Walk #66 - Brick Wharf Road

[As someone pointed out, that should read #68 not 66. Bugger.]

This was going to be a nice calm post about a nice calm walk at the end of which I was nice and calm.

But then I went to the doctor after and he had to go and fucking ask why I'm so fucking tense, didn't he? So I told him. For several minutes. The partition wall shook and people going past in the street looked about nervously and peeps in the waiting room stared at me when I came out. But the doctor gave me something stronger and I've emailed a solicitor so I should be calm again in about six months.

[UPDATE: I oughta clarify what I ranted wrote there. The doctor got an earful but only on the subject of my father causing me all this stress and aggro. The solicitor got the same earful.]

So anyways. The nice calm walk. It was nice. I was calm. It was also my very last walk of the Peninsula Walk. Woo hoo!

When I started this walkies thing on the 1st of March I wondered if I was being a bit ambitious. I'd been quite sick and I was as unfit as Homer Simpson. Walking the whole Peninsula seemed an enormous task. But then I thought, What would Duff Man do? No, wait, that's Homer's brain. I was too tired and bewildered to think much of anything. I just kept doing it and doing it and before long I started getting fitter and fitter and now I wouldn't pass out if a cute policeman ask me to blow into the bag. And at the end of my walk today I sat looking hungrily at my next walking target.



Brick Wharf Road runs from the old Woy Woy pub to the old brick wharf. As you may've guessed by the name. Go to the end of Brick Wharf Road and walk across the foreshore to the water's edge. See that squarish bit of foreshore that sticks out? That's the remains of the brick wharf. Notice also the wee blue plaque-onna-stick that says "Brick Wharf site, dates from 1884, Gosford City Council, Heritage Item Nº 168".

The Woy Woy Tunnel was built in the 1880s. It's the longest railway tunnel in NSW, has 10 million bricks in it, is 1791 metres long (1.11 miles) and takes three minutes to go through on the train. Some bloke called Rock Davis brought the bricks in by boat to the wharf and they were moved to the tunnel site on the rails already laid this side of the tunnel. Hence Brick Wharf and Brick Wharf Road.

The road runs along side the water most of the way. At the pub end there's the fish-n-chip shop, then the Memorial park then the flat grassy foreshore (see some photos here) then a few houses and the Bowls (the indoor bowling club-cum-pub), a couple more houses then the foreshore.

It's not a long road. I walked it at my usual leisurely pace and it took 10 - 15 minutes. At the end I sat on the wooden seat in front of the the wee blue plaque and soaked up the calm.

There was a soft breeze and dappled shade. A couple of tinnies (aluminium dingies) droned past. A couple of ducks rehearsed their mating dance. A couple of dogs splashed and played in the water and another one watched them from a boat. Behind me somewhere a hammer was being wielded and a boat squeaked against the private jetty beside me.

In front of me was St Hubert's Island. To the right were the unnamed islets and Blackwall Mountain behind a tree. The foreshore curved slowly towards me from the Mountain. On the other side it went along to the Scout Hall and the boat ramp on the point. To the left of St Hubert's was part of Riley's Island then the hilly hammer-head of Saratoga & Davistown.

St Hubert's is my next walkies target. Then Saratoga & Davistown. Can't hardly wait.

Photos from this walk