Angourie Now and Then

---

I lie face down breathing in oceans of memories crushed as are the shells and sand ground from discarded oysters and limpets collected along the shore.

A lone surfer takes in the early morning swell. My yoga practice ends in rumination. Remember that picture book popular in the 80s that I read to my children? Jeannie Baker’s wonderful Where the Forest Meets the Sea? A wonderful compilation of photos, paintings, Claymation and drawing; a palimpsest of indigenous and contemporary life here on the antipodean continent. This is it, in real life. A badly drawn history clarifying and gaining detail as my companions chat about the famed Shelley Beach here at Angourie.

Forty years and a lifetime ago they spent an indolent summer here. Four months of beach shack living, building a kitchen, trapping a wobbegong shark in a cannily constructed trap of lantana and wire, collecting water from a spring, walking weekly into Yamba for supplies, the old Valiant bogged in the sand, checking out the surf off the point or the back beach.

‘Do you remember George? Remember he had that shack perched on the side of the hill amongst his marijuana plants?’

Ah, those were the days.

The days before Yuraygir National Park, before rangers and no camping signs. The days before the Angourie township took hold, a suburb of beach houses for rent and to buy. Before the shops, a café and gallery. None of which seem to be particularly thriving.

We walk up the hill to the lookout and I wave to our next door neighbour.

‘Do you know who that is?’ hisses Graeme. Ignorant of the fame of Nat Young I still don’t know when he tells me. I guess old surfers are in the know.

We walk down to the blue and green pools, brackish swimming holes with towering rock faces from which kids launch themselves. We watch a trio of young backpackers from France and the UK scramble their way up.

‘Watch out for snakes,’ Graeme’s banter is not appreciated. The girl visibly blanches as her friend tells us how she is afraid of anything that moves. But she makes it to the top and on the count of three two of them launch themselves into the cool blackness, screeching on descent. I can’t actually look, my stomach lurches, heart beating just to think about it. Those of you following my blogs will know what a cowardly wimp I am, wimpishly cowardly even for others.

The swim in the pool refreshes. I think of the quarrymen at the turn of the last century sweating and straining to load the train with the immense blocks of stone used to build the Middle Wall and other river training walls at Yamba. They blasted and loaded until a hidden spring once tapped filled the quarries up and they became the scenic swimming pools they still remain.

‘Angourie means cucumber,’ our Greek friend informs us. Well it might be a coincidence that there is a similar word in the Greek language as in local Yaegl parlance Angourie means noisy ocean. I lie awake listening to the constant pounding of the high moontide surf.

Yamba may hold many delights. In the pouring rain attempting the walk along the breakwall, eerily reminiscent of the French Lieutenant’s Woman and the Cobb at Lyme Regis, we turn back thoroughly soaked and seek shelter at the Yamba Hotel. Being Easter holidays the noise sends us scurrying home to the ‘noisy ocean’ and more food. So the sights of Yamba evade us.

There is always a theme of food at these uni reunions. I feel the wonderful effects of three months of 5:2 dieting slip away as we consume ever more crumble with blueberries, buns with blueberries, blueberry jam on toast. It may not surprise that some of our friends own a blueberry farm further South. We eat and eat. We walk for a little and then eat again. We go for a short swim at Spooky’s Beach and come home for more food. Like the French we are discussing the next meal whilst eating the current one.

In between lunch and afternoon tea we wander down back beach finding majestic pandanus, rock formations and rock pools, gecko tracks and a quest for a stone canoe which a plaque tells us is beached here as part of Aboriginal dreamtime.



We discuss the latest gossip. A new NSW premier in the offing and a drop in Liberal popularity. It couldn’t have been a better week.

---

Comments

[RENanDREW]

So beautiful...
I love your photos Meryl - 'Angourie pool' looks like a painting! And I especially love the sound of all those blueberries :)

[Mert]

Reflections
Thanks. I woke up early to catch these as the afternoon before was all ruffled.

[D MJ Binkley]

Good to see you blogging again
What a great place for yoga. I'm a swimmer. I would love a place like this.

[Mert]

More blogging!
Thanks guys. It's been a bit of a rough year but I think I am back into it!

[Dancing Dave]

Ah, those were the days.
Your eloquent prose or is it meanderings in reminise? As one who has camped on northern NSW or Queensland beaches before houses crept down the sand to gobble up the solitude...when only ones friends or a sole beach fisherman would watch the sunrises rise from the surf and waves...Ah, those were the days Meryl. Enjoy it before you can no more.