Magic Time

In both photography and a poetry sense I have come across descriptions of the brief time after the Sun has set and the onset of the first blush of Avalon as the 'Magic Time'. The only rival to this moment is arguably near Dawn but I'd suggest for altogether other magical reasons.

I found myself walking along beach near Point Gellibrand, not far from Williamstown, a popular bayside suburb of Melbourne, roughly 15 kilometres/9 miles from the Melbourne CBD. Earlier in the day I had gone to the very picturesque Williamstown Football Oval to watch a local game of Aussie Rules Football through its Victorian Football League competition (a level that is one rung below the principal league that being the highly professional Australian Football League). As always, the Ground was in good nick though a tarty northerly was whipping across the oval requiring a few cans of Bourbon and Coke to offset the chill. The spectators were in fine barracking voice with epithets ranging from good natured banter to 'mongrel' calls against what was perceived as poor umpiring decisions. All in the easy tradition of a local footy match - loud but harmless. One of the pleasures of attending such games is the people you catch up with and a meat pie or two you wolf down over the course of the two or so hours. Not the least good for the cholesterol levels but terrific in an unculinary sense! I also like visiting this Ground as it sits literally on the edge of the beach, which flanks three sides with some well tended houses on the fourth. It can get mightily chilly, especially if a sea breeze is in the offing (even in summer when watching a local Cricket match). Though shelter can be taken in the fine old Grandstand almost as old my refrigerator. A feature of this Grandstand is that it offers a Napoleonesque like view of the oval where the Footy combatants pound away with body and skill in order to kick the leather football from one end to the other over four quarters of earnest and raucous sport.

Near on 5:00 pm and the match ended. After bidding farewell, I plodded off for a walk along the foreshore at Point Gellibrand with a view to eventually end up in Williamstown proper and then further along to Newport, a distance of about 10 kilometres/6 miles. In the vicinity is the remarkable Lava Blister which featured in my blip of 29th May 2010. But further along, especially at low tide, are more examples of the striking Basalt rocks laid down as a result of volcanic activity that occurred between four and five million years ago in the Pliocene and Pleistocene eras. The Lava flows that brought these rocks came from up to twenty active volcanic eruption points, evidence of which remains today in the forms of the now heavily eroded Mounts Kororoit and Cottrell, along with Spring Hill and bald Hill located to the north-west of Point Gellibrand. The Indigenous custodians called the area 'Koort Boork Boork', which in translation is 'Sheoak, Sheoak, many', in recognition of the Sheoaks that once thrived in the area before European occupation, which commenced in the 1840s. For a time, the area was a large Bluestone Quarry and it is reputed that the infamous Bushranger, Ned Kelly (1855-1880) once endured hard labour during 1873 in the Quarry as a result of a criminal misdemeanour. Ned Kelly, an icon of Australian folklore (though still a murdering crook in my eyes), was later hanged after the bloody siege of Glenrowan (in northern Victoria) and for his part in the deaths of three Policeman, amongst other crimes. Amusingly, Mick Jagger (of Rolling Stones fame) played Ned Kelly in a truly forgettable film about the Bushranger's life in 1970. The film was directed by Tony Richardson who should have known better. Having seen the film many years ago, I recall that Jagger gave one of the finest performances of how to over act and even then he did that dreadfully. If you want a laugh on how NOT to play a murdering Bushranger, with pretensions of fighting injustice, I would recommended you get a copy, presumably on DVD, of the film. I would also suggest you have large quantities of alcohol or drugs or both (as apparently did Jagger) when you watch the film. My abiding memory, apart from the woeful inaccuracies of the film, was of rolling about in fits of mirth at this celluloid stupidity.

As I continued to walk along the beach, I noticed the light quickly change after the Sun had weakly set, offering a lovely anti-solar glow (I was facing eastwards). This swooning glow lit the sky giving a blue/mauve type wattage. This in turn seemed to lift the apparent nondescript greys of the Basalt and the hardy yellow/orange tinged Lichens that grew on the rocks. Here, I reckoned was a photo and within a jiffy I had the tripod set up and the camera placed least I lose the light.

It is now, this moment of light
of emotions and senses
fusing upon memory
never surrendering -
It is, the magic time.

This wonderful iridescence lasted barely ten minutes and there was no spectacular sunset, rich with warm colours, to entice my lens in a westward direction. And, whilst a large brooding City was all around me and the sweep of an irate wind buffeted Bay in front me, I felt as if I was the only person on the planet. Yet, I was not in the least alone. Nature has that way of making you feel special. It is in such moments that I felt the excitement, again, of being in the present, where all of your senses and the core of your emotions tingle! I understood now, what the photographers and the poets meant by this wondrous 'Magic Time'.