Another shortish walk, an hour and a half. But I found a house I've been looking for since I got my hist list. Every time I go past the corner of Penang Street on the bus to Gosford, I look for the 1907 house and don't find it. And no wonder. It's barely visble from Penang and not visible from Brisbane water Drive unless you know exactly where to look (beside the retirement village opposite the B&B).
It's a nice old Federation cottage with flat arched windows and a large frangipani at the front. Flat arches are those vertical rows of bricks over a window and they're not often arched. The chimneys were great. Tall elegant concrete things topped by the standard terracotta pepperpots of the time. The veranda wasn't wrap-around. I could see only the back, one side and the front but the back had no veranda. There was a small 1940s garage there instead. The roof had red 1940s tiles on it too, no shingles. But with all those big gums across the front of the block dropping their leaves on it, a shingle roof would've been well and truly buggered by the forties.
Mount Penang isn't the oficial name of the hill Penang Street goes up, but it's steep in places so I'm betting the locals call it Mount Penang. The garbage truck had to heave itself up the steepest part in low gear and turning round at the top didn't look like a picnic. It's a dead end like so many of the streets on the ridgesides. At the top there's a trail going up into the bush. It's not part of the Great North Walk. It goes from Pt Clare to Park's Bay and looking at my contour map it's along the ridgetop or just behind it.
The name of Penang Street interests me. The houses are forties and seventies plus a few sixties. Penang is famous in Australia (and America) due to the Vietnam war. So the timing of naming the street Penang interests me. I'm thinking, with all the kerfuffle about the war in the seventies it wasn't named Penang then. Another item for my research when I get back to it. Which is looking like after Christmas.
From the top end of Penang The view was not bad. Between the trees on my right I could see Gosford and I'd bet ten bucks the house on that side of the road could see down into the cool green water of Fagan's Bay. Dead ahead was Longnose (Point Frederick) with Ironbark Point and the hill of Terrigal behind it like layer cake. It was a hazy day and the hills and ridges I was looking at were still in shadow. They were dark green and soft with haze and the water was blinding silver with the morning sun on it. The wind had died down again. The cicadas were going mental on the ridgeside behind me and the sweat was trickling down my spine. I took a picture and scurried off into the shade.
There was a beautiful wind at dawn. Soft and cool. The sky was overcast and it looked like a cool morning ahead. But the wind kept dying away and it was hot and sticky. As I was coming home people were plodding miserably along the footpaths to the station, already sweaty. There's a slight breeze coming in the window now but I can feel the heat off next door's roof. Afternoon storms forecast again. Can't hardly wait.
2 comments:
Thanks for your comments on my blog. However, why exactly should people go get another job if they're not doing anything untoward? If you look at the vast majority of work-related blogs you'll struggle to find hardly any bloggers naming and bad mouthing their employer. And even if they are having a go at their employer - why is this so bad if there is some truth in the matter?
why is this so bad if there is some truth in the matter?
Dead right. The onus is on the employer to produce decent goods/service/working conditions. But there's some bloody dodgy employers out there.
I had one boss who used to go purple with rage at the mere hint of a suggestion that you might have a life outside his employ. He was barmy. We called him The Berserker.
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