Three Weeks by the Sea in Tasmania

Post

Subscribe

I used to live on the beach in North Queensland in a little fibro shack. I loved living by the sea and used to walk on the beach all the time. I had a kayak and used to paddle off the beach on weekends. I raised my son there and he had a great childhood riding his bike through the mangroves with his friends. Years later he told me they had seen the slides of crocodiles near the water on the creek bank.





After moving to Brisbane in early 2000 and living in suburbia, I missed living by the sea.



A few years ago my sister in Tasmania and her husband were going to England to visit his relations. She was worried about her rescue greyhound and thought she would fret in a kennel, so I said I would fly down from Brisbane and look after her for three weeks. They said I could stay in their beach house on the East Coast with Annie the dog.



After arriving in Tasmania, I drove my sister and her husband to the airport in their car and then drove Annie and myself to their beach house in a small town on the East Coast of the State. My sister forbade me from naming her remote beach in Tasmania. She didn't want it swarming with tourists like Coles Bay, which has thousands of visitors a day. We both remember when Coles Bay and Freciney used to be a lovely quiet little place in the 60s and 70s.



Annie and I settled in. It was May so was getting a bit cold for this Queenslander, but the cottage had a nice wood fireplace and lots of wood and pinecones to warm it up.



It backed onto a beautiful long deserted beach, and we started going for walks every day out to the point and back. I was reading a book I found on the bookshelf called A Year by the Sea by Joan Anderson. It was the perfect book to read while I was staying by the sea."During the years Joan Anderson was a loving wife and supportive mother, she had slowly and unconsciously replaced her own dreams with the needs of her family. With her sons grown, she realised that the family no longer centred on the home she provided and her relationship with her husband had become stagnant. Like many women in her situation, Joan had forgotten about her own needs and had no fulfilling goals for her future. It seemed the best part of her life was finished. Shocking herself as much as her husband, she decided to retreat alone to the family cottage on Cape Cod. At first casting around for direction, Joan soon began to take pleasure in her surroundings and call on resources she didn't know she had. Over the course of a year she gradually discovered that her life as an 'unfinished woman' was full of possibilities. Out of that magical, difficult, transformative year came A YEAR BY THE SEA, a record of her experiences and a treasury of wisdom for readers. Beautifully written, this book will inspire the reader to set out on their own journey of self-discovery and find the courage to recreate their own life."



It was a beautiful inspiring book, and I could relate to a lot of it I didn't have a year to spend by the sea but my three weeks alone with the dog was a wonderful time.



I had plans to read and write for the three weeks but the dog changed that. After every couple of hours she would start wining for another walk and we ended up doing about three long walks every day. The beach was very beautiful and kept changing. I saw lots of beautiful wild native birds, including hooded plovers, seagulls, pied and sooty oyster catchers, black swans and many others. One day a flock of five yellow tailed cockatoos flew over me as I walked along. I also found a dead seal on the beach and saw lots of colourful hermit crabs and a variety of gorgeous shells.



One day we drove to another beach for a walk. After our walk, I put the dog in the car and was going to buy some milk but I accidentally locked the dog in the car. It was my sister's car and an older model where you had to lock each door. I saw the car keys on the dashboard and started to panic and wondered what to do. I didn't know anybody to call on for help.

I asked an elderly couple who were walking up from the beach if they could help me. The man said the local garage owner may be able to help and gave me his phone number. I rang him and he said he could help but had no one to mind the garage while he came up to the parking lot. The elderly couple offered to go and mind his shop for him and he accepted that. That sort of trust would only happen in a small town.



The garage owner broke into the car easily the old fashioned way with a piece of stiff tape. I was very grateful and gave him $20 which is all I had with me.



There were hermit crabs on the beach. My niece Becca had told me in the past to collect them and put them in rock pools but I decided to let nature decide. I thought hungry birds might need to eat them so I left them where they were.



I saw gulls and sooty and pied osyter catchers chilling on rocks together on mother's day. I was a bit nervous walking alone a long way along the deserted beaches. Mainly because I remembered there had been two unsolved murders of women on some other remote beaches on the East Coast of Tasmania about 20 years before. One German woman was riding her bike around the state. She was last seen sitting on a remote beach, then just disappeared. She and her bike were never found. The other woman was an Italian woman visiting a relative in Tasmania. A woman walking her dog found her body on a deserted beach. Her murderer has never been found.



As the days went on, Annie and I walked longer and further. We got pretty fit. The only problem was she became very demanding and started wanting to have three walks a day. Her appetite increased too, and she started wanting to jump onto the bed to sleep. I eventually gave in and moved into another bedroom when she growled at me and showed her teeth one night when I tried to get her off the bed.



I think it took my sister a long time to retrain her after I left for home in Queensland. She has never asked me to mind her again. I really loved the experience of having three whole weeks on my own to walk on the beach, read and relax and spend time in nature. I hope you can all find a deserted beach to spend some time on and recharge your batteries.



#beaches
#health_fitness
#nature
#outdoor
#walks
%wnhobart