Coming Up for Air at Picnic Bay: The Jetty

The characters in the story are already on the Island when it begins so this part isn't covered by it but it's one of the best bits of the process. The short sea trip o'er the jade waves o' Cleveland Bay on an auld chugger boat (sometimes called a launch or ferry) felt like a voyage to me as a child. The weird slow rocking motion that made you dance just to walk and the forward slice of the bow as it rendered the skin of the water white and frothy. And as we approached the Island it changed colour from distant blue to the green of the forest and pink of the beach and boulders. It was a day trip but always felt like more. The Island felt tropical in a way that Townsville never did. It was touristy. Its brochures featured a cartoon sun wearing sunglasses and a big grin. It's place names sounded like they were invented by a children's author: Nelly Bay, Horseshoe Bay, Picnic Bay, Arcadia. The old boat stopped at the last two. The buses had open sides and a popular way to wheel around it was in a mini moke, a kind of tiny jeep which, whatever colour it was, had a wartime feel to it. And down on the beach you could still see the perforated metal of landing craft matting sticking out of the sand like stray rusting roots. If you were adventurous you could hike it over snake infested rocks to the old forts. And the carrier that got you there looked and sounded like something from an old movie.

Everything changes, gets faster and bigger. I know that and wasn't surprised to find this, too, altered. Bits of the notes I wrote at the time will be in italics, starting with this:

5/11/2019
They got a bigger boat. The Sealink ferries go more regularly and with more people than in my day. I hauled my luggage on to the upper rear section and for a while sat in a gazango of German tourists from the young and intimidatingly beautiful to the old and unloved. I normally like listening to people speaking in other languages but got sick of it and went into the covered bit with the aircon. there's a bar downstairs but why would you bother for a 20 minute trip unless you were using it as a kind of ersatz tropical cruise with 20 minute escape windows?

The motion was pleasant and while the view was restricted there was enough of sea and the approaching island visible through the window.

The coach sized bus to Picnic Bay was already outside the terminal so I didn't bother exploring Nelly Bay, knowing that they are about 45 minutes apart I took this one.  It was check-in time. A lovely drive around the southwest corner of the Island revealed a lot of solid walkways. Tempting but I don't think I'll have time this visit. Nevertheless, great for getting that 10k step target in with a little scenery.

I was dropped off at the cop shop. The driver had been letting locals off outside their homes if they were infirm in any way. The sight of that effortless kindness was relaxing. In any case I should have got off at the last stop as it's the Jetty. That would have been a much better introduction. Anyway, I hauled the case (which didn't like the gravel surface of the shoulder) for a few turns and got to the serenity apartments. 

The entrance is set in tropical foliage and smells lovely, that dry and slightly decaying northern stink (love it!). I had to look around for an office and when the door that said Manager appeared I knocked lightly. Suddenly a cacophony of dog barks sounded in a massive volley. A young smiling chappie opened the door (I saw the dogs first) and assured me they were friendly. I told him I had a booking and then had to explain that I needed to check in. Eventually a young north american woman called Molly appeared and took me to my rooms. She seemed vague and unhelpful in the way the young/those who put up with rather than do their jobs are. The owner, Moira, was overseas but would shortly return. Toiletries over there, cups and cutlery over there.

Holiday unit at Serenity

The place is a good sized unit with a spacious living area - couches, TV, running on to the kitchen area with a large round table with a glass top. Wicker armchairs around it. Bathroom small but shower recess is roomy. Decent sized loo that works. The air con was on and I left it until I went out. Did really feel I needed it, though. There are also fans which do the job fine. Bedroom big enough for a double (just), beside stands with lamps, large walk in wardrobe. My unit backs on to the outdoor laundry which would be handy for longer stays. The wifi is fine and was easy to set up.

I got in and had the first shower since Sunday (having to dodge the back window and carefully close the blinds as her toddler daughter was looking.  I rested until about 5 and set out to cover the bay and jetty in photography. 

Hotel Magnetic from
vintage photo (and my own
vintaging)

Probably nothing of the Hotel Magnetic remains. The single  floor of its replacement, The Picnic Bay Hotel, goes from half way down the block to around the corner. There's a decent enough dining section with wooden tables. I ordered fish and chips and salad with a pint of the local Great Northern. The food came quite quickly, a big pub serve of battered fish good thick chips and a creditable salad. the young French backpacker who served me was meant to pull the pint at the time of the order but that didn't happen so I had to chase it up with the flustered server who'd been left in the lurch. The food was flavoursome and taxidermising. I didn't eat any of the goodies I bought in the North Ward Coles but finished the wine I'd started before. I started notes for the previous day but fatigue got the better and I went for a snooze at about 6.30 and woke at 4 the next morning. I slept on top of the bedclothes and without the aircon or fan as I didn't feel the heat. The apartment can be made dark easily and keeps its cool.

Here's the thing with this part: almost everything I packed into my expectations for this trip involved my connection with Picnic Bay and the old jetty there. If you read the Prelude you'll know that I felt I'd left my main character Gail standing on it in the heat of a December noon, dithering over whether she has the strength to do something. There's a history with this. The first draught of the story was written as a short novella. Between this draught and the typed one (yep, first in fountain pen and then on a typewriter, it was that long ago) I realised it might have served well as a reminder of a moment of my life but I couldn't imagine anyone else getting past the first page. So I started redraughting.

Years later I was still doing this, expanding passages with literary pastiches to the point where the original translucent field I'd intended was now a volcano-ravaged wasteland. I got so proud of what I'd read (Rabelais, Joyce, that stuff) that it felt namby pamby not putting it all in there. If it had been boring earlier it had grown monstrous, bombastic and unreadable. I had become as ineffectual at making decisions about it as my character was at resolving to act. At some point I had to put it in a corner (which I did physically in a great bursting arch-file) and get on with something else. Years after that when I started writing and drawing comics I tried a scene from it and it worked. And then other things nagged for more attention.

One thing I did was start this blog to record (for myself, at least) the context, the times of the setting and any ideas inspired by them to be posted as standalone comics pages. This worked fine but one thing still got in the way: how was I going to get Gail from the beach end of the jetty at Picnic Bay to the sea end to meet the boat and dump her boyfriend? There are a few things she has to think about but that's all that has to happen. That's the first chapter and it's almost entirely set on the jetty. I'd drawn it so many times the idea of forming those lines had become a burden. As for writing it while I could list the things that had to happen and thoughts that had to occur it felt like I was describing an old photograph again and again through a vain hope that one chance phrase might clarify its meaning.

What I needed to do, as outlined in the Prelude, was to take myself there for real, walk around the place and see it as a location and no more, a collection of features and buildings without the weight of decades of meaning. I had to shed the mythology and dispel the nostalgia ... and see what it actually looked like. And I had to go to the jetty itself and walk it.

So I did.

I strolled down the road from the unit, enjoying the milder heat of the island, hearing birdcalls and voices (and the dull pulse of a cover band at the pub playing 80s yacht rock at a Melbourne Cup party) and there I was.

It had changed. The sheltered area at the end had expanded well beyond the old bus stop one from the '70s. The rail separating the pedestrian side from the vehicle side had gone at around the same time. And it hasn't served as a docking point for the ferry since the 2000s. But, otherwise it's the jetty. I stood where I'd drawn Gail standing, crouched to get the right angle and squinted down to the end and across the bay. And then stood up in shock and realised that all these years I'd got something wrong.

I'd been drawing it pointing at the Townsville shore. To see that, I had to turn my head a hard west, a bishop's diagonal move away from the symmetry my imagination had preferred. Laughing to myself I kept going, the boarded surface feels solid, to the end, working out where the old shelter was and taking so many photos I had no time to stand and ponder the gentle lowering of the years upon me, the veil of youth itself that might descend and cool my brow like a spring rain. Nope, just photos. And in that moment, snap snap snap, I realised, finally, after the crowded plane, hot and busy Brisbane and the interminable train journey, deflating visit to the old homestead and all, I was actually excited to be there and, before I'd suspected it, was enjoying myself. The easy lapping of the deep blue green tide as it rose, the salty air and the shadowy silhouettes of the coastal hills and distant islands gave me and all my purpose a place to be. It was just fun being here. Beaming, I headed to the pub on the shore and ordered dinner.