Home by the sea Words: Tracy Neal TESS JAINE
A warm breeze ruffling Tasman Bay turns it from blue to green. Gulls rise from the warm stones and begin to soar above forming white caps, screeching at the intrusion on their sacred nesting ground. Lizards dart beneath lichen-covered rocks, delicate flowers sway from salt-laden cracks among the stones, while black Oyster Catchers sound the alarm as we scrunch our way carefully towards the only signs of human occupation on Nelson’s Boulder Bank, Te Tāhuna o Tama-i-ea. To hear the hush of waves breaking on its rocky shore, is to know and love Whakatū/Nelson, for without the Boulder Bank, we are nothing, says the ferryman returning us from the rocky stretch of heritage wilderness so close to our city, yet so far away.
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