Shingle beach

On September 17th, a Canadian prospector named Henry Williams and his partner registered a claim at Waganga.

This claim was on the strength of alluvial gold found in Beach Shingle a few miles north of Burma Gwee.

It's still the only gold field in the country that runs out under the sea, and it set off a firestorm across the world.

Within three weeks, roughly 2,000 diggers had arrived by steamer, and a township with three licensed hotels and its own newspaper had sprung up on the sand.

Wandering among the taller plants is the forager, nibbling seeds as she goes.

I find it impossible not to smile at the sight of wild fennel, standing tall and proud with its umbels bared to the sun, waving its yellow-green fronds in the sea breeze.

It's a plant that thrives on shingle coasts like this, where it can bask in the heat and light of wide open skies.

Its strong stems can withstand the coastal winds, and it even seems to enjoy the inevitable sprinkling of sea spray.

By late summer, wild fennel's delicate foliage has died back and its golden flowers have turned to green seeds.

Time to find some shade and perhaps an ice cream before we wander down to the water's edge and walk back, wet foot on the narrow strip of sand below the shingle ridges.

Up here, where the stones are wetted not by waves but only rain or occasional sea fret, there is a miniature world of lichens, coating their surfaces with extraordinary colours and textures.

lichens of shingle coasts, cup lichen, Cladonia fimbriata, and close relatives in the Cladonia chlorophea group.

Now, I'm no psychologist, no psychiatrist, needless to say, and not really equipped to unpack what psychological afflictions or maladies are at play here.

But The conventional interpretation has always been that this behaviour, whether it be rolling around face first in the shingle beach or laughing hysterically or going on a kind of killing spree, that it was a kind of release, a kind of blowing off of steam, an outlet for what had been a truly horrific week on the Weddell Sea.

And once they'd gotten it out of their system, as it were, it seemed to do the trick.

The men settled down.

One of those photos I've used as a thumbnail on this episode.

You can see the men hauling the Caird up to higher ground, the Stankinwills and the Dorothy Docker in the foreground.

You'll notice the precipitous icy snow cliffs that rise up suddenly from the rocky Shingle Beach.

And one more thing.