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A steep set of concrete stairs is framed by white walls shining in the sunshine. A neatly manicured hedge and a few palm trees line the handrail and guide your eye line down to an oasis.
A short stretch of rock kisses the shoreline of a shallow salt water reserve. The water is so clear it almost feels manufactured. A pale turquoise, the perfect window to the sea floor below.
Picture perfect: Salmon Haul Reserve in the Sutherland Shire.Credit: Marlee Silva
The glassy hues become a deeper blue when they reach a reef about 100 metres out. It is denser, more menacing but, gratefully, a natural barrier between this haven and the traffic of boats that pass in and out of the mouth of the Port Hacking river.
A 16:9 snap of that scene will inevitably appear on Instagram story after Instagram story – #nofilterneeded – when the weather perks up at home on Dharrawal Country.
A photo at Salmon Haul Reserve, this special place nestled in a nook of coastline past South Cronulla, around the bend from Shelly Beach, Oak Park and just beyond Bass and Flinders point, is, in fact, the earliest indicator for the Sutherland Shire local that summer is here.
This beach is, quite simply, one of my favourite spots in the world.
The author’s dog Ziggy, ready for a swim.Credit: Marlee Silva
I guess she is not a beach in the traditional sense; there are no waves if that’s the kind of thing you’re into, and the sandbanks are limited, only accessible if you’re willing to brave a climb over either boiling hot or dangerously slippery rocks.
You’ve got to get there early in the morning to snag a converted flat spot on the rock bed to lay down your towel, but I prefer to perch up on the grass on a hill just to the left of those famous stairs that bring you down from a residential cul-de-sac to the water.
Marlee Silva’s “soft launch” photograph of her boyfriend heading down to the water.Credit: Marlee Silva
I was born and raised in the Shire and, while I spent many years as a nipper at a bigger beach further along the esplanade and I once lived across the road from another beautiful swimming spot, it’s by this perfect body of water that I have spent the most time in my adult life.
Picnics with family, a study spot during my HSC, a true lifeline for my mental wellbeing in our designated one hour of outside time during the pandemic – most hilariously, she was even the background to which I decided to soft-launch* my boyfriend two years ago.
I have written before about my love for this place and the serenity she provides me; it seems I can’t stop bragging about her. Not even the fear of her being overrun by too many visitors stops me.
I feel pride in the power I know she has. How she has been a constant in my life, how she holds my memories and, most importantly, most miraculously, how – when you’re sitting in front of her, your back to the million-dollar mansions that overlook her – she feels so untouched by the destruction of modern life. She is a glimpse into history, what this country was for millennia, up until just a couple of centuries ago.
This year was one of the busiest of my life to date. I spent more time on planes, pressing my face up against the window as I flew out of Sydney, desperately trying to spot Cronulla and Salmon Haul from an aerial shot, than actually getting the chance to visit her.
Marlee Silva.Credit: Fairfax Media
In the final months of the year I longed for summer, I longed for rest, I longed for more time with the ones I loved – and I longed for Salmon Haul.
*A soft launch is when you indicate to your friends on social media that you’re seeing someone and it’s serious by posting a nondescript picture of said person such as the back of their head, their hand in the corner of the photo, et cetera.
Marlee Silva is a Gamilaroi and Dunghutti woman based on Dharrawal Country. She is a published author, a presenter and a commentator.
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