Koolewong Completed - Koolewong #4 - Brisbane Water Walk #4

Finished the fourth walk of my Brisbane Water Walk in four walks. Try saying that when you're pissed.

It was a short walk. Half an hour. Towards the end I was gazing longingly up at the steep slope of Melaleuca Crescent and wanting to get some photos from up there. But I had a shitload to do and Melaleuca wasn't going anywhere.

Today's walk was along Brisbane Water Drive. Only a train track away from Wednesday's. Today's was a metre above the water. The road was along the water except for maybe a dozen houses at the start. They're just beside Couche Crescent on the Gosford side. A couple of them were ugly dark brick seventies places then there were four or five from around 1900. There was a building site as well and as far as I can remember there was another circa 1900 house or a forties fibro place on brick piers there. A tiny place if I remember right, with no garden.


Annotated version

Between the houses and Tascott station there's a long skinny park. Up the Woy Woy end there's a couple of picnic tables in the shade. I sat at one and enjoyed the view. The sun on the water was bright. Across on the other side of the water the hills were slightly hazy. The peaks of Tascott and Point Clare were on my left with Tascott station at the bottom of them. Past Point Clare was President's Hill in the background then Gosford and its hill to the right of that. From where I was it took a minute to pick out the long finger of Point Frederick against the background of Caroline Bay and Peek's Point.

The tip of Point Frederick is all trees. There's a park there with the old cemetery in it. My hist list has it down as "Park: former cemetery, 'Pioneer Park' ... C. of E. Burial Ground, Town of Gosford, Ded. 1847". What the fuck is "Ded."? Does it mean the last person was buried there in 1847 or the first? Must be the last. Guess I'll find out when I walk it.

To the right of Peek's Point is Kincumba Mountain sitting squat and broad with Green Point at the foot of it. Then Yattalunga further back then the hill of Saratoga. The houses I'd just passed blocked my view south of Saratoga.

There wasn't much happening on the water. There's a shitload of retirees and wealthy business peeps around Gosford and quite a few yacht races on weekdays. Perhaps they all buggered off to Pittwater for some big race there.

In the park there were dozens of dingies standing up against the pines. Normally I'd hear the quiet rush of wind through the pines but there was only a gentle breeze and the morning peak traffic was twenty feet behind me.

Beside the park there's a carpark, with a narrow slipway for the dingies to launch and three public jetties. Must be too shallow there at low tide for standard boat ramps. Among the thirty or so small yachts anchored just offshore was a floating caravan (trailer). Not an actual caravan floating in the water. One of those small power boats its owner's built up into a single straight-sided cabin. Probably not terribly legal. This one didn't look healthy either. It was listing quite a bit to the left back corner. I'd say starboard stern but this thing was more caravan than boat. It had about a foot square of deck at the back and that was only so you could get to the outboard. The bastard probably steered like a lawnmower.

I got moving again. Across the carpark and under the trees on the other side. The park waxed and waned as the road and the water's edge came close and separated then close again. There was a sturdy brick loo (toilet) close to the road under the trees. Well used and not a great place for a beat due to the amount of traffic. I know there's beats somewhere around here. Where there's blokes there's beats.

It wasn't far from the loo to the end of my walk. Just a hundred yards (91.44 metres) along the footpath. I sat there at the bus-stop fending off the flies and watching a sulphur-crested galah fly across the trees and disappear into one. You can't see their yellow crest from that distance, just the white of their body against the dark green of the trees.

The bus came and took me back to Woy Woy. I coloured in today's street and realised I'd finished Koolewong already. Very speedy.

Brisbane Water Walkies
Brisbane Water #1 - Woy Woy peninsula - started 1st March, finished 30th September
Brisbane Water #2 - Park's Bay - 3rd October
Brisbane Water #3 - St Hubert's Island - 18th October
Brisbane Water #4 - Koolewong - started 22nd October, finished today