Travelling south

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Bournda NP, Handkerchief Beach, Janet DeBoos, Narek Gallery

In my bizarre search for the free photo print, I drove south to Merimbula. As always, I made a picnic of it and enjoyed introducing a friend to some of my bush and cultural pleasures along the coast road between Bermagui and Tathra.

We began with coffee at Bermagui, sitting on the deck in the morning sun at the fish and chip shop my friend knew as a child. We looked down into clear water squirming with fish, and out to the presence of Gulaga, looming in clear sky without its cloud cloak.

 

 

Grand plans for a grand tour into all the segments of Mimosa Rock NP and Bournda NP shrank under the pressure of time. We only managed a walk through ti tree and kunzea from North Tura to Bournda Island, along the edge of the lazy-waved turquoise ocean. The bush creaked and groaned and squeaked above us, reminding me of the imaginary hahas my children invented to terrify their friends – the creatures who made those eerie tree-noises.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a picnic in Bournda on the other side of Bournda Lagoon, we visited the exhibition of Janet de Boos porcelain at Narek Galleries in Tanja, an oddly pleasing mix of simple and highly decorative styles on the same vessel: rough-textured earth colours and high gloss vividness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The camellia at the door ushered us back to the natural world and the drive home up the coast.

 

There was time for a quick detour into Handkerchief Beach, just south of Narooma. I've only just started visiting it. Thirty years ago a friend was threatened there by a madman with a bit of 4 x 4, shouting “Get off my beach!” My imagination has always peopled it with that man and that threat, and my timidity has avoided it. Recently (yes! It took me thirty years!) I realised how silly that was, and found a place of tranquillity where Nangudga Lake merges with the sea and where we ended our day of sun, friendship, bush, aesthetics and south coast tourism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Concatenation at Meroo

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Meroo NP

On my son's recommendation and following his verbal mud map, I turned off the highway just south of Tabourie. The road lived up to the best traditions of national parks roads, and soon became so split-level I was almost driving with the car on its side. My first thought was that it was a case of intergenerational definitions of “good road”. Then I realised my son is well aware of my timidity, and remembered he mentioned a second road, not much further on. So I turned left again, and found a drivable road through tall trees. After a picnic in the day use area I followed a trail towards the sea.

In no more than 300 metres, I saw three species in flower: a colony of tiny orchids (Eriochilus petricola I think – again I failed to photograph the leaf!); Lambertia formosa; and Banksia spinulosa.

 

 

 

These three each have a special connection with a very old friend of mine, and our jaunts in search of wildflowers. When I emailed her with this serendipitous concatenation, she said ” Oh yes, but what you didn't know is that my grandmother's house was called Meroo.”

 

 

 

 

 

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