Day 3, and it's a Sunday. Catherine has decided to go to Church so I get dressed for the occasion and jump in the car beside her. She has googled the exact location, time and service that we are to attend. However, when we get to the Church, there is a sign on the door stating the service is cancelled due to the Vicar being unwell. We discover another church around the corner, but that one only meets on every 1st and 3rd Sunday. Today is the 4th Sunday. Not to be put off, we head down to the beach for a walk around Waterloo Point, a walkway that loops past the golf course and alongside the sparkling blue ocean that is Swansea Beach. We will have Church at the beach.
I am enamored by all the large smooth rocks and climb down to get some better shots of the surf bashing against the shoreline. Catherine wisely stays on the track and explores all the nesting holes in the undergrowth, pondering what time of bird nests there. We are torn between penguins and rabbits; turns out they are the homes of mutton birds. Which doesn't surprise me because up close those little holes stunk. Onwards we go. Catherine gets a brilliant shot of a blowhole type, crevice in the rocks I keep an eye out for lizards, but they stayed well hidden.
We carry on and discover that we are in a small place with a long name (see attached picture). It is also the site where a ship went down, with a family onboard, drowning six small children in the 1800's. Their parents, Thomas and Mary Ann Large, survived the shipwreck. Thomas and his family, were originally coming to Tasmania from the mainland, onboard the cutler, Resolution to set up a brewery. The shipwrecked at Great Swan Port in 1850. Intrigued by this sad story, Catherine and I set off to the cemetery to find this ancient grave. It took us a while, but I finally discovered the large white tombstone in another part. It was sad and moving to read, seeing their full names and ages, the stilted prose at the bottom offering one last watery hope for the lives forever lost beneath the deep green waves off
Swansea beach.
Strolling out of the cemetery, I found a crumbling vault without any name or identification with a large crack in the corner allowing me to see inside. There was only dirt but it was a spooky sight prompting me to call out to Catherine, 'look, I've found Dracula's crypt'. She came closer to inspect the ancient crumbling box and agreed it did indeed look like the decaying home of a vampire. We set off for home in the sunshine, moaning that we were sweating beneath a cloudless, hot midday sky while still in our church clothes and make-up.
Along the road we discovered a turn of the century guest house with exotic trees planted along the fenceline and too our surprise, a pohutakawa tree complete with green parrots flitting amongst the crimson blooms. The perfect melding of New Zealand and Australia.
No comments:
Post a Comment