It’s time to leave Bundeena and I don’t want to go. I’m well into my second novel and reluctant to uproot. Besides, I love it here. But New Zealand forms a large part of our adventure and, however I feel, we’ll be on the flight tomorrow and we’ll land in Auckland and everything will be different.
On Tuesday morning, my phone drums out a staccato beat, signalling that I have a message from Eleanor. She suggests a walk and we head out to the cliff tops of the Pacific Ocean and walk amongst the beautiful sandstone sculptures, fashioned into swirling froth by wind and sea. The soft rocks swoop and curve in soft pastel shades and some are so smooth and white that they look like snow drifts.
The wind is blowing offshore so I’m wary of walking too close to the edge. Besides, the sandstone supporting these ledges is equally sculpted and in places non existent. Huge lumps of rock sit at awkward angles below us, testifying to their tendency to periodically break away and plummet.
By Wednesday afternoon, the wind has died down a little but the yacht race on the bay is still exhilaratingly fast. The tide is high on Horden’s beach and the yachts, sails slightly reefed, take a course which brings them very close to the shore. On our return walk from Maianbar, we enjoy this unexpected treat and stand for a while on the sand, watching the boats tack round the nearest marker and fly away on the wind.
Thursday afternoon is calmer, warmer and and the rosellas are back decimating the bottle brush flowers. We’ve also been visited by currawongs, butcher birds and our resident kookaburra, who is now so used to us that he doesn’t bother to move so much as foot when we unpeg the washing from the line.
It’s time to pack up and, as we take a final run along the coast path to Jibbon beach, I feel, like John Maisfield, that the ocean is in my blood. I was introduced to ‘Sea Fever’ as a child at school and have never forgotten it and, while living miles inland from the coast, it has periodically come back to me with all its yearning imperative. Back in Bratton Clovelly, our dear friend, Jenny, a stalwart of the village croquet team, is very very ill. She too, loves this poem, so here’s a verse. For me and for Jenny.
“I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.”
(Extract from Sea Fever by John Maisfield)
