A Late November Easterly

It’s been a cold, wet winter and spring. Now, one week short of the first day of summer, I am inside on the brizzliest of wet Sundays, my beloved Border Terrier, Blighty, champing at the bit and prowling the perimeter of the sliding doors to find a way out.

“What about my walk? … When’s my walk?” … while outside, an Easterly is busily building and blowing.

“Sorry, mate, but a car-encased trip to park and watch the churning sea at Vera Lynn will be the closest you’ll get today!”

I do love Easterlies! … though claiming ‘love’ may be over-blowing the emotion a little. Truth to tell, my relationship with Easterlies is more ‘love-hate’ than ‘love-undivided’.

I cut my weathering teeth on Lorne Easterlies … from my first childhood memories of sleeping on a WWII camp stretcher on my Gran’s open balcony behind spider-encrusted canvas blinds that snapped, cracked and popped in the wind like a 1960’s TV ad for rice bubbles … to my teen years battling a higgledy-piggledy, take-the-drop surf … and now into my dotage years. Easterlies trigger both distant memory and current awe. Easterlies are Lorne.

While some are hooked on Lorne’s long and lazy hot summer days, socialising with friends on the balcony for a late afternoon wine, or heaven-aglow warm starry nights—and all are sublime—give me an Easterly any day, for nothing quite matches a wild sea to weld me to this town. I can [and I do] watch a disturbed sea forever. To park in an Easterly at Vera Lynn, Blighty in his basket on the front seat beside me, closes the gap to heaven.

Generally, a good-natured banter often occurs between those who live in North Lorne and those, to me, rather less fortunate souls who live on Teddy’s or on the dress circle of ‘Polwarth Hill’.

Things like ‘your power went out, but ours didn’t’ … or any one of a number of North Lorne/South Lorne micro-moments of local one-upmanship … are the stuff of conversation at morning coffee, but when it comes to an Easterly, North Lorne wins at a canter.

Only North Lorne faces the teeth of the gale. Only one half of our right-angled town can boast all the tempest’s luck, with half of us facing East [hooray] while the other half faces [humdrum] North. When an Easterly blows in, North Lorne comes up trumps.

Not that an Easterly blow is all beer and skittles … our delicate spring tree shoots burn, turn brown, and dry to a crisp under the salt spray, our windows turn opaque, and afterwards things can feel a little ‘damp’. But these are minor annoyances compared to the spiritual uplift of a good Easterly blow. The bleak, windswept dunes of New England’s hook-shaped Cape Cod, where the Nor’easters—popularised by Hollywood in such classics as ‘The Perfect Storm’ [2000] starring George Clooney, and the original 1937 screen version of Kipling’s ‘Captains Courageous’ starring Spencer Tracey—once had a similar effect when Susie and I would go camping there in the 70s.
The east from Lorne is usually quite benign, its steady swell of even lines stretching across a beckoning sea to the sunrise horizon. But, from time to time, the east can quickly turn into the mayhem of a short, wild, and dangerous sea. It pays to learn the signals our weather sends us — signals often more subtle and reliable than those from ‘the BoM’! Lorne’s own “Old Man of the Sea”, Henry Love, predicted the Easterlies well before the BOM. Henry observed that if a rain depression hovered over the south east coast of New South Wales, Lorne would “cop an Easterly”!

Those of us fortunate enough to understand its moods shake our heads in disbelief when innocent, unknowing day-trippers and international visitors venture in for a ‘why would you’ dip when the sea is running. No amount of education seems to make a difference: the drownings increase, and the hand-wringing continues …

I love walking along the deserted beach in an Easterly. Blighty can run wild and free, with the chance of him encountering a snake minimal. Furthermore, strolling along the Eastern View beach as this latest Easterly exhausted itself provided an added bonus… all sorts of flotsam lay strewn at the high tide mark.

But, although the snakes may have retreated to a dry log away from the rain-wet shore, danger still lurked for my overly inquisitive friend, who is resolutely careless of his safety, no matter the season or weather. This time the threat came from armies—or better, armadas—of stranded bluebottles [Portuguese Men-o’-War] that lay seductively twitching, all purpled and puffed full of air—a tempting treat for an I’ll-sniff-at-anything terrier.

Worse, stricken in the rock pools and shallows where, on a sunny day, he loves to chase minnows, these living and floating rafts of pain or death await a stray bite from an I’ll-try-anything-once dog.

Walking Blighty is a minute-by-minute gamble with death! In the fairer weather of summer, catchable toadfish or quick and sneaky minnows tempt him in the shallows, while tiger snakes lurk at the vegetation fringe. After an Easterly, however, it is the chubby, puffed-up and purple purveyors of death that test his caution at the tideline. Dog-walking is not for the faint-hearted. Strangely, the blue bottles stranded high on the sand seem less tempting… it is those still floating in shallow pools and still dangerously alive that draw his attention. A careful pawing can precede a sniff, but that sniff may be all that is needed to trigger the tiny arrows of pain that line their trailing tentacles.

Whoever said that owning a dog in our declining years helps keep us young has never met my Blighty! Well, young, perhaps, but even the young can turn prematurely grey!

Turning my screen-fatigued eyes away from my keyboard to admire the still-tumultuous sea, it’s hard not to feel grateful for the many moods of this lovely town. Our Antarctic-facing southwest coast has not been called the Shipwreck Coast without reason—it’s wild, but it is beautiful—with Lorne’s Point Grey in an Easterly blow as a perfect example.

To those who seek to cloak its timeless grandeur in the pretence of ‘architectural’ design [ref: the recent desecration of the Blowhole at Port Campbell], think twice before you further defile it. You know not what you do!

John Agar
Feature Writer

A word from the chairman

Hello
My greeting to you today was to be “Happy Christmas” but in the wake of the terrorist atrocity at Bondi Beach last Sunday those words ring hollow especially to some members of our community. Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy, happiness and peace, a time of coming together, but for many in our community there will be no joy, and in many parts of our world peace is at best fragile or seemingly unattainable. We stand with our Jewish friends in this time of further loss, suffering and fear.
It is important however that we do not allow the actions of a few to define us. The perpetrators of evil and antisemitism do not represent who we are as a community or as a nation. As Christians celebrate the miracle of Christmas, we open our arms and our hearts to our Jewish friends who continue to suffer unspeakable grief and fear.
Despite this tragedy, let us enjoy Christmas with our families and loved ones, let us embrace them and give thanks for their (and our) health and safety, and protect our children from the chilling images that saturate our television screens and online media.
*****
Our cricketers had a comfortable win against Stonyford last Saturday in front of a small crowd at Stribling Reserve. In the last over of the Stonyford innings and of the match, an 8-year-old batsman strode to the crease to face our 12-year-old paceman Tom Cash but did not get to face a ball. As the players shook hands at the end of the match, a call came from Lorne president Rip in the grandstand to bowl another over. The young man survived the over and walked off proudly. What a wonderful sporting moment it was, and a reflection of the spirit and inclusivity of the game. Well done boys! The next home game is a day/night game against Forrest on January 9 (Pier to Pub eve) and the barbecue and bar will be operating. Come along and support your local team.
Congratulations to all our VCE students on some outstanding results, especially Bella Reynolds on achieving a perfect score of 50 for music. Well done to you all.
Please join us on Saturday 20 December for Christmas Carols on St Cuthbert’s lawn from xx where our community choir will perform.
And one final call for your support for the community fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Thanks to the generous support of our local businesses including Great Ocean Road Real Estate, Mantra, Grand Pacific Hotel, the Op Shop, the Aquatic Club and many individual contributors, there will be two displays, at 9.30pm and at midnight

Cheers

Lorne Ward Events Calendar

December

20 Carols Lorne, St Cuthberts Church – 6.30pm Sausage sizzle 7.30pm Carols

31 Lorne Foreshore Fireworks, 9.30pm and 12pm

January

9 Mountain to Surf Run, 8:30am – 12pm at Lorne

9 – 27 Karen Stoneham Art Exhibition, open daily at Lorne Community Connect

10 Pier to Pub Swim, from 11am at Lorne

16 Deans Marsh Market, 10am – 12pm

16 – 18 Deans Marsh Sheep Dog Trials, 7.30am-5pm at Deans Marsh Reserve

24 Lorne Market, 9-3pm www.lornemarkets.com/