Fairy Meadow beach
Uneven
The sand piles up in giant peaks.
Wind gusts onshore from the South East, blowing shards of sand into my face.
I leave my shoes at the foot of the dunes. Feet sink into the shifting sands.
Trudge down the slope to the space near the flags - determined to have a brief break from the sticky humidity. It's been so hot.
The after school crowd is gathered. There are towels and teenagers sprawled. I find a space and put down my towel, hiding my keys and glasses in its folds so they don’t get blown away. Head straight into the water.
It's strong today. Waves are powerful.
I struggle to stay in the flags - the force of the water determined to drag me out of their safety. But I stay afloat.
When Michael and I first started to come down the mountain from Bowral to explore the Illawarra, we were drawn to Fairy Meadow. We liked the diversity - families grilling spicy meat over live coals on a grill they’ve brought from home. Mums in hijab, their teenage daughters rocking a burkini. Aging fishermen standing on the sand, watching the horizon, dreaming of their childhood village in Italy.
Isabella and Eva were young kids. They would play hide and seek in the sand dunes, running between the native grasses, the pigface and spinifex. When Julia came along she would be carted to the beach in a baby bjorn at first, then tag along wherever her sisters went. The 3 of them jumped over the waves, made castles with elaborate moats and shell-covered turrets, buried their daddy in sand until only his neck could be seen.
We walked our black labrador, Jass, who bounded away happily into the off-leash area. She loved anything smelly or disgusting - the fishier the better. We have a photo of her with a giant cuttle fish in her mouth - I could swear she’s grinning from ear to ear. One time she went into the shallow waves after Julia, herding her like an errant sheep back towards the shore.
When the kids were old enough to leave at home, Michael and I would sometimes go for a walk through Puckey’s estate after dinner. We strolled gently, hand in hand, past the knotty banksias and paperbark trees. We listened to the susurration of the swamp she-oaks, the kurruk kruk of the dusky moorhen. Sometimes we would talk about our day, sometimes we would walk in silence. We stopped at the Fairy Creek Bridge, leant on the bannister, looking out over the creek. Sometimes we would spot a silver glint in the mangroves and joke about spotting a shopping trolley in the wild. OK, the lame jokes were frequently my department - though Michael had a repertoire of groan-inducing ‘Dad jokes’ he would pull out for special occasions.
We jogged there during our brief Park Run phase. Rejoiced that it was within our 5km range during COVID. Brought our friends and family from out of town to swim, warning them to look out for rip currents, a possible shore dump, and deep, shifting sandbars under the fickle waves. In the summer of 2022 - 2023, the 5 of us went down one day to find absolutely perfect conditions. The waves were gently undulating. The water was cool but not too cold and crystal clear. The sky was deep blue, the sea a glistening turquoise. We stayed in for ages - dunking our heads under wave after wave. It’s a day that has now become legend.
After Michael finished chemo, when Prof Chantrill said his body just couldn’t take it any more, they took out the PICC line in his arm. He could swim again. So one sunny day in January 2025 we went to Fairy Meadow - the 5 of us with Ali and Raf. Michael donned his long sleeved rash top, covered every inch of exposed skin with sunscreen and sat for ages on his towel, thinking about going in. As he always did. We persuaded him eventually. Isabella and I supported him, one on either side, through the buffeting waves and into the water. We laughed and laughed when he shrieked ‘It’s wet!’ I can still remember the smiles on the faces of all the kids, and on Michael’s.
Puckey’s was well known as a gay beat in the 1980s, and became a site of ugly homophobic violence during that dangerous time. An older friend told me she’d been walking there in the daytime recently and saw, ‘the heads of some gentlemen pop up in the bushes.’ So maybe it’s a place where you can still find love, even if only of the temporary kind.
Fairy Meadow Beach has a dark history as well. The disappearance of Cheryl Grimmer is in the news again. The NSW director of public prosecutions now says her office is willing to conduct a special review of the case. Every Wollongong resident knows the story of the 3 year old child abducted in 1970, just a few kilometres from our home. The family still waiting for answers over 50 years later.
There are rumours of suspicious deaths, rapes and murders. They say that ghosts can be heard, crying at night. of a murdered. (Amy Rose, 2016. 'Secrets of the Illawarra')
I wonder if they are the ghosts of the original custodians, decimated by smallpox and driven off their traditional lands. The Wadi Wadi people would have hunted there and fished in the plentiful waters. Michael Organ has collected the accounts of settlers and convicts who described the the Illawarra Aboriginal people of the Illawarra in the 19th Century. One describes bridges made from cut down cabbage tree palms. He marvels at the ‘agility and ease with which blacks trot across cabbage tree bridges’ (Harris, P. 163 in Organ, M 1990, A Documentary History of the Illawarra and South Coast Aborigines 1770-1850, Aboriginal Education Unit, Wollongong University, Wollongong.) The library tells me Para Meadow was the original name of the Fairy Meadow district. 'Para' is an Aboriginal word meaning river or creek. I wonder if the name faded once the site was used as a salt mill by the late Courtney Puckey in the early 20th Century.
Life and death.
Joy and treachery.
History and forgetting.
In the 2024 film A Real Pain by Jesse Eisenberg the character David delivers a monologue. He compares the nature of his personal suffering to historical trauma and says,
‘I know my pain is unexceptional.’
I find this oddly comforting.
