Reflections from the Coastal Track

The bench seat at the top of the Goat Island Coastal Walkway is one of my favourite spots in Leigh. I found out from a couple of friends who run, that you can walk to the top of this track from Matheson Bush Rd via Cape Rodney Rd which is just up the main road from our house. I ran/walked there yesterday for the second time.

My current aim is to run/walk twice a week, once in my two days off during the week and once in the weekend. I don’t always have two days off during the week, that’s just my ideal time for writing and life admin stuff. Working the body takes time out of that writing schedule but it’s a generative activity — I’ll get that time back, whether in energy, more expansive ideas, focus, or mental health. The endorphin high of running (even though I’m just plodding along on and off right now) mixed with the expansive beauty of this region is a winning combination. Its doing wonders for my mental health and stability of energy and mood.

I’m building new musculature and new awareness of my body through a daily yoga practice also. I do a short online freebie most days, about twenty minutes, and one 75-minute class in Leigh each week with an incredible teacher who is extremely strict about body alignment. She is teaching me so much about how I avoid using certain areas of my body and assisting me in building awareness and ability and capacity. She has maternal drill sergeant energy and I’m so glad I found her. I’m building agency in my body which feels delicious!

Yesterday I started out walking/running slow. My plan was to get to the Coastal Track but instead of turning back for home, following the track to Goat Island and taking Goat Island Road to the main road to home. My body was fairly stiff from three days of gardening work and my ankle bones hurt. I started out walking and told myself, I can’t do this today. I’ll see how I feel when I get to the top. I can stop anytime, can just turn around and go home. I was disappointed because the first time I ran this way I had a lot of energy. Once I got going though, I worked the stiffness and aches out of my muscles and joints and felt much better. I didn’t want to stop!

I always take some time to sit and stare out over the open ocean when I get to the bench seat. Sometimes I’ll wave my arms around, moving my shoulders, doing some exercises or will sit cross legged and meditate. Yesterday I just sat and stared at Little Barrier and Great Barrier crystal clear behind. The Gulf’s outer islands are stunning and on a clear day, jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Yesterday was a jaw dropping day.

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I’ve been thinking a little about this field note form. In order to do more of it, I hope to be less precious about the structure of my writing here. One way of doing that is to share brief reflections, in note form, how they might appear in my phone notes or voice notes. I’m going to try that with you now. I have a habit of being fairly verbose (in my text at least, not so much in speaking) which I’m hoping this practice might help me bring some awareness to and reign in.  

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(voice note) I’m here at the bench at the end of the Goat Island Coastal Track and as I got here, walking from the house over Cape Rodney Road through the paddocks, I realised it’s about the same distance from my house as it is from the camp when I lived there. Serendipity kept me close to this place.

(voice note) Today it’s very clear. I can see the cliff features on Little Barrier (approximately forty kilometres away). I think that would be called chiaroscuro (no idea how to pronounce this) where there’s the contrast between light and dark from the sun and shade on the cliffs that reveal the topography of the island. I’m looking towards its northwestern end (?) which is all cliffs dropping off sharply. It’s a very dramatic beautiful island. Very Jurassic. Uninhabited. Green and verdant. Very dramatic. Ravines and valleys run from the top all the way down to the dramatic drop-offs.

(voice note) We spent nine months circumnavigating the Indian Subcontinent, beginning in Bombay/Mumbai, going as far west as Diu in Gujarat, and following the coast all the way down to Kanniyakumari. We arrived just as summer approached the southern tip of India and quickly fled north to the mountains on a three-day train journey from Kanniyakumari all the way north to Calcutta/Kolkata and up into West Bengal.

(mental note) I love that I thought I couldn’t do this when I set out and that I kept going and reached the point where I didn’t want to stop. So much in life is like this, especially creative projects (writing projects!!!). When you set out, it’s hard going. It’s gets better, then it gets hard again. It’s always hard right before the end, too. Maybe running will teach me how to keep going when I hit that point in my projects where I’m tempted to stop or get stuck. I’m so glad I’m doing this.

(mental note) When you stop suppressing pain and emotion (vaping, smoking, drinking, overeating, undereating, pick your poison), and work with them instead, release them, run them out, swim them out, scream them out, turns out you also free up heaps of energy. People say emotion is energy in motion, it wants to move, be expressed, get out of the body, not stay buried inside. I love this feeling of energy, of the body wanting to move, of the body moving me. It’s agency. It’s delicious. It’s powerful trauma work. It’s building a new more alive self with greater capacity. More of this please.

(mental note) I can’t believe it’s been two years since the camp closed down. I loved living there. I’m so grateful for that time. I’m so glad I got to be there for the end.

(physical note) On my way back up Goat Island Road, I grabbed a handful of pine needles and stuffed them in my jacket pocket to take home, made a mental note to grab some from the campground driveway next time. They’ll end up in a smudging bowl or on my desk, a sweet little reminder of when I moved islands to a campground next to a marine reserve.

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We’re heading out for a kayak fishing adventure this morning (it’s crisp and cold). I hope to have some field notes from today’s adventure to share also.

xo - Anne