Friday, May 19, 2006

The Broadwater

(Every street walkies, Gosford #8)

Old & new Gosford Wharf
(Big version)

Forgot to bung this photo up the other day with the boats and cars. It's the Gosford Wharf as it is now and a photo of it in its heyday. It's directly across the road from the Gosford Park and the War Memorial Park and next to that restaurant place with the sails.

Can't find anything specific about the wharf's history except that it was of vital importance for supplies, trade and tourism before the railway came in the 1880s. Gosford was a few pubs, a general store or two and some farms back then. It's officially a city now but is really just a town.

Point Clare & Koolewong from Gosford
(Big version)

Taken from the seat between the boatramp and the pool. That's the pool on the left, Woy Woy's off in the distance behind the forest of yachts, then Koolewong & Tascott and Point Clare on the right.

Woy Woy from Gosford waterfront
(Big version)

Right there in the middle is Lion Island. Tiny but distinctive. That faint bit on the left of it might be Barrenjoey Head.

In front of Lion Island is Pelican Island at Woy Woy and to the right of Lion Island is either Mt Ettalong or Blackwall Mtn. Over on the right of the photo is Koolewong.

On the left of the photo is Longnose (Point Frederick) then Saratoga by the looks of it and Daleys Point.

Circus Monoxide Leagues Club Field Gosford II
(Big version)

The circus is in town. Down at the league Club Field on Dane Drive. Right across from the primary school. The kids must be hard to teach with a circus visible out the classroom window.

Coulda gone round the other side for a better photo (the sun was at the wrong angle) but that would've meant wading through show ponies and hordes of excited kiddies clutching fairy floss (cotton candy).

Gosford Football Stadium
(Big version)

Couple games of the rugby world cup were played here in 2003. I forgot and had to swim upstream away from the station as all the Ireland supporters were streaming the other way.

Lovely spot for a stadium there by the water. Lovely spot for an anything really. That's Presidents Hill behind it and the railway runs between them.

Got home at lunchtime. The Dear Old Things were all a twitter about the power black-out. A couple of them had been in the shops when it went out and had to grope their way out in the dark. Bit of excitement for them. That dimwitted bloke from down the road came past honking excitedly that it was a terrorist attack. Yeah right. They cut the power to a small communter town on the Central Coast in order to bring Australia to its knees.

3 comments:

Suzanne44 said...

More gorgeous photos - they just get better and better. You don't know how envious I am of you living there so close to all that lovely salt water, and in spitting distance to a major city with all the modern conveniences, too. A commuter town yes, but as your walks and photos are showing us, a unique place with its own history and character, and not something that has sprung up to house the city's overflow.

How's the walking going, by the way? I can see that you're obviously making wonderful progress, but what about the nuts and bolts of it - the time and distance and bus rides and all that?

Inexplicable DeVice said...

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Look out below!

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GLOMP!

Wow! I didn't know crocodiles liked date slices...

Spike said...

Suzanne - Definitely not something that sprung up to take Sydney's overflow. I'm finding more and more reference to how much the young Sydney needed Brisbane Water to survive. (More on that later.)

Woy Woy is fucking perfect. Admittedly, there's unattractive additions to the shopping centre and more seventies architecture than heaven would have, but between the water and the mod cons it's fucking perfect.

Bus rides are not the torture they were in summer. Time and distance have been a bit dodgy lately. Been doing a bit of work and missing a few walks because of it. Work is evil.

Device dear - I have examined your comment from every angle and still am unable to grasp its entire meaning. Either one of us has been on the turps or you have fallen from your broom and landed in Queensland.

P.S. Crocs will eat any part of the human except the shoes and I imagine they're particularly fond of the bits my Nana refers to as Down There.