Edith’s thoughts, as a thirteen-year-old girl, on her arrival in Australia are unrecorded. For all we know she may have stood silently at the deck of the ship as it slipped through the heads under Point Lonsdale. She may have watched with eyes clear and curious as Port Phillip Bay opened out ahead, her future in the thriving city of Melbourne appearing before her. And said nothing at all – until such time as she had something worth saying.
Ships that pass: Fascination of Point Lonsdale
By Edith Coleman, 1931
Perhaps nowhere may one read more of the romance of the sea than at Point Lonsdale, where, day and night, the slow sailing of ships as they pass through the Rip is a source of wonder and delight. The Point is just inside the western Head, at the entrance to Port Phillip, only 68 miles from Melbourne, or four miles from Queenscliff, of which it is a suburb. Its isolation and the absence of hotels are the reasons for its popularity and its unpopularity, but its aloofness has recently been modified by motor conveyance from Queenscliff.
Apart from the customary attractions of the seaside the situation of Point Lonsdale, so close to the Rip, makes it an ideal holiday resort for those of a nautical turn of mind who are compelled by occasional attacks of sea-fever to take the long path to the sea. As one idles luxuriously on warm summer sands one may learn much of the beauty and mystery of ships and read many a romantic story of the high seas. One learns very quickly to listen and look for whistle and flag, the hail and farewell of outward and homeward bound ships. One follows a broken procession of splendid ships that sweep by with the grace of swans, or small craft that dot the blue water like daring sea birds. As one walks out on brown rocks left bare by the ebbing tide to obtain a closer view of some opulent ocean liner, one hears the throb of her engines, and catches the voices of happy crowds that throng her decks to wave a greeting. If one follows regretfully the furrow she leaves in her wake and feels somewhat envious of her fortunate passengers, one consoles oneself with the thought that after all ‘it is not they who carry the flags but they who look on who have the fun of the procession.’ So one scans the stream of ocean traffic, butterfly boats that bob like corks or flit merrily before the wind, ships solid and dignified as befits vessels whose ways lie over the farther paths of the sea. A ship passes, all spic and span, with polished metal flashing proudly in the sun. Another with, one thinks, the rust of years upon her, creeps by like a grubby schoolboy. They are all interesting, and even if one be not well versed in nautical phraseology and foggy about the difference between a cutter or a ketch, a brig or a yawl, a satisfying pleasure is derived nevertheless from watching the procession . . .
February and March are golden months at Point Lonsdale, but autumn, when voices carry over the still water with startling clearness, is even more delightful. There is never a moment of monotony, for the moods of the sea are as inconstant as Proteus himself. To-day may be perfect, the sea all sunshine and glitter. To-morrow a cruel fog may blot out its beauty – not the soft silver mists that fill mountain valleys or brood over quiet rivers, but an impenetrable pall that occasions a feeling of anxiety, an apprehension of impending danger, which is intensified as the deep call of the foghorn thrills through the dense white wall.
There is a large salt lake near the golf links. Its margins are covered thickly with salt-encrusted shells. It is a beautiful sheet of water, and one is glad to brave the rather odorous mud to see the reflections at sunset or to see a freshening wind whip its surface into tiny furrows.
Not far from the lake one finds growing in abundance a dainty sea-lavender which is possibly peculiar to those parts. In February and March the coastal melaleuca or black tea-tree (M. pubescens) is in full flower. Its shapely trees have a billowy growth, rolling away, wave on wave, in long lines. Among its dark folds one may read a little of insect romance, for the creamy flowers are thronged with bees and butterflies, which crowd in bewildering battalions about the scented blossoms. Swiftly the news is spread and from distant parts myriads of tiny creatures wing their way to the banquet halls, reflecting myriad lights as the sun touches their transparent wings. Great ichneumons in russet and gold, huge flies in orange and black, lift steel-blue wings as they forage among the feasts set by the gods. Fireflies, like flakes of opal, flash red and green, the whirring wings of a cloud of honey-loving beetles softly hymn their thanks for the floral hospitality. These scenes leave pleasant memories. But the chief memory of Point Lonsdale is the ocean traffic – that procession of ships which tend to ‘create and perpetuate international curiosity’.
Chapter 4
A TEACHER OF GREAT PROMISE
‘Nothing in Nature is too lowly to inspire man with new ideas. All his contrivances for diving and floating and flying, for pulling and stretching and rolling, for boring and digging and ploughing, his weapons of defence or the tools of his trade, have been based on the teachings of Nature.’
January 1896
The steam train hisses to a halt at the tiny station, which is barely more than a
