on the World Heritage Drive, Shark Bay
Over the glittering bay: rocky orange hills, sparse scrub - a silent moonscape. Only us and our blue bus. Yes there are places like this, existing for people like us, ranger-registered spots to stay the night. No facilities, no need. No people. No breeze.
The beach is shells and dark green dune bushes. There is a sandbar slinking off to the north, pointing out to the cliffs and the empty distance. Within the curve of the sandbar is a shallow pool; ruts under the water from four wheel drives indicate this pool is temporary, tidal. There is a thicket of underwater bushes, half-drowned and strangled with dried and caked seagrass and dirt. The boy is immediately drawn to the dirty warm shallows. We stomp along the shelly troughs of car tracks, towards the bushes that are half-submerged.
I notice a jeep rumble in from over the bluff, kicking up dust and barrelling down to the rocks near where Gavin is practicing casting his new rod and reel. A couple jump down, slamming doors, and begin walking towards the tip of the sandbar. I'd been absently strolling through the shallows, being led by hand by my enthusiastic child. I notice the water is over his waist now, his clothes all wet. The floor is cloudy as we are kicking up more debris. A school of small silver fish slips past our ankles. I want to turn around, to drag him out of his path into the depths of the dull waters. I gasp as my foot falls through a false bottom of earth. I notice that submerged there are large scabs of dry sand all around us raised like trap doors, habitat, perhaps, for whatever might lurk in this strange tangle of land and sea. I am losing my nerve. I try to calm down. Unlikely there is anything here but a small school of common darts, trapped at high tide. "I'm too used to the city" I mutter aloud, my heart quickening. I want to relax here. I need to toughen up, be less jittery. It's not so spooky. It's peaceful here. Deathly peaceful.
I notice the couple from the sandbar walking over to Gavin. I try to coax our son back towards the cold, shelly shallow where we entered the water, but he is a toddler, so I have limited influence on our direction. He starts to tantrum. I do too. I want to know what the couple are discussing with Gavin. I pick up my wriggling son, cradle him in my arms as his little feet kick out to the side. Stomping through the soft bottom carrying a 14kg uncooperative child is hard work, and it seems an age before I reach the dry sand. By now the couple have climbed into their jeep and are turning it around, out through the scrub and over the crest. We are alone again. I put Elliot down on the soft dry sand and he giggles as we approach Gavin, who looks a little shell shocked. The man had come to tell him "You do realise where we are, don't you mate? These are subtropical waters ya know."
Stonefish.
"I can tell you this much: I wouldn't be letting my kid walk around barefoot in those waters..."
It's peaceful here.
Here in the quiet and the stillness of the beachscape.
