First you see the lighthouses, then you see the ferry terminal sitting grey and squat on the dock. The dock is off to the north west of Queenscliff on a little point, where Port Phillip Bay meets Lonsdale Bay, maybe a kilometre from town.
If you're a foot passenger, you disembark and walk into town along a sandy track edged with native grasses near the sand dunes, listening to unseen waves crashing onto the shore beyond. Or you can take the road that leads past the kinds of rundown buildings you always find at the ends of fishing villages; old shipyards with rusted anchors and ships' bells in front, leaning weatherboard houses with half-open front doors and awnings pulled down over verandahs, faded maritime museums, nissen huts built for long-forgotten reasons.
We walked into town.
We'd left the car on the other side of the bay and the babies rode abreast in their brand new twin pram; except they are not twins. Thomas is exactly four months and William is exactly twenty months (hence my current pet name for them: Four'n Twenty). Thomas lay, and William sat up; and we took the sand dune route into town and William chattered all the way.
Queenscliff is one of those towns that feels like you’ve been there before, even though you haven't. Something about the atmosphere, the brooding history. An old railway line curves in alongside a bird-filled wetlands and stops at a station at the end of the main street. In the 1880s the train brought the Western District's well-to-do to Queenscliff for carefree summer holidays of genteel bathing, Saturday night dances in the grand halls and Sunday picnics on the foreshore. Then the railway fell into ruin and stayed that way until enthusiasts restored the line, repaired the old station, fixed the broken steam engines, fired them up and shunted the town gloriously back to the nineteenth century.
The architecture is gold boom brash mixed with old money grandeur; and in the 1880s there was no shortage of money. The buildings are vast. They look too big for the size of the town but the gentle rising and falling away of its topography from sea to wetlands gives the place something of a terraced effect. If it were flat, it would look crowded. But it doesn't. The guest houses sprawl, the hotel balconies soar and over it all, the seagulls circle lazily in the late summer sun.
Queenscliff could be the most beautiful seaside town in the world, but I haven't seen them all.
If you're a foot passenger, you disembark and walk into town along a sandy track edged with native grasses near the sand dunes, listening to unseen waves crashing onto the shore beyond. Or you can take the road that leads past the kinds of rundown buildings you always find at the ends of fishing villages; old shipyards with rusted anchors and ships' bells in front, leaning weatherboard houses with half-open front doors and awnings pulled down over verandahs, faded maritime museums, nissen huts built for long-forgotten reasons.
We walked into town.
We'd left the car on the other side of the bay and the babies rode abreast in their brand new twin pram; except they are not twins. Thomas is exactly four months and William is exactly twenty months (hence my current pet name for them: Four'n Twenty). Thomas lay, and William sat up; and we took the sand dune route into town and William chattered all the way.
Queenscliff is one of those towns that feels like you’ve been there before, even though you haven't. Something about the atmosphere, the brooding history. An old railway line curves in alongside a bird-filled wetlands and stops at a station at the end of the main street. In the 1880s the train brought the Western District's well-to-do to Queenscliff for carefree summer holidays of genteel bathing, Saturday night dances in the grand halls and Sunday picnics on the foreshore. Then the railway fell into ruin and stayed that way until enthusiasts restored the line, repaired the old station, fixed the broken steam engines, fired them up and shunted the town gloriously back to the nineteenth century.
The architecture is gold boom brash mixed with old money grandeur; and in the 1880s there was no shortage of money. The buildings are vast. They look too big for the size of the town but the gentle rising and falling away of its topography from sea to wetlands gives the place something of a terraced effect. If it were flat, it would look crowded. But it doesn't. The guest houses sprawl, the hotel balconies soar and over it all, the seagulls circle lazily in the late summer sun.
Queenscliff could be the most beautiful seaside town in the world, but I haven't seen them all.
Excellent.
ReplyDeleteLove the 4 and 20! I'm sure that's a hand full and some but great fun too!
ReplyDeleteSuch a pleasant time, walk and then blam in my face with I haven't seen them all...oh the expectaion of seeing them all!
The thing about babies, HalfCups, is that they are never asleep at the same time.
ReplyDeleteUm, yes and that's both good and bad isn't it. Good then that each gets some of that one on one with an adult but bad that the adult doesn't get that moment of loneness we all need. Mine were 3 years 3 months apart. Now they probably mostly sleep at the same time but all I'm really involved in is their excellent adult company when we're together.
ReplyDeleteYes, HalfCups, and they do keep changing. Time goes by so fast.
ReplyDeleteI loved Queenscliff, especially the late 19th century public and private architecture. It must have been a superb holiday site in its day - it still is now :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link
Hels
Art and Architecture, mainly