Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 02:04:13 +1200
From: prime wordsmith <primewordsmith@hotmail.com>
Subject: Swansea-Bridge-01

Well actually there's two now.  Both in use.  The first was a low level two
lane affair.  It was an upward opening hinge bridge which carried the
Pacific Highway in both directions.  One lane each way.  Instant permanent
bottleneck with five to six hour delays each holiday weekend.  The second
bridge was a duplication of the first, right next to it, downstream.  So
now there are two lanes each way.

The Pacific Highway is National Route # 1, linking Sydney with the northern
capital of Brisbane. About 800 miles long.  The country's largest seawater
lake empties into the Pacific Ocean through Swansea channel, under Swansea
Bridge.  It's a major roadway / waterway focus.

Lake Macquarie is a glorious holiday destination for the enclosed water
sailors, the fishing fraternity, and for holidaying families with lots of
kids.  Swansea channel hits the ocean at Swansea Heads.  Blacksmiths then
Nine Mile Beach run north from the Swansea breakwall.  They're ideal
beaches for top safe surfing.  Black swans paddle and feed in the lake
adding to the feeling of grandeur.  It is a most magnificent part of the
coast.

Swansea and Blacksmiths are suburbs of Newcastle, the country's sixth
largest city.  So all the benefits of a large city are nearby.

Although a lot of couples retire here from Sydney, it is still a family
area, both during the holiday seasons and also out of season.  There are
young people at the beaches, in the sand dunes and on the lake the whole
year round.

I love sitting beside the channel near the bridge eating cooked seafood
from the nearby fish and chip shop.  The bridge fascinates me, the rapid
tide race down the channel fascinates me, watching the fish swim against
the current under the jetty fascinates me, and the people wandering around,
fishing, swimming, rowing or simply parading fascinate me.  I always get
drawn into a conversation there.

The channel wall and the jetty seem to be favourite places for young people
to fish. If they want to hang out its usually up at the shops.  But if they
want to fish its usually on the channel wall or the jetty.  Unless they're
experts, and fish off the beach or the breakwater, or can use a boat to
fish in the lake or over the channel sandbanks.  It doesn't matter what
hour it is, day or night, there's always young people fishing at Swansea
Bridge.

When the prawns are running, on the third or fourth night after the full
moon while the tide is running out, people are everywhere about the
channel.  Right through the night.  It's almost like Pitt Street it's so
crowded.  This is the one time when conversation's not on.  Prawning then
is too serious for idle chit-chat.  I usually avoid the channel then.

But in the afternoon after school, or in the evening after tea, or on a
lazy Sunday afternoon when everyone seems to be sleeping or have gone slow,
then it's the time I like best.  People are relaxed, unpressured, and have
time to talk.  Parents don't seem to be around and I often appear to be the
only adult there.

Conversations then can be quite fascinating.  It's amazing what these 11 to
16 year old guys have to say about themselves, their schoolmates, their
teachers, their parents.  A better understanding of their problems is more
likely from listening to them at Swansea Channel than from listening to
them in the counselling rooms at school, or the youth refuges.

The only time I'm unlikely to see anyone is during heavy downpours.  Even
the yachties seem to disappear during heavy rain.  Except of course those
nutters from the Royal Motor Yacht Squadron.  Nothing stops them.  Most of
them are escapees from the Lake Macquarie Yacht Club anyway.  So it
figures, I guess.

But I don't mind the rain.  I like the rain.  Some of the most outlandish
things I have done have been done during medium to heavy rain.  I love the
water.  And I love to put on my yellow roadworker raincoat and wander about
during the rain.  It's almost possible to imagine the clouds have opened
and washed all people away.  The land has been cleansed, washed free of the
human plague. I catch myself looking over my shoulder at such moments
worrying about trifids.  Am I alone with only those man-eating plants to
worry about?

It was one such wet evening I was out revelling in the freshness,
unthinkingly keeping an eye out for trifids when a moan and a movement
startled me.  It sounded like someone in pain, and in an instant of
out-of-this-worldliness I wondered where the trifid had caught him.

Talk about loony. I realised I'd have to control my pluvial fantasies in
future.  Fancy reacting as if trifids actually were real.  But the boy was
sobbing.  He was rocking backwards and forwards on the channel wall
footpath with his arms wrapped about his knees.  No raincoat.  No cap.  No
boots.  No shoes for that matter.  The rain made the street lights
moderately useless, but the flood lamps over near the Paris Apartments
helped me see him more easily.

Since there were no trifids to concern me with I only had to worry about
what on earth I was doing.  Should I do anything?  He only had a tee shirt
and soccer shorts on.  I mean, it doesn't get really cold here but it is
not exactly tropical all the time either.  I suppose he could have slipped
trying to climb the bridge.  If he'd been hit by a car, he or someone else
would have been doing something.  But he was just stopping there.  Rocking
and sobbing as if he was alone in the world.  He wasn't even sitting on the
path under the bridge where he could be out of the rain.  Oh dear.  It
looked like a physical expression of psychic suffering.


Positive comments and enquiries are invited.  Please send to
primewordsmith@hotmail.com