OzeAuMusic

Lyrics

Morning comes across the island Pink stone warming in the sun Cape Howe fading into blue haze Another coastal day begun

Then a breath lifts from the water White against the darker sea From the high ground there at Gaybo Someone points excitedly

For longer than our memory They have travelled through this blue Following a road no hand has drawn Yet somehow they know it true

Before the light stood over Gaybo Before the granite touched the sky Men watched the blue for breath on water And launched their boats when whales went by

Now we watch that same horizon But no harpoon leaves the shore And the whales go rolling southward Down the old whale road once more

Long before the tower was standing Rough-built huts stood by the bay Men climbed high to watch the water Waiting through the working day

Right whales travelled close to coastline Heavy backs beneath the foam Then a shout ran down the hillside And the open boats were gone

Oars bit hard into the water Harpoon ropes laid close at hand Six men pulling towards a giant Far away from solid land

Before the light stood over Gaybo Before the granite touched the sky Men watched the blue for breath on water And launched their boats when whales went by

Out beyond the sheltered harbour Lines ran hard and oars ran sore While the whales kept moving onward Down the old whale road once more

Years went by, the trade grew quieter Empty huts fell to the ground Grass came back across the pathways Wind erased the working sound

Boats were gone and fires were ashes Bones lay pale around the shore Then they raised the Gaybo lighthouse Watching where they'd watched before

And the lantern turned above them Throwing circles through the night But the whales had known the passage Long before there was a light

Who taught the calf the road to Gaybo? Who showed Cape Howe beneath the foam? Who drew the line through open water? Who told her which way leads her home?

No chart is folded in her keeping No compass turns beneath the sea Still beside her mother's shadow She follows some old memory

Now the humpbacks pass Mallacoota Mothers travelling with their young Breaching off the rocky headlands Following the ancient run

From Betka Beach we watch them blowing From Gaybo someone calls the way Cameras rise instead of weapons There's another out there today

Same blue water, same old headland Same white breath against the sky Same great bodies rolling seaward But we only watch them by

Now the light stands over Gaybo Pink stone burning through the night And beneath it whales keep travelling By a map beyond our sight

We still climb the hill to find them We still search the distant shore And the whales go rolling onward Down the old whale road once more

Before the light stood over Gaybo Men were watching from this shore Now we stand where they once stood here But the boats don't launch anymore

Let them breach beneath the sunrise Let them sound where deep tides flow Let the old whale road run onward And we only watch them go

Down the old whale road Past Gaybo Past the shore And we only watch them go