21. White Cabbage Butterflies, North Beach Wollongong
Up above the high tide line, soft shapeless sand slips in snake-like drifts under my feet. Little life here, except for the creeping feelers of purple pigface and rolling spinifex. Timeless dunes not soaked by seawater in centuries, washed only by sun white light and seasonal rain. One foot sliding, then the next. Each step sinking further and further till I hit the damp sand hard packed by last night’s high tide. Surf that drew to it a swarm of white cabbage butterflies in flight. Invasive, non-indigenous plague-like beauties. A foreshore saltwater trap of death and life. Millions of tiny, black-speckled white wings lying there glued to the sand, compelled, somehow, to sacrifice themselves to the surf.
Out there, apart from the shifting currents tumbling ashore, I can’t tell the horizon from the ocean anymore. To the east, storm clouds smother the skyline in sombre sinking tones, while rain up Bulli way is cloaking the escarpment where the sand curves around the coastline like the wings of a pelican in flight. Two pencil dots of coal tankers at anchor are waiting to sail into port. And always those surging breakers that keep breaching the beach. Ebbing and rising till the bodies of the butterflies wash, all too simply, away with the tide. These pests, this carnage, too unsettling. They were still life, nonetheless.
Julie Smythe lives on Tharawal land in Sydney and Wollongong. She is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing at Deakin University. After a lifetime spent teaching English literature and creative writing to teenagers, Julie is now retired and is finally finding time to write for herself. She was awarded the Deakin Postgraduate Prize for Writing Anthology in 2024. Her literary interests swirl around topics like place-based eco-lit, walking women, memoir, and the quirky rich culture of the City of Wollongong just south of Sydney where she bases her work.