Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Aaaand we're back

Right then. Catch-up post.
Fagans Bay & Phegans Bay

(Road collapse site at the bottom left just under Phegans Bay, detour from Woy Woy to Phegans & other bays is via Kariong, up the top left between Fagans Bay & Gosford. Bit of a hike.)

Nice big picture on the front page last week of a 50 metre crack in Woy Woy Road near Staples Lookout on the Kariong road. If it gets much wider everyone in The Bays will be cut off by road and have to stay home for 6 months or buy a sea-plane.

The same road collapsed further down a month ago and residents of The Bays have to go via Kariong to get home. From Woy Woy to The Bays used to be a 5 minute trip. Now it's 30 - 90 minutes, depending on the traffic, not to mention heaps more petrol. And petrol prices are about $1.77 a litre (85p a litre, $US1.68) at the moment and still going up.

Phegan's Bay & Woy Woy

(So close, so close and yet so far. Woy Woy on the left, the Bays on the right.)

The consultant bloke the council got in said they have to wait until the weather's been good and dry for a bit before they can patch it up. So, months then.

Now the F3 is looking shaky

'Urgent' repairs to fix crack


Iguana-gate
I am loving this Iguanagate business. It's hilarious. Pollies behaving badly caught on camera.

For overseas readers, Iguana-gate is named after Iguana Joe's, the Gosford waterfront nightclub in which two local politicians went feral (bananas) a few weeks ago. They are Belinda Neal, Federal Member for Robertson, and John Della Bosca, State Member for Education. (Roughly equivalent to a US senator and US state politician.) They live in a lovely old place in The Bays.

Della Bosca drove as they left Iguana's that night and he's been done for drink driving or cautioned or something. Neal went feral and abused staff and threatened to close the place down. Anger management issues apparently.

The other day Della Bosca hid in the loo (toilet) then they both finally agreed to be interviewed by the cops. The soap opera continues. This is way better than Big Bother.

Video-gate


The Bouddi needs you
This wee notice appeared in the SMH a couple of weeks ago:

"World War II Gosford Radar Station: Bouddi Peninsula History Project seeks
RAAF, WAAF and army personnel who served at Bombi Point Radar Station or
nearby. Hoping to reconstruct war years in the area from oral history, documents, field trips and photos. Contact David Dufty, duftys@ozemail.com.au or 4360 1650."

That makes three WWII installations I know about in the area. The old emergency airstrip under Trafalgar Avenue, the Nissen huts up at Ourimbah station, now used as factories and stuff, and the Bombi Point radar. And that's without my even trying to find WWII info on the area.


Run fox run
We got a lot of foreign beasties in Australia. When the Poms settled here in 1788 they started bringing over domesticated animals like cows and chooks (chickens) and stuff and rabbits then foxes to control the rabbits and so on.

These foreign beasties bugger up the local environment, eating too many of the native beasties or eating what they eat and so they starve and so on.

I still haven't seen a fox on my walkies, though not for want of trying. They are shy buggers. But there's always notices about fox baiting up in Rambalara Reserve and other parts of the bush.

Anyways, National Parks is doing baiting over on Pelican Island and Rileys Island now.

"The fox control program," says the Advocate, "aims to protect native animals including threatened species such as the bush-stone curlew, eastern pygmy possum and yellow-bellied gliders. [NPWS regional manager] Ms Farrell said foxes carried diseases which could be spread to domestic animals."


Um
Found out my family knows about this blog and is reading it. This makes me squirm frankly. I love my family but I am suddenly conscious of them looking over my shoulder at what I write, all the effing and blinding and whinging and (gulp) stuff about my sex life.

Sometimes when I whinge about things on here it's hard to get across in words only exactly how bad or not bad it is. Usually I'm just whinging to let off steam about it which is what blogging is for) and you end up thinking I'm worse than I am. Sometimes I say stuff about family that is not the whole story because bloggers rarely put the whole story about their family on the world-wide internet. So readers who are family end up getting a skewed picture.

That's not getting things across very well either but it's 6am and I have been up half the night talking to God on the big white phone. See? Now I have to email you and tell you I'm not at death's door and I haven't talked to God for yonks and I'm fine, seriously.

I'll do you a deal. You stop reading the blog and stick to looking at the photos on Flickr and I'll ring more often so you can hear how fine I am.


Onya Jase
Jason van Genderen got a gong. A third gong in fact, from the Shoot Out Film Festival for a film he made on his mobile (cell phone). He's a local bloke, lives up at Kincumber (see map above) and his fillum was about Gosford. Read the rest of the article at the Advocate.


Volunteer walkies
Gosford Walkers is "looking for more volunteers and walkers" to take vision-impaired peeps walkies "along the Gosford waterfront for about an hour. It usually ends up with a cup of coffee and a chat back at the club...Gosford Walkers meets every Saturday at 8.45am. Inquiries: 4325 3686."

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome back Spike
I've heard about that Bombi Point Radar site before , a mate of mine located a bunker of some sort in the bush at Mac Masters and got some photos , I hope to go for a bush bash out there one day , been doing a few write ups on military sites round town on my blog, there was a whole lot more hidden in the bush on the coast than most people realise , as well as the Woy Woy airstrip there was a similar one at Tuggerah , the Juno Point gun battery near the sport and rec camp is another , across the Bay was where Z Force commandos trained for the famous mission involving the boat called " Krait " which used to live along Brisbane Water drive in the 80's
ah one could go on and I probably will....
good post Spike

p.s yeh dem Della Boscas are good value , I was kind of getting sick of hearing about it but one can't help but chuckle , and the cartoon of Belinda Neal with an iguana tail is gold .....gold !

Jimmy Little said...

He's back!!! (Welcome back!). This old Woy Woy boy's been following the whole Igunanagate thing from afar with great amusement. Was wondering whether you'd cover it...

Ron Bloomquist said...

Woo Hoo!

Welcome back!!

I plan to be back in a couple more days. I'm still vacationing in the Great Northwest. Seattle area that is.

Onward!

Anonymous said...

welcome back spike

I didnt realise you came back here when I sent you the reply to your email asking when you were coming back here so please ignore it

Anonymous said...

wonderful to see you are back in the saddle again... just hope there will be no riding off into the sunset again for a long long time. Your blog is sorely missed and its great to have you back!

Anonymous said...

Dear Spike
How lovely..your back again
Now I have something to look forward too
but.....how are you..?
Love and hugs...
Pattie
sometimes known as Pennypot.!
mmmm?

Erica said...

welcome back, I thought the iguanas might have got you,
we just drove down Woy Woy Rd. last weekend, glad I didn't know about the 50m crack then (there's got to be some smart line there but can't think of one)

Spike said...

Steve, thank yer.

Those military site write-ups sound good. Must pop over to yours.

across the Bay was where Z Force commandos trained

Ooh! Sounds very glam. Do go on if you like.

Z Force & the Krait

Z Force camp at Broken Bay

Jimmy, thank yer kindly. It's good to be back in the land of the connected. I felt like a hermit.

Ron, thank yer.

'Course you realise weexpect Seatle pics on tp of the usual?

Michael, thank yer.

No worries.

Anon, thank yer very kindly.

Pattie Pennypot (that's nicely allitertive BTW), I'll well again thank yer. How isthe Isle of Wight at this time of year?

Erica, shit, glad it was you driving over that crack not me.

You realise if that new crack goes no-one in the Bays will be able to get out by road? And it'll be a bloody nippy ride across the water in this weather.

Spike said...

Allitertive? Alliterative.

Anonymous said...

Welcome back Spike!!!

Spike said...

Thank yer kindly, Fedor.

Anonymous said...

I NEED THAT CARTOON OF JOHN DELLA BOSCA AND BELINDA NEAL, "THE DELLA BOSCA FAMILY", RELATING THEM TO THE ADAMS FAMILY, AND BELINDA HAS AN IGUANA TAIL
ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND IT?

Spike said...

Anon #2, try Google Images and don't SHOUT dear, I've got a headache.