The story of Bilby Island’s birth in the Dreamtime is as romantic (and sad) as they come…
Once an empty bilby lay sleeping in the sweet green grass of a stolen burrow. The scent of the burrow spoke of patient longing and gentle hope and the bilby—tired after an eternity seeking his home—could not resist such a scent. He lay on the grass, its coolness soothing his weary paws, and drew into his body the life of the burrow.
As he slept, the burrow whispered to him of its creator, a sprite lost to the hungry sea serpent. The sea serpent—a giant being that devoured all it rolled over—had spied the sprite and wanted her gentle hope for itself. With the force of a single stroke from its powerful body, the sea serpent swept the lonely sprite into the sea and she was gone. When the bilby woke from his slumber, he knew the sprite was the home he had been seeking for all existence. She was his heart and his heart was lost to the waves.
The bilby, knowing she waited for him to find her in the sea serpent’s depths, walked from the land of his creation and swam out into the sea serpent’s prison. The bilby swam and swam, waiting for his heart to tell him when his home was near. When the water was at its cleanest and the sky at its bluest, the bilby knew he had found her.
But the sea serpent would not release the sprite, taunting the bilby with whispers of her voice calling him, teasing him with the caress of her kisses on his body as he swam. Such was the bilby’s love for his sprite however, that the bilby made a deal with the sea serpent. For his true heart’s freedom, the bilby would take her place. The sea serpent agreed and the sprite was released to the waves. The bilby watched her be carried away by the sea serpent’s wake, unable to follow.
But the sprite could not exist without the bilby and she returned to him, defying the sea serpent and hiding her kisses in a million perfect beads of glass she draped over the bilby’s form. Hiding her caresses and tears in the gentle stroke of every wave that lapped against the bilby’s body. Whispering her love in the breeze that ruffled through the bilby’s fur…until the whispered words formed trees and leaves and grass. The bilby heard it all, felt it all, lived it all and knew his heart was with him.
And it came to be that the passion and the love of the bilby and the sprite became the island, an island of ancient magic and timeless romance. It is said that those that walk on Bilby Island’s pristine sands, those that breathe its pure air, take into their souls the endless love and timeless passion of the bilby and his sprite and, if they listen, will find their heart and their home while there.
Bilby Island truly is magic…and Bandicoot Cove is the perfect place to lose yourself to it.
(*Please note: Bilby Island is a fictitious island…but who’s to say if it existed, the above tale is not how it would have come to be? *wink*)
Bandicoot Cove 