Where the pines reach down to the shore with hollows sheltering nesting plovers there lies a world remote from the clamour of humanity. So tread gently, listen to the rustle of the marram grass and the sigh of the shingle for you are part of a day that you share with others that you cannot see.
White breakers gather strength as they roll towards the shore, the crests dipping, folding over as they near the shallows before ending a journey that began an ocean away, in a swirl of foam on the waiting sand.
Where a thousand tall masted ships once sailed there is now a single sail set against a horizon where the sky and sea meet and infinity begins. To the north of the dunes there is a harbour entrance marked by blackened groins while on the landward side the low grey roofs of huts half buried in the sand are the store sheds once filled with nets, lobster pots, lines and jumble needed for the clinker fishing boats winched up above the tide line. But now, cleaned up and repainted those huts ring to the laughter of another generation. No longer sitting by the doorways are Bob Cross, Palmer, Old Pinkney and friends smoking their pipes, swopping yarns of times past, shipmates remembered and storms survived. They worked as time and tide made them, bade each day with a willingness and a blessing that contained gratitude and grace and wondered at the men and women sitting at their easels
Time took them all. The sheds fell to the weather, doors broken at the hinges, unclaimed they lay long that way. Winters and summers passed. New generations came and made their claim with tidiness and locks. Sticks are thrown, dogs bark and children smile. Bright canvasses break the wind and swimmers rest in the shade.
Above, the light shines with clarity bringing evenness of tone, so much the attraction for artists that found their way to this quiet corner to set up their easels. Charles Rennie MacIntosh abandoning the travails of architecture that a century later would bring his name renown found solace in the beauty of watercolour. Philip Wilson Steer caught with impressionistic ease the fleeting charm of children in the sparkling shallows and Walter Osborne saw the harbour with its noise, clutter of drying sails and throngs of people as fitting subjects for his brush. While of a later time the watercolours of Leonard Squirrell recorded with engaging detail the harbour with its jetties and moored boats and Edward Seago with his fine sense of atmosphere was able to capure the day before it vanished. Idyllic days pass, the steam ferry that clattered across the tidal river with its burden of waggons and horses has passed into history, further upstream the little narrow guage railway which crossed by a metal bridge has long since vanished though the bridge remains as do so many memories. The track along Blackshore though rough and unmade remains passable and being in this condition has the virtue of only appealing to those who love the picturesqe and the ramshackle collection of black huts and fishing boats waiting to go about their business in deep waters.