GUEST POST: A glimpse of Largs Jetty on a COVID-19 day

In a guest piece for the Wakefield Press blog, author and bookseller Christine Courtney casts her eye over the Largs Jetty.

A snapshot of an iconic beach captured in the pandemic's peak in Adelaide, Christine captures in writing the nature of the beach: completely unfazed by the worries of humans, always changing, always the same.

A glimpse of Largs Jetty on a COVID-19 Winter Day, July 10, 2020

On the jetty jutting from the foreshore I tread the path trodden by people from all nations for over a hundred and fifty years or more. Even before European settlement Indigenous people would have come to this shore and strolled through the once magnificent dunes moving from camp site to camp site. Seen what we call the Stumpy-tailed lizards, and the black snakes, still with us and now hibernating in the dunes.

Generations have gossiped, thrown a line, sniffed the ozone and wondered at vegetation stitching the dunes together against the power of the southerly blusters; admired the expanse of beach running north to south and stared in fascination at the glaring whiteness of the castor-sugar-sand below the jetty.

That fine sand has chaffed wet bathers, and rubbed many toes raw. It’s been built up into thousands of imaginary castles and moats by generations of children. They’ve felt the fascination of sand under bare feet, and let it trickle through their fingers to blow away in the breeze.
Two young men lounge against the rail at the entrance to the jetty relaxed and chatting, perhaps about partners. Looking along the telescopic length of the jetty there are only a few souls treading the boards. Running parallel for a hundred metres either side of the jetty the sand carters have carved a deep channel about six metres wide, strewing it with stranded seaweed.

Come high tide, the water will lap right up to the foreshore. Every year the Government moves tons of sand, at great cost, from one part of our coast to another. All in the effort to hold back erosion like King Canute.

A couple below on the beach wade through the seaweed sward calling to ‘Sugar’, their black and white border collie. He’s independently taken off northwards running with energy beneath the timber pylons. Called to heel he does an abrupt U-turn towards his owners, and then wheeling joyfully, tearing across seaweed, before squatting in the dune to do daily business. He’s off again chasing gulls, the useless pursuit of thousands before him on this beautiful beach.
Unusually, along the length of the jetty there is not one Greek or Vietnamese fisherman to be seen. Usually they and their families are busy throwing out pots for lobsters or casting lines in hope of catching supper.

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a pall of caution over everyone. A woman is seated staring water-wards and wrapped in solitude. She wears a hoody and padded jacket in parachute black with her hidden face turned seaward. She does not invite intrusion.

Perhaps she has just lost her job and doesn’t know how she will pay her bills. I look for any sign of life in the water, but fish stay where they are meant to be, hidden in their water world. At the end of the jetty another woman is staring down. Is she communing with the dead? So many ashes have been scattered below. Does ash break down in sea water I wonder? Whatever, all the remains are now part of the sea from which we sprung.
The sun, breaking through a white cumulus cloud throws a silver path across the grey-green sea, while from the south west a grey mist drifts landward. A fine mist drizzles downwards as the wind blows inland darkening grey clouds chasing the white ones north eastwards. The Semaphore Jetty to the south is briefly seen as dazzling white against a backcloth of darkening grey. Book-ending the jetty are a white shelter at the seaward end and opposite is the lifeguards elevated platform/pavilion that stands on the sand beyond peeping its tent-shaped pyramid cover above the jetty.

The evocative 1930s Semaphore Palais sand castles the dunes, its small turret thrusting upwards.

I have heard that there, years ago, little boys searched for dropped coins as bathers changed into swimwear. Many of them must have giggled, glimpsing their first view of female anatomy as they peered up through the floor boards.
I have the end of the jetty to myself. The deep throb of a well-tuned engine disturbs my reverie as a regular rhythm echoes across the sea from the horizon where the slim outline of a tanker is silhouetted as it ploughs on to Outer Harbor. Wavelets slap against the pylons, and the distant susurrus of the seawater whispers to the sand then they meet. A gull wheels and squawks, fixing its beady eye on me. I hear footsteps approaching: two heavy ones preceded by four silent ones as a plump man and fat dog on a lead take their daily constitutional.

To the north two tall gantries pierce the skyline, their charcoal outlines standing stark above the Norfolk Pines at Outer Harbor.

All sailors and yachtsmen looking landward from Gulf St Vincent know they are in the final stretch for their berth in one of several established yachting clubs as they see those great pines needling the sky, marking land. The Norfolk’s are not native but have graced the shoreline for so many years that without them locals would feel bereft. They have marched along the esplanade as guardians of generations.
I turn eastwards, facing the Esplanade where the grand old Largs Hotel dominates the area. A triple layer of archways, columns and covered balconies rise grandly upwards with the German eagle keystones proudly declaring the mason was a German. Many a yarn and tale could be told about the occupants of the rooms reserved for departing and incoming travellers. Immigrant families, lovers, locals, gamblers, felons, business men and literati all arrived off the mail ships that used to anchor out at sea before the wharves were established in Port Adelaide. I imagine the rush, in the 1840s, to get the six-month-old papers from London and the eager readers in the hotel sharing the latest news from ‘home’ over a lager.
The foreshore fish and chip kiosk is closed. A few hardy parents and children are in the playground with their offspring scrambling over bright primary coloured equipment, below which is soft sprung rubber matting, so different from the asphalt playgrounds of my childhood.

The children don’t know how protected and lucky they are.

In the car park I turn my car’s nose towards home. Like the fat old dog, the car will sniff its way home following the usual route.
Christine Courtney's first career was as a professional dancer, moving from Adelaide to Britain to dance with the Ballet Rambert and directing her own small ballet company before returning to Australia to work as a teacher and producer. Her time in dance took her around Europe, sparking a lifelong passion for the arts, and the history and architecture of the great European cities. She first visited Venice while leading fine arts tours to Europe in the 1980s. The city appeared to her like a fairytale stage set. Christine always thought poetry was something that other people did; however, she has found that putting her thoughts on paper has filled the creative gap left by dance and allowed her to explore her love affair with Venice. From this came Christine's Venetian Voices, a book of poetry that captures the spirit and soul of the City of Water – a city so full of poetry itself. Christine lives in Port Adelaide, where she runs Sea-Witch Images, a gallery and bookshop holding thousands of historic photographs.