Tasmanian Beaches: Exploring the Coast on Foot, by Bicycle, Kayak and Sail

Still Just Hanging In

Sometimes you just don’t see what’s in front of your eyes.

The cardboard sign at the start of the track gave me pause for thought ‘Snake Spotted Lying on the Path’ someone had written, and so instead of exploring new territory I headed down to the marina to do a bit of work on Samos. The dogs lay and watched me.  It’s currently the summer solstice, the day was hot, the moon  a waxing gibbous and the tide  low but oblivious to all this I was tending the engine and talking to my neighbour.

At a certain point I looked past the yachts and ducks to the houses that occupy the foreshore.

There at their base were remnants of beach.  Rather sorry looking remnants but large enough patches of  polluted sand to provide private coves for those lucky enough to live in those houses.  Not that long ago it was a longer stretch of cleaner sand and boats swung at their moorings in the lee of Wrest Point.  Now the marina’s been extended and there are new floating berths.

This view has become so familiar to me but in failing to question it I hadn’t seen it for what it really was: a beach still present enough to make a statement:  well may I go unnoticed but I’ll be back in one guise or another long after the marina and these activities are gone.