in the past and the sadness in the ‘sound boxes of the heart’. ‘The music is ours’ he writes.
 
There is a shared love of birds in the community. Patricia Storr loves watching ‘the Pacific Gulls that swoop and glide on the thermals’ off Summerlands, ‘the Peregrine Falcons flying high in the sky’ and the ‘Cape Barren Geese nibbling on the green cliffs’. Lauren Burns enjoys the herons that line the shore at Ayr Creek Lagoon, “gazing intently into the water as cormorants dive for fish’ as the ‘swans graze the sea grass”. At Red Rocks, Sue Saliba describes the way a cormorant “stands like a crucifix on the edge of the rock platform, his black wings outstretched to slow his beating heart”. There is a poignancy in her writing as she notices the tiny footprints in the sand of her beloved hooded plovers, “whose species might not outlive today’s children”.  
 
Further around the Island coast at Surf Beach, artist John Adam loves the Moon birds “taking their early flight” and the way the ‘gannets dive and the seagulls soar’. At Corinella, Lyndell Parker loves watching the ‘black swans glide around the mangroves and the egrets, ibis and ducks busy all day long with the quest for food.’ As dusk falls, she loves listening to ‘the birds’ soft coos filling in the silence of the night’. Judy Anderson loves hearing ‘the birds call clear from sheoaks and banksia’ at Shack Bay, and on her Jam Jerrup Farm, Aleta Groves loves watching ‘the peacocks roaming free and their beautiful courtship ritual.’
 
For Lynne Cook, it’s the sweeping views from the Bass Hills that she loves, taking in the Mornington Peninsula, the Dandenongs and Wilson’s Promontory and helping her ‘unwind, regroup and catch her breath’. Peter Cliff loves the scenic hills of Glen Forbes and fondly remembers the warm and generous culture of life in the farming community there. Anne Heath Mennell loves seeing the ‘panorama of the whole Waterline district’ from Anderson Hill as she returns home, a ‘fleeting, but precious moment’, which always makes her ‘heart sing’.
 
On the way to Forrest Caves, Nerida Melsmith feels a sense of timelessness, as she walks through ‘gnarled bowed trees, twisted limbs, fine branches, a cave like gathering of ancients’, making a quiet space and place for reflection and decision-making. A sense of deep connection is also shared by Jackie Moss through her love of the ‘magnificent big tree’ on Townsend’s Bluff which she experiences as ‘living and breathing, limbs encompassing’. She can feel the tree, ‘even without touching’.

​There is also a timeless connection in the way Meryl Brown Tobin describes the ‘hundreds of skirted trees with creamy spikes of flowers’ of the Grantville Grass Tree Forest, linking us to the First Peoples who lived here years ago.

Laura Brearley is chair of the working group for the Coastal Connections project. More information at The Places We Love.