Photos and Poems from the 100km walk along Shipwreck Coast of Victoria in October 2021
23rd October
Tomorrow I start my forays
to walk for a hundred odd ‘k’s
the Great Ocean Walk
with no-one to talk
should take about 5 or 6 days
It was a plan of a friend of my sister’s
a large group of gals and few misters
now I’m here alone
with my camera and phone
the track, my backpack, and my blisters
So I’ll leave from the bay of Apollo
and I’ll post rhymes from hill and from hollow
so if it gets boring
just scroll on, ignoring
or take the chance now to ‘un-follow’
24th October
Drawn toward the ocean’s egde
where the current meets the ledge
where immovable and irresistible collide
in the endless swish and swoosh
and the repetitious whoosh
as the continent does battle with the tide
And the seething sucking spume
searches out each stoney flume
leaving frothing eddies lurking in the lee
while the cataclysmic spray
fills the sky and fades away
as the wind is blowing in from the sea
as the wind is blowing in from the sea
And the gulls that ride the breeze
turn their backs upon the trees
who knows what prize they could have their eyes on?
and while they dip and dare
they may neither know or care
why their restless gaze is drawn to that horizon
neither can we each dismiss
why we’re drawn to this abyss
but we say it is the longing to be free
yet whether gull or man
we must all return to land
like the wind blowing in from the sea
like the wind blowing in from the sea
26th October – The Ballad of Eric the Red
“Haul away from the reef boys, haul away at the chain,
don’t let us come to grief boys, carry us home again
I hear the sound of crashing waves over the thunder and rain
we’ll all be dead, or Eric the Red will carry us home to Maine, boys
Carry us home to Maine”
In Eighteen Eighty Eric the Red departed the coast of Maine
with three thousand tons of cargo to never return again
she sailed down the Atlantic and turned her prow to the East
to ride the Roaring Forties into the maw of the beast
She was Eighty Five days at sea before that dark and stormy night
Cape Otway to the left of her, King Island to the right
They saw the Otway lighthouse and stared in disbelief
As the timber of her hull dragged and cracked along the reef
“Haul away from the reef boys, haul away at the chain,
don’t let us come to grief boys, carry us home again
I hear the sound of crashing waves over the thunder and rain
we’ll all be dead, or Eric the Red will carry us home to Maine, boys
Carry us home to Maine”
The lighthouse men heard nothing over the Southern Ocean’s roar
and woke to find the wreck and cargo strewn along the shore
A passing steamer found some floating sailors she could save
the rest had slipped away at night into a watery grave
Eric the Red still lives inside the buildings on the Bay
and the ghosts of those who died can be seen upon the spray
and all along the Shipwreck Coast you’ll hear their last refrain
“Carry us home to Maine boys, carry us home to Maine”
26th October
Bury me beside the sea my love, and fare me well
Leave your anchor here inside the stone, and ride the swell
The winds should take you far and wide for you, and they are free
And maybe one day bring you home to me, beside the sea
27th October
I am not the ocean, yet I can be the tide
I am not the bird and bee yet in me they reside
I am not the mountain and I am not the stone
I am not the flesh and blood nor yet the breath and bone
I am in the impact of the wave upon the shore
the subterranean synapse deep beneath the forest floor
the space between the leaves as they shimmer in the breeze
I am not the sun and shade, I am the degrees
I can not be taken and I can not be left
I can never be endowed nor ever be bereft
I can not be conjured nor can I disappear
I am never, always, once, and now – I am here
27th October
What you need is something no-one else can know
What you’ll be is something no-one else can show
Between praises and perditions
its al down to the conditions
If you find your patch of sunlight baby, grow
27th October
I looked to see the message, but the message wasn’t there
It was just an empty bottle that had nothing to declare
I’d hoped to find a call for aid, a treasure map with ‘X’ displayed,
A call to join a lost crusade, or something wild and rare.
but this shell-encrusted bottle just sat message-less and bare
I wonder what enflamed my expectations in this way?
for myself, I know that I’d have nothing special to convey
my message back would parallel, I wouldn’t have a thing to tell,
I’d seal the empty jug as well, and send it on it’s way.
And my message then would be “I’m happy, drunk, nothing to say”.
30th October
Relentless and rapacious with an energy unbound
a grain of sand dislodged with every wave that comes aground
yet it can’t be called erosion, it is something more profound
for what’s lost to the continent, is to the ocean, found
30th October
Never much one for religion or ecclesiology
and not tempted to subscribe to other’s ‘spirituality’
I am nonetheless enshrined in man’s innate morality
and the yearning for the state that we call ‘peace’
in the search of the sublime
against the turning hands of time
in the space between ‘conceive’ and ‘decease’
But the search itself denies us through a self-fulfilling notion
For we are sharks, tethered to perpetual motion
clutching shards of stillness and calling it devotion
prescribing what it is, and how to ‘be’
But the eucalypts that grow
on the Otways really know
Silent, still, simply staring at the sea
