Giles Watson's poetry and prose
Picnic Point
Picnic Point was not very well known when I was a boy. It was located in the coastal Banksia heaths south of Bermagui on the southern coast of New South Wales, and we camped there whenever we could. It was not a campsite, and there were no toilets: one went equipped with a spade. There were, however, clearings amongst the Banksias where it was possible for us to pitch a tent, or in the even older days, to park our van, which was just big enough to accommodate my parents, lying longitudinally, and myself at right angles to them, if we slept like sardines. Picnic Point was worth all such minor discomforts.
Anyone who has not been to Australia will require some explanation of Banksias. They are named after Sir Joseph Banks, the redoubtable botanist on board Captain Cook’s Endeavour, and it is difficult to think of a more fitting or beautiful tribute. They grow to the height of small trees, their foliage a deep green on the upper surface, and a smoky white on the undersides, but it is the flowers which are most spectacular: great spikes of inflorescence, fat as hedgehogs and full of nectar, attracting honeyeaters by day and possums by night. And when the flowers go over, the Banksias produce cones, punctuated all over with pouting, woody lips, or swollen, half-closed boxers’ eyelids weeping seeds. Each morning, I would listen to the honeyeaters jabbering raucously as they clawed the Banksia flowers, and then it would be time to rekindle last night’s campfire with Banksia wood and spent cones.
After breakfast, we would take the blue and white metal enamel plates down to the beach, scour them in the sand, and wash them in the rockpools as gobies darted between our fingers. On one of the rocky parts, there was an ancient fossilised tree from the Carboniferous, as weird as the Banksias, etched in stone. And up on the point itself, there were shellfish middens: charred remains left by the aboriginals who once inhabited this coast. They too must have lain awake at dawn, laughing at the honeyeaters’ jokes.
Best of all were the evenings, perched around the campfire on one-legged stools – my father’s workmanship – brewing coffee and scorching foil-wrapped potatoes in the embers, listening for scrabblings and squeakings in the night. One night, after we had gone to bed, a bandicoot chewed all the way around the rubber seal of our car-fridge, leaving a ragged fringe of incisor-marks. Every night afterwards, we kept our eyes open for the bandicoots: a gleam of a beady eye, a glimpse of a proverbial long-nose, a snuffle in the sandy soil as the marsupial searched for grubs. There was damper kneaded with grubby fingers, and cakes made out of sea-lettuce, and once, when there were other campers beside us, there were parrot fish roasted over the flames. And then there were the night-time forays, walking the silent heath in breathless awe, carrying the glow and hiss of my father’s pressure lantern, searching for moths and glowing eyes.
Some years later, I returned to Picnic Point. It was not an easy time, and my stomach was tied in griping knots. The road was wider, not the sand track I remembered, covered with the conical traps of ant-lions. The places where we used to camp were now official National Parks and Wildlife campsites, with concrete barbecues, and somewhere in the distance, I realised with horror, there must be a toilet, concrete and reeking of disinfectant. I walked out to the point and gazed out to sea. I wandered back and paused by a Banksia, and as I did so, a honeyeater burst out of it with cackling shouts. I closed my eyes, and for a moment, I was back then.
Photograph by Leslie Watson, c. 1976.
Picnic Point
Picnic Point was not very well known when I was a boy. It was located in the coastal Banksia heaths south of Bermagui on the southern coast of New South Wales, and we camped there whenever we could. It was not a campsite, and there were no toilets: one went equipped with a spade. There were, however, clearings amongst the Banksias where it was possible for us to pitch a tent, or in the even older days, to park our van, which was just big enough to accommodate my parents, lying longitudinally, and myself at right angles to them, if we slept like sardines. Picnic Point was worth all such minor discomforts.
Anyone who has not been to Australia will require some explanation of Banksias. They are named after Sir Joseph Banks, the redoubtable botanist on board Captain Cook’s Endeavour, and it is difficult to think of a more fitting or beautiful tribute. They grow to the height of small trees, their foliage a deep green on the upper surface, and a smoky white on the undersides, but it is the flowers which are most spectacular: great spikes of inflorescence, fat as hedgehogs and full of nectar, attracting honeyeaters by day and possums by night. And when the flowers go over, the Banksias produce cones, punctuated all over with pouting, woody lips, or swollen, half-closed boxers’ eyelids weeping seeds. Each morning, I would listen to the honeyeaters jabbering raucously as they clawed the Banksia flowers, and then it would be time to rekindle last night’s campfire with Banksia wood and spent cones.
After breakfast, we would take the blue and white metal enamel plates down to the beach, scour them in the sand, and wash them in the rockpools as gobies darted between our fingers. On one of the rocky parts, there was an ancient fossilised tree from the Carboniferous, as weird as the Banksias, etched in stone. And up on the point itself, there were shellfish middens: charred remains left by the aboriginals who once inhabited this coast. They too must have lain awake at dawn, laughing at the honeyeaters’ jokes.
Best of all were the evenings, perched around the campfire on one-legged stools – my father’s workmanship – brewing coffee and scorching foil-wrapped potatoes in the embers, listening for scrabblings and squeakings in the night. One night, after we had gone to bed, a bandicoot chewed all the way around the rubber seal of our car-fridge, leaving a ragged fringe of incisor-marks. Every night afterwards, we kept our eyes open for the bandicoots: a gleam of a beady eye, a glimpse of a proverbial long-nose, a snuffle in the sandy soil as the marsupial searched for grubs. There was damper kneaded with grubby fingers, and cakes made out of sea-lettuce, and once, when there were other campers beside us, there were parrot fish roasted over the flames. And then there were the night-time forays, walking the silent heath in breathless awe, carrying the glow and hiss of my father’s pressure lantern, searching for moths and glowing eyes.
Some years later, I returned to Picnic Point. It was not an easy time, and my stomach was tied in griping knots. The road was wider, not the sand track I remembered, covered with the conical traps of ant-lions. The places where we used to camp were now official National Parks and Wildlife campsites, with concrete barbecues, and somewhere in the distance, I realised with horror, there must be a toilet, concrete and reeking of disinfectant. I walked out to the point and gazed out to sea. I wandered back and paused by a Banksia, and as I did so, a honeyeater burst out of it with cackling shouts. I closed my eyes, and for a moment, I was back then.
Photograph by Leslie Watson, c. 1976.