Near a little beach at Northbridge, in the heart of Sydney’s northern suburbs, the vertical rock face carries the image of a whale, about life-size, created by the original inhabitants at some indeterminate date. ‘[B]ecause of its precipitous location,’ says Gavin Souter, ‘one cannot stand far enough away to take it in all at once. Head, fins, flukes and flippers have to be viewed separately, then put together.’

It’s a bit the same with Souter’s book. Times & Tides is a rambling piece of work, which the reader’s imagination must somehow draw together. It was said of John Dunmore Lang’s Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales (1834) that it was really ‘The History of Dr Lang, to which is added the History of New South Wales’. Sometimes Times & Tides feels a bit like that. It’s a book about a marriage – Souter’s long and happy marriage with Middle Harbour, as told by the more articulate partner.