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| Jonathan Livingston Seagull? Is that you? |
I thought Wollongbar was just an Aboriginal name, but according to the motel's guest folder the name Wollongbar is the name of the ship that is wrecked in the surf, pretty much where the motel is, once you cross the old railway tracks, that is.
I had been meaning to go for a walk along the beach since I arrived at the motel, but I only got the chance on the Sunday morning, as most of my time was spent at the Writers Festival during the daylight hours.
So, Sunday morning I set off through the gate of the motel and headed for the beach before the ominous looking clouds above me burst.
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| Looking towards Cape Byron Lighthouse at sunrise (behind the clouds). |
My main reason for heading down to the beach was to get some photos of the old wreck the motel was named after.
I knew there was a wreck in the surf here, but I didn't know of its history until this weekend, thanks to the hotel's guest folder, found in each room of the motel.
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| The wreck of the Wollongbar with Julian Rocks beyond it. |
The funny thing though, as I walked towards the wreck was I spotted a lone seagull between me and the wreck, which I thought would fly off as soon as I got nearer, but it didn't move from its spot.
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| The Wollongbar in the water behind the seagull |
If anything, it greeted me and followed me everywhere I went.
This little fellow just wouldn't leave my side, not even when those two dogs in the distance made a run at us.
"Jonathan" even seemed to point out to me this pilgrim shell below.
When I got home and uploaded the pictures to my computer of the seagull, I couldn't help but think of my old post about the author of Johnathan Livingston Seagull and his tragic plane crash.
The Bridge Across Forever to the One?
I wondered how Richard Bach was coming along since the crash, thinking that he was probably in a bad way still, but was surprised to find this out about him and tagged this new information on to the old post as an update -
Update: August 12th,2014
From "With Puff rebuilt as good as new, the author of best selling book
Jonathan Livingston Seagull has also rebuilt himself to again soar in the skies and write of his near-death experience in
Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student
(which topped the Kindle Single’s list the day it was published on February 17, 2014).
In the Introduction to Illusions II, Richard wrote:
When I came out of my coma, I was told that it would take a year to getter, to learn how to speak, stand, walk, run, read, drive a car, fly my airplane.
The airplane was a wreckage.
I didn’t know why I lived, something promised on the other side of dying ?
There was no question that Puff, my seaplane had to fly again.
My life today, it took a little crash, a near death event, Sabryna’s certainty that I would be recovered from every suggestion of injury, my meetings with Illusion’s Messiah Donald Shimoda, with my other teachers, with Puff rebuilt; for this story to be told.
There’s no blessing that can’t be a disaster, and no disaster that can’t be a blessing.
Violent disasters, do they always become blessings?
I hope so.
I hope I can have my quiet little adventures, write them, without needing to die.
– Richard Bach, December 2013
During his recovery, Richard returned to Jonathan Livingston Seagull after Sabryna found the manuscript for the fourth part of the book hidden away in a box.
Richard had decided not to include Part Four at the time Jonathan was published because he felt it “wasn’t the time for it.”
But reading it during his recovery he knew that its time for publication had come – even though it was 43 years later.
When Jonathan Livingston Seagull was published in 1970 it topped the New York Times Best Seller list for 38 weeks and led the Publishers Weekly list of bestselling U.S. novels in 1972 and 1973.
And now,
Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The New Complete Edition,
is available as an e-book."
Read more at
I might just have to read his new updated version of JLS now?
The old wreck of the Wollongbar also reminded me of an old demotivational poster I used to have in a frame on my bookcase (until one day it fell onto the floor, breaking the glass in the frame, so I chucked it out, rather than try and salvage the picture ... pardon the pun).
Still seems relevant to my life in many ways, although I guess there is a part in all of our lives that seems like pointless wreckage.
I almost forgot about this wet white feather I found in the sand as I walked back to my motel room to checkout and head off to the last day of the Byron Bay Writers Festival.
It reminded me of the feather that wouldn't blow away the day I threw my wedding ring in the ocean -
(another wreck in the sands of my life).
A White Feather on a Byron Beach?
UI am definitely going to read that updated version of seagull. Bach is a fascinating writer, one of the few novelists I know of who actually sought out Jane Roberts so he could speak to "Seth, "an entity no longer focused in physical existence."
ReplyDeleteLove these posts, Daz.