re-treat to Tin Can Bay

seven days ago i fell out of bed at 4am to catch an early flight to Queensland where i was met at the airport, given a cosy corner in a comfy back seat and (between snoozing and waking and a delicious lunch) transported further north. 

by the time we reached Tin Can Bay i had been very firmly asleep (and quite possibly making bear noises) for at least twenty minutes - waking/arriving and wandering across to this view had a rather dreamlike quality to it

it was Roz's idea to offer a retreat at Tin Can Bay - she's been familiar with the area for over thirty years, so her offering to share the magic was particularly kind. i had only been there once before, for one night some five years ago. this was to be as big an adventure for me as for the others who joined us there.

i've long had an affinity for tidal areas but have come away with a new love...mangroves.

 everything about them is beautiful...the way their long seed pods line up in the waves

the tidelines drawn by their crumbling leaves (punctuated by more recently fallen leaves toasted orange in the sun)

the seedlings growing from well-fallen seed pods that have managed to plunge their way into the mudflats and take root

while other roots fingered their way upward from beneath

drawing another story on the sand

this was a time to wander

consider

experiment

sample

be still

and listen

and though participants drew, painted and wrote

made bowls, bundles and bags
for me the important thing about the days spent there was not the production of finished objects
but the intangibles
the things that cannot be quantified, described in words, photographed or sketched
seeds that were sown to sprout and bloom, who knows where, who knows when. rather like the mangroves.

so i will hand the last word to Bill
whose writing is as fresh as when the ink first dried on the page so many years ago...
these found by chance through randomly opening a page in a book acquired by one of our number on the first leg of the journey homeward.