Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Broadwater Drive Part II

Broadwater Drive (Part I) from Saturday.

(Saratoga walkies #12, not sure if it's 10 or 12 but bugger it)

Ferry routes of Brisbane Water

Kincumber Broadwater is just above the cross at the right hand middle of the map. Broadwater Drive is pretty much under where the "Ki" and "Br" overlap the shoreline.


Weston Street Saratoga

Broadwater Drive runs off Davistown Road in Saratoga. Weston Street is a short steep street running West off Broadwater Drive up near the Yattalunga boundary. There's only a couple of houses on it, it's that steep. This one is up the top. I think there's a house there. There's certainly a drive-way to it (below) but you can't see a bloody thing from the road.


Weston Street Saratoga

Tree-lined drive-way at the top of Weston Street. Opposite it is bush. It was a hot wet day, a muggy Autumn morning, when I hoicked my carcass up Weston Street. As I sweated my way up the street then slithered back down the loose stones on the road, I could hear nothing but the distant drone of a speedboat and the clear single note of a bell-bird's call.


Under the mangroves, Broadwater Drive Saratoga

Have put this photo in again because I like it. It's down the south end of the long narrow park that runs along the foreshore behind Broadwater Drive. The houses let onto the park and no doubt the residents make good use of it.

Notice the old tyres for stabilising the bank and the ubitiqious rock oysters clinging to the bricks in the left of the picture.

There was a faint whiff of sun-soaked seaweed and the quiet lap and slap of a slowly rising tide. It was a wee bit cool under the mangroves that morning but in summer they are a glorious refuge from the sun for man and duck.


Alphabet soup

Blasted pictures are being squashed by the sidebar again. Yonks back Fuckkit send me a thing for how to make a blog wider but gmail has chucked the bastard out. Will have to hunt the code down when I've got a sec. Fuckkit is in Fiji or summat now.


The flicks

Went to the flicks today. Cheap Tuesday at Ettalong. Saw The Bank Job. It was funny, smart and violent. Just the kind of flick I like. Based on a true story about the 1971 Baker Street robbery in which a bank vault of safety deposit boxes got tunnelled into and the crims found naughty pictures of a member of the royal family, which is Princess Margaret in a three-way in the film.

There was stand-over men, an archeaological site, naked people, amusing gaffs on walkie talkies, bent coppers, the aforementioned three-way, spooks (spies), pollies behaving badly, a gruesome torture scene, and the baddest guy gets a good kicking. Good clean fun.


Dredging saga continues

There's a shitload of sandbanks in Brisbane Water, mostly around the Ettalong area, and including one big one at the corner Ettalong and Umina beaches that the Palm Beach ferry has to skirt. (See ferry routes between The Rip and Lion Island above.)

Various sections of local and state government are still squabbling over who's paying for the dredging. They've been at it a couple of years that I can remember, probably longer.

From the Express Advocate:
"The Palm Beach ferry "transfers 400,000 people a year between the coast and Sydney's northern beaches.

When bushfires closed the Pacific Highway, F3 and the train line in 2002 and again on January 22 last year, the service ran 24 hours a day as the coast's only direct transport link to Sydney."

"The channel between the rocks south of Lobster Beach and shifting sandbars on the Ettalong Beach side has been reduced to between 12m and 15m wide depending on the tide.

Mr Lloyd said a 10m wide ferry could not navigate the channel if another boat even a runabout was coming the other way.

"We'd either crash, run them into the rocks or swamp them in our wake," he said." More)

Safety fears could sink ferry service


Footy ferry

The local ferry crowd, the same crowd that run the Saratoga and the wee old Codock II, are doing a ferry run to the footy. Up to Gosford wharf from various stops on the Empire Bay run to the Mariners game at Bluetongue AKA Grahame Park.

15 comments:

Ron Bloomquist said...

Wow! You're really back to blogging up a storm!

Good on ya!

Anonymous said...

I think it would be tradedgy if we lost the ferry service to palm beach I know theres quite a few kids that use the ferry to go to school on the northern beaches and well as people who use it to commute to and from work how will they get there?

Spike said...

Ron, making up for recent slack-arse-ness :)

Michael, we will be in deep shit if we lose it. All them commuters plus next time the F3 and the train gets cut off in a bushfire plus, most importantly of course, it would inconvenience me!

Saw the price of a water taxi from Palmy to Ettalong. $80 a go. Fuck.

Anonymous said...

we dont need the bushfires to be cut off the way things are going around here - no ferry, no roads because they are all collasping and the trains stuff up if someone so much as sneezes

Anonymous said...

and it would inconvience me too I havent had a chance to take a ride on the ferry yet and be buggered if I am going to pay $80 for a water taxi!!!!

Anonymous said...

Spike,
I used to live near the very southern end of the reserve, where a home made boardwalk/jetty wound its way through the mangroves and allowed us to fish and launch tinnys. A few of us would occasionally bang in a few nails, and repair the structure which must have been there about 15 years now, made mostly from old paling fences, pallats, and other odd bits of timber. Its still visible on Google Earth. Some time ago Waterways tried to find the owner and take legal action because of the illegal wharfe. I think it was in the Express Advocate. Nobody claimed ownership, as it had "always been there" and still was last time I looked.
Council is going to biuld a cycleway along there, from Davistown road to Kincumber. It's already been christened the "pub to club track".

Spike said...

Michael, time someone organised a pontoon bridge of briefcases to Palmy every morning and evening.

Anon, that old jetty business sounds idyllic. Ta for that.

It's already been christened the "pub to club track".

A welcome antidote to all this get-fit nonsense!

Spike said...

BTW, Michael, I was clearly talking out of my arse when I said the R was off the Peninsular Stationery sign. Either that or they took it off then bunged up brand new signs to confuse me.

Anonymous said...

to tell you the truth spike I hadnt even noticed the sign at peninsula plaza but i will be in there tommorow so i will have a look then

Anonymous said...

and wouldnt you know it I was there this morning and I forgot to look at the bloody thing!!!

Spike said...

Nah, not the Plaza. The stationer near the station. Next to the corner where the chemist used to be.

Anonymous said...

obviously I cant read I just went back and reread you post and it does say the stationery shop Doh!!!! and for some reason my brain is thinking peninsula plaza instead of peninsula stationery but i hadnt noticed that sign either

Spike said...

A sad case of weekend brain.

Unknown said...

Spikey
Never get tired of your awesome site. I got a lot of folks turned on to it.Peace

Pet
Upstate in NY

Spike said...

Thank yer kindly, James. Look after yerself.

BTW, everyone, Woy Woy got Street Viewed last week. Which means there's pictures on Google Earth.