Ralph's Bay - The Broken Ornament

CJP

Ralphs Bay could be my Venetian glass horse. In much the same way an overgrown girl, full-fledged aflutter anticipated the arrival, then mourned the imperfection of a damaged ornament, so many impose values, ownership and future aspirations upon an already damaged place whose future we cannot own and no one “stakeholder” can control. It seems the norm for a majority to present rampantly overeager in prescribing what is exactly what and what a person’s attitude should be. Moreover, it seems to me that when considering community and the current mass identity of Ralphs Bay, whatever comes of state assessment processes, the bay and its human limb will be fractured. The idyllic ‘blissful ignorance” of attachment to a secure, protected place, has turned and fled.
Ralph’s Bay – The broken ornament

During 2005 my brother travelled throughout Europe, picking up much as he went. For me, he picked up an ornamental glass horse from a glass-blower in Venice. A beautiful piece; small, opaque and with a shot of red through the torso and limbs, this snaking colour redolent of the circulatory system. For himself, much of what he picked up was a renewed appreciation of the uniqueness and natural beauty of Tasmania and his coastal childhood domicile, Lauderdale. A voluntary absence saw his heart grow fonder and his mind grow ever-more concerned with what is natural, good and familiar.

My Arabesque glass horse made an epic freight from Venice to Hobart and was sadly received with a broken leg and tail. Appearing at a time of local unrest and tremendous energy for fixing, finding the rightness hidden in wrongs, politicking and ultimately “saving” I decided that my only conceivable action was to have it repaired. Having no knowledge of glass I decided that in optimism’s due course such a thing had to be possible; a “fixer” could surely be found. My mind flowed with a gallimaufry of gluing, glass-blowing and even transplantation. Besotted, I was willing to spirit it back to Venice to be repaired by its maker. I had immediately decided that I would heroically remake my limpid little horse, perfect in its cleanliness, quietness and conformation; it was Galatea to my Pygmalion. It was symbolic of a journey but, more importantly, it was symbolic of a return to home. It was beyond comprehension that an object of such intrigue and importance should remain broken, tarnished and useless for its ultimate purpose. I feel much the same way about Ralphs Bay.

Home within a home

Ralphs Bay has been home within a home “as long as I can remember”. One of my earliest memories of the bay is of standing on the opposite side of South Arm Road adjacent to the currently contested Ralphs Bay Conservation Area watching two galloping horses; riders astride, run the length of the sand flats and clear the canal mouth at a leap. I was perhaps eight years old and in the very early stages of “Santa, please bring me a pony”, but I know that some sense of the elation of the four still rides with me. I have only to look to the sand flats, any low-tide day, and the beauty of their vacancy and uniformity takes me back. I don’t really care to know if the place was a Conservation Area at the time and if those riders where therefore ‘breaking the rules’ by having their animals there. This was a moment in time when the person-in-place experience and the awe evoked from such a powerful relation, transcended legalist human constructs.

The recent history of Ralphs Bay has been strange and unpleasant for those who like to quietly embrace the natural nuance of this quietly wonderful place. Canal estate proposals and dispute over protected area legalese are a foreign assault on those naturally drawn to a place that is not noisy, not popular and not widely-known.

“its-pie-in-the-sky-and-will-never-happen-those-bloody-greenies-its-about-democracy-we-must-do-everything-we-possibly-can-to-stop-this-now-its-for-the-birds-let’s-wait-and-see-if-anything-comes-of-this-its-for-the-strange-fish-it-would-be-quite-pretty-its-for-our-children-a-tasmanian-precedent-a-spoilt-coastline”

It appears that one person can be against, then for, then against again all in the space of a day and our vitriolic arguments over back fences are sure to violently surpass anything a jaded public might read in the tabloid rag of locals angered by greedy billionaires. Then the bloke up the road with too much money becomes megalomaniacal and starts buying property all the way up the strip in the hopes of outdoing “The Corporation”.

Ralphs Bay does not have soft white sands, it does not have remarkable waves and the chances of observing a blonde in a string bikini sunbathing on its shores are non-existent. It is not in keeping with the Australian archetype of ‘sun, surf and sand’. Locals ought to find it a pleasant reprieve. Its pollution history, its sand flat aesthetic, its parlous winds and a degree of inaccessibility negate any possibility of mainstream coastal popularity. Ralphs Bay is no longer the place D’Entrecasteaux encountered in the late seventeenth century, surrounded by an abundant, untouched coast. Nor is it the place Robert Mather hauled boats across in the early eighteenth century; a salt-sprayed coastal farmland. Though Ralphs Bay, timeless, naturally observes a biotic condition common to all that live; that is, the embracing of dynamism; changing gently over time whilst maintaining an essential, unique identity.

One might liken the Lauderdale Quay proposal to a glass horse. A glass horse, in fact any ornamental horse, is but a model of the real dynamic beast and I’d go so far as to argue that these creatures are of such an enigmatic nature that it’s a fool’s folly modelling them. But what’s really ridiculous, probably beyond argument, is the notion (and indeed the practice) of modelling “places” on reams of glossy paper. Lauderdale Quay is pretty and all-Pleasantville when modelled on high-gloss paper before a person begins to conceive of these whimsical Barbie pictures forcefully imposed upon our warts-and-all town of Lauderdale. It soon dawns that Lauderdale Quay is being oxymoronically peddled by developmentalists who know too little of the existing place our sustainable development objectives insist they account for.

Caricatured “Lauderdale Quay”

If ever a place was climatically or coastally suited to a canal estate, I don’t believe that place was called “Tasmania”. Never, in my short life time whilst being a “Tasmanian”, have I known a fellow islander to covet such a lifestyle. If a Ralphs Bay canal estate was ever to reach a liveable, operational stage, those who have experienced and enjoy such a residential lifestyle would surely consider it a poor attempt at such, a national embarrassment even, if only due to those dang winds and a recurrent lack of sun and heat. A newly-arrived resident to Lauderdale Quay, would soon see the place as a contrived attempt at some “penultimate seachange” and vacate immediately. Pity the person who’d present some lifeless figurine in place of the snorts and scents of a lively mount. I feel that Walker Corporation is doing the metaphorical same in representing Lauderdale as this caricatured “Lauderdale Quay”. Folk who walk the beaches, loiter the footpaths and support the local football team, who embrace the ugly pub and the overstocked school and ride the dog-bike-horse trails surely deserve better than the tokenistic consultation they’ve received.

It has often been said that a Ralphs Bay canal estate would set a dangerous precedent for such developments in our state, a ‘butterfly effect’ if you will, in terms of the plethora of human and non-human expenses such deleterious human development has been known to incur. I don’t see butterflies or even the bay’s rare geometrid moth but, rather, a giant Pandora-like Pegasus poised to stretch its wings. It is a wild-eyed beast, a horrendous bastardization of an eight-year-old’s galloping beauties. It is a violent disappointment of what the place once evoked. And so perhaps, selfishly, it is that original vision; that child’s place, that I will defend most vigorously.

Open space to open-mindedness

There appears to be something that relates open space to open-mindedness. I have known, and continue to seek, the “clean slate” renewal of Ralph’s vacant and seemingly-endless sands. There is something to be said of emptiness, and an accompanying idea that anything is possible; the canvas is blank, tremendous things can, and probably will, happen. Tasmania still has blank canvases, whilst so many other parts of Australia and our globe do not. But to cover that canvas with such a bleak picture, a picture already seen and proven unpopular, so lacking in originality – this cannot be countenanced. We need those ‘blank canvas” places simply for their emptiness; for the simple act of knowing that such immense vacancy can suffice in the presence of so much business and building. For the symbolism of boundless possibility these open spaces present physically. When I exit a worn tree-enclosed bridle-trail to emerge into the large expansive tumble of a green-way, it is there that surrounds no longer protect me and there is no predetermined navigation supplied by a communal trail. It is here that a rider is compelled to sit forward, choose her own path and go for the gallop. It is a daunting thing and a dangerous thing, but ultimately worth the risk and of far greater satisfaction than the amble of preceding trails. And without these open spaces I would never “go for the gallop” in any real or metaphorical sense. It would be all too easy to follow other’s paths, to find the distracting excuses of busy surrounds, to sit comfortable and lazy in some preordained arrangement of physical and mental activity.

At Ralphs Bay we experience the immense speed of a violent wind thrusting sail board through saline water, we wonder at the curious activity of an errant tide, we are comforted by the pink and orange hues framing companionable old Wellington. Aside from these notable aesthetic wonders, we are, regularly, confronted with empty sands. Whilst driving to and from the city; the bureaucracy, alongside the Ralphs Bay Conservation Area, we are reminded that possibility is endless, human ability is boundless. Despite whatever may happen between the outward journey and the return journey, we of Lauderdale, of the South Arm Peninsula, can be assured of returning to this affirmation.

Olegas Truchanas said: “If we can revise some of our attitudes to the land under our feet; if we can accept the role of a steward, and depart from the role of conquerer; if we can accept the view that man and nature were inseparable parts of the unified world – then Tasmania can be a shining beacon in a dull, uniform and largely artificial world (2007: 77). So let it be. Let us embrace all that is natural and unique about Ralphs Bay, evermore so when contrasted with the “dull, uniform and largely artificial” placelessness of canal estates and reclaimed wetlands elsewhere. The natural ecosystem of Ralphs Bay is too far removed from the vainglorious vulgarity of a canal estate, and too valuable to be wasted on such an anthropocentric folly.

CJP