Duck Point.

Rolling down the highway under a leaden sky mi-morning. Out of town the landscape changes as you skirt the upper and eastern fringes of Westernport, surrounded by the kind of alien swampland that you can do nothing with except write a book about it; which is what Richard Shears did. Lady of the Swamp is the true story of Margaret Clemment who disappeared in this region decades ago. Recommended.

Swampland behind, green hills rose and the road curved and swept all the way almost to Wilson’s Promontory. My sister’s gate is off the main road and opens on a clutch of cottages and small barns in various stages of creative wire-and-concrete rendering about which wander a couple of goats. Inside the main cottage squeezed oil paint tubes, brushes and half-sketched roughs littered the kitchen table and a couple of dogs rushed us. It was as comfortably chaotic a welcome as you could wish for, like your favourite old threadbare sofa.

Later, at Duck Point, the three teenage cousins, two mine and one hers, swam out on a mirrored inlet and I and my sister stood on the beach and watched the rippling silver and wondered where the years go.