We tease to please

(Green Point walkies #4)



Nice old weatherboard house on Asca Drive. Looks about 1900 to 1920s. But don't quote me on that. Can't find the book to check.




It had both brick piers (stumps) and stone ones but the stone ones are not original. They're too wide for their sheets of tin (to stop the white-ants). Original stone stumps are as narrow as these brick ones. Sometimes all the old stone piers on an old house get replaced, sometimes just some of them.




Green Point traffic is on a go-slow for a bit while they rip up bits of Avoca Drive (the main road) around Bayside Drive. Not sure what they're doing on this side but on the other side it looked like they were widening it.

Avoca Drive is one of the main roads of the Lower Central Coast/ Greater Gosford/ Brisbane Water area. If you're in Woy Woy and you want to go to Bloody Erina (Erina Fair, one of them big shopping centres) you go over The Rip Bridge to Daleys Point, along Empire Bay Drive past St. Huberts Island, Empire Bay, Bensville and Kincumber South, left onto Avoca Drive and through Kinumber, past Yattalunga, round and up through Green Point and right into The Entrance Road, past the barracks then right at Fountain Plaza and up Karalta Road and there you are at Bloody Erina.




Stared at this sign for a good long while as I walked towards it. It looked like it belonged to the real estate agent and I wondered how the fuck teasing prospective home buyers was a good idea. Eventually I noticed the name if the hairdresser at the top of the sign. Jesus, I'm quick.




Just for pretty. Mangrove stump in the shallows.


Bonus photo



The lovely old wooden ferry at her mooring in Cockle Channel not far from Central Wharf (where you get off for the Davo) at Davistown.

She still does some runs over to Hardys and so forth. They changed the timetable again so I better get a new one. Haven't been on her for a bit. She's my favourite local ferry. Possibly my favourite ferry ever.


Google-botted

My stats are showing heaps of human and machine visits from Googlebot HQ. Must find out what that's about before I crash or something. Am I being checked out for some sort of fabulous feature thingy on the blogspot blog about blogspot blogs? The Inaugural Blogger Award for the Gratutious Use of the Word Fuck in a Walkies Context? Or maybe the googlebot just got the hiccups.

Along the water

(Green Point walkies #3)



Starting point. Rocky Point in fact. Bottom of Orana Road.

To get to this park, come down Avoca Drive from The Entrance Road and turn right into Bayside Drive at the lights or Orana Road just after them.

If you're coming from Woy Woy, come up Maitland Bay Drive and over The Rip Bridge and up Empire Bay Drive to the wee stone church at the roundabout in Kincumber and turn left into Avoca Drive and go straight through Kincumber then up the hill and round and left into Orana Road just before the lights.




Wee old houses nestled between big flash houses on Point Frederick.

This is pretty much the same as anywhere there's big pricey houses along the water round Woy Woy and Brisbane Water and up and down the Central Coast. There's still some wee old houses from before the seventies, before the war and before the first war when land was cheap and there was fuck-all houses around Brisbane Water anyways.

It's like a miniature history of the Coast on one street. This particular street being Albany Street, the street running from stem to stern of Point Frederick AKA Longnose. In the background yer looking at Rumbalara Reserve (hill in shadow) and what appears to be Waterview Park AKA Presidents Hill above the trots in Gosford. Locals will know Presedents Hill as the hillside on which The Castle sits.




Bit of the park. It's a narrow strip of grassed land between the water and the houses with a private jetty and boat parked opposite nearly every house. Again, same all round Woy Woy and Brisbane Water.




Some mangroves can get quite tall. These ones were about 15 metres (49.21 feet). Usually they're 2 to 6 metres (6.56 to 19.69 feet).




The inevitable tinny.




A wee muddy creek at Ironbark Point, about halfway up the park. Could be a storm drain all full after the bit of rain we had in October but it looked more creeky with the trees round it.




Scribbly gum bark found in the wee bit of bush beside Kenmare Road. Scribbly gums are Eucalyptus haemastoma. The link has a good photo of the tree.

The scribbles are made by a wee tiny beastie, the larvae of the Scribbly Gum Moth (Ogmograptis scribula).


Bonus photo



Woy Woy to Koolewong footbridge as seen from Green Point.

Much clearer view of the footbridge. Couldn't find the bastard last week.


New new timetable

Local ferries timetable. Yep, same ferry as takes the Dear Old Things to the Davo.

I don't get paid for the local ferry adverts, by the way. I just love ferries.

Green Point 1789

(Green Point walkies #2)



Marking a landing point of the exploration by Governor Arthur Phillip of the Port Jackson (now Sydney) colony.

Through the gap in the trees there you can see the footbridge and railway bridge from Woy Woy to Koolewong.




There was a metal plate on each side of the obelisk.

"The obelisk marks the place where
[On] the 9th of June 1789
They landed while Captain John Hunter,
Later to become second Governor of the colony,
Took the latitude at noon that day
That he computed to be
33 [degrees] 26' 30" South"




"This is the Northernmost area reached
By a party led by
Governor Captain Arthur Phillip R.N.
In an expedition of exploration & discovery
In search of suitable farm land
Governor Phillip was accompanied by
Captains Hunter, Collins & Johnston with
Surgeon White."




"This area, referred by Captain Phillip as
North West Branch of Broken Bay
Was later named Brisbane Water.
[White] Settlement did not begin until 1823.
34 years after its discovery"




"This spot is on the original grant of
640 acres of Crown land
Promised to John H. Edwards
By Sir Ralph Darling in 1829
And granted on 30.9.1839
To Major Henry Smyth who called it
GREEN POINT"

The plate at the bottom was the usual one saying the obelisk was bunged up in 1988 for the 200 year anniversary of the white settlement of Port Jackson (Sydney).




Point Frederick (Longnose) from Rocky Point at Green Point. Green Point is the suburb. Rocky Point and Ironbark Point are points within Green Point. Make sense?

Anyways, I am quite chuffed about getting this photo. Longnose is very hard to capture. It usually just fades into the background of the shore behind it. This time it was outlined clearly against the its background. Bloody lucky capture. Especially considering I've been trying for it since bloody 2005.

Its background this time is Point Clare and West Gosford.

Green Point mappage

Gov. Phillip thingies from the March 1788 visit at The Rip Bridge, Pearl Beach & St. Huberts Island.


Local linkage
Ferry news
Updated ferries timetable, includes putt putt day runs & footy ferry

Beach photo
Some of them anti-climate change peeps made a 350 on Umina Beach a couple of weekends back. Not entirely what it was for but apparently they don't like global warming. Fair enough.

The photo was taken from Mt Ettalong Road looking down on the eastern end (caravan park end) of Umina Beach.

Old photos
Golden Oldies want to see your old photos and memorabilia. November 11th at the Ettalong bowls.

"This is an informal day and encompasses local schools, factories and telephone exchanges pre-1960s ... With the passing of time our numbers are thinning and perhaps the pre-1970s would like to join us".

Contact details in local rag

Green Point

(Green Point walkies #1)

Back. Somewhat refreshed from my holiday but shit continues to go down in my offline life so not really all that thrilled to be home.

Anyways. Green Point. Just before I went on holiday I started walking Green Point.




It's on the eastern side of the estuary (Brisbane Water) just above Yattalunga. It's a narrow strip of houses along Avoca Drive, squeezed in between the water and Kincumba Mountain.




There's not much flowering this year due to the bloody dry winter we had. This is an Illaware flame tree, a baby one leaning over an overgrown creek (Egan Gully [Creek]) in Beatties Road which is at the bottom of the hill, right next to the christian school, just as you head up Avoca Drive into Green Point proper. It's a quiet road with just a few houses and a couple of eldery golden retrievers that wander out of their front yards and gaze up at you lovingly.




There's lots of places round Brisbane Water where there's flat rocks at the waterline. The park at the end of Lexington Parade and Merindah Avenue is one of those places. There's wee tiny rock pools and a scattering of broken shells and sea glass and, sometimes, stripy rocks where you can see how the sediment was laid down or whatever it was all those aeons ago. Cool.




Can you see it? Locals should be able to pick up the shape of it. It's the footbridge over at Woy Woy/Koolewong, the one with all the wires. It's photos like this that remind me to get a new camera already. This one has reached its limits.




Just for pretty. Tascott and yacht. The other side of Brisbane Water always looks so far away in these photos I take across it. I swear it's not half that far.




I walked fuck-all of Green Point on my first walk there. Just three tiny streets. They all had a park at the end and I slothed out on the grass for a while. It was a warm day. We skipped spring this year and went straight into summer. I laid there under a tree listening to the breeze making the casuarina trees whisper in their soft howl and watching a couple of pink and grey galahs fossick about for something to eat.




It's kayak season. Some local crowd at Koolewong I think it is runs a kayak tours thingy where you go on a wee tour of the estuary in their kayaks. You see an occassional hardy kayaker out on the water in winter but it's summer that's the busy season and it's par for the course to see them bobbing in the wake of the ferry as it heads round to the stop for the Davo. (Get off at Central Ave, walk up Davistown Road and turn right at Murna Road.)

Weird to put the first photo last I know but there you go.


Holiday reading

I bring you leopard porn, the bad!fic that broke Wincon 2007. Olden but golden. From the fandom that brought you yak!crack.

*hearts the internets even though it should probably take its meds more often*

My island home

Got a walk to blog this week but will leave it for when I come back (24th October) in favour of looking at why Australia had two wee tiny earth tremors while Sumatra is a crumbling ruin and half Samoa’s kids were washed away in a tidal wave.


(Maps from Wiki Creative Commons)

Those big black lines are where there’s frequent and/or bad earthquakes. Australia's got a fair few dots but this map shows all quakes from 1963 to 1998 not just bad ones.

You can't even see New Zealand and New Guinea and Japan. That's how many quakes they have.



(Actually a volcano map but clearer.)

Notice how the quake lines go round Australia and don’t touch it. New Zealand is over there to the right of Australia and down a bit, right on the edge. That line on it is why it’s known as the Shaky Isles.




There’s been some medium-sized earthquakes in South East Asia (the green bits) over the past couple of weeks.

Then there was the 8 off Samoa on Wednesday and the tidal waves from it hit Western Samoa (2 left dots), American Samoa (single right dot) and Tonga.




Video simulation of the tidal wave from the earthquake

Panic button




Then a big quake hit Sumatra and pretty much wrecked it. They’re still searching for survivors in the rubble there. Not so much in Samoa now. Only bodies are being found there now.

There’s a bit of a Samoan and Tongan community in Australia. Some of our best rugby players are from Samoa and Tonga and both are small countries that just don't have the resources to provide the bright lights big city thing yer average young adult wants.

New Zealand also has a bit of a Samoan and Tongan community and so the same scenes have been on the news there as well as here: weeping anxious stunned people flying home to bury their families. One poor bugger showed a picture of her extended family. 21 of them were dead. That left 2 or 3 people in that photo alive.

Tonga also got hit by tidal waves from the same earthquake. Less powerful waves but people were killed there too and there too the land was stripped and made barren by the sea salt dumped on it.

Samoa lost a lot of kids. Surviving adults told of how the force of the water was so great it ripped their kids from their arms. Christ.

Samoa and Tonga don’t have the numbers of emergency services personnel to cope with this sort of thing. We do. Australia has been sending RAAF Hercules aircraft loaded with supplies, doctors and trained emergency workers. New Zealand has been doing the same.

Samoa's population is about 250,000, Tonga's about 101,991, Sumatra has heaps of peeps but the political situation there affects the emergency services.

Yesterday I overheard some wanker complaining about our sending help to “all these pissy little places”. Like hello! One, we can afford to be nice, two, we need their rugby champions to help us beat New Zealand and, three, who else are our emergency services practice going to practice on?

Australian survivors...have urged people to continue sending aid (videos & photos)

Another powerful earthquake hits off Tonga, Samoan

Red Cross for donations to Samoa & Tonga

Red Cross for donations to Sumatra

Red Cross for donations to the Philippines (copped fatal flooding & about to get hit by another cyclone/hurricane)


I shall return

24th of October. I'm off for a badly needed holiday in which I intend to lay about in my underpants with my mobile and my brain both switched off and anyone who says the W word (work) will be stoned to death. If I can get up the energy.

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It's back

Today's dust storm is mostly clear now. The sky's a sort of weak blue round the edges but otherwise clear. It was pretty mild today compared to Wednesday's red dawn, just a white-grey haze at six, like a slightly dirty fog. Made me sneeze and itch though when I took the garbage out and it didn't smell great.

Brizzie copped it again too and New Zealand copped Wednesday's dust on Friday.



Embiggen satellite image

Wednesday's dust made world headlines and the bastard could be seen on satellite stretching from Cape York to Sydney. Cape York is the pointy bit at top of Australia. NASA put it at 3,500 kays (2,170 miles) and it grounded water-bomber choppers fighting Queensland bushfires. The air quality was clocked at 15,000+ grotty bits per something or other. A normal day is 20 grotty bits and a bushfire makes 500 grotty bits. Fark.

Pop over to the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water for air quality updates. Or just stay home and have the phone sex.


Sex Degrees of Separation

Everybody's doing it. Calculating how many people they've indirectly shagged. I got 13 million. Hope they were all hot.

Sex calculator


Ugh

Going back to the sofa with a pillow and the remote. Buggered after a month of half-sick half-not crapulence. Normal services will resume shortly.

Red dawn

(Dust storm over NSW)



The view out my window at 6am this morning.

The dust was covering the coast from Woollongong to Newcastle (includes Sydney) at six. Few hours later it had reached Brisbane.

The airport was shut down and international flights were diverted to Melbourne. The ferries on Sydney Harbour were stopped. They move heaps of communters every morning but they couldn't see far enough not to prang into each other.

The local ferries were stopped due to the visibility plus the big winds. Sydney traffic was on a go-slow and traffic here was quieter than usual.

It was bloody spooky. Not to mention, bloody dusty.




Taken from Ettalong Beach at lunchtime. Note the invisibility of Lion Island and Barrenjoey Head.




Same view today (left) and any other day (right).


Dust storm photos from Sydney (Flickr)


From the Sydney Morning Herald:

"The fiery haze was the result of the sun hitting the blanket of dust, Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jane Golding said.

"The reason for the dust is we had some really strong winds in the inland areas of NSW and in South Australia for a sustained period yesterday," she said.

"That's lifted a whole lot of dust off the ground because it's quite dry out there, many of those areas are still drought affected."

The lifted dust had been carried by the winds into Sydney.

"I've not seen anything like this before," Ms Golding said.

The reddish haze was expected to fade as the sun got higher in the sky, Ms Golding said. The haze had turned from a crimson red to orange by about 7am, and then faded to yellow by about 7.30am.

But it was not known what would happen to the dust."

Dust turns Sydney sky red (links to video & photos, including a really fabulous one of The Coathanger)


Central Coast Ferries (Woy Woy etc. ferries) said:

"Ferries cancelled until further notice due to low visibilty and poor conditions as a result of the gale force winds and dust storm. Call skippers on 0418631313 for info on resumption of services predicted for this arvo."

It's clear now so they might be back on but it's still bloody blowy.