Yattalunga finished

(Yattalunga walkies #2)


View to Tascott/Point Clare, practically the same as Yattalunga views

The bell-birds were sounding their loud clear single notes in the bush at the end of a long side street. They like it on the upper slopes of the ridges and it’s a joy to hear them as the last rumble of a truck on the main road dies away and the only sounds are those of the bush and a distant circular saw.




I plodded along. The sun was warm on my back and I was tired. I fell into an ambulant doze, lulled by the lazy regular bark of a bored dog.




Davistown Road is the main road through Davistown, Saratoga and Yattalunga. It's well populated, lined with houses and it’s a busy road, by Central Coast standards. But right up the top, just before it joins the even-busier Avoca Drive, there’s a couple of sleepy paddocks of horses. I love that.

Down on the water, on Mundoora Avenue on the other side of Davistown Road, the old green house near the jetty is Gone. There's a new house in its place, a 2-storey job jutting up there right by the water.

This walk completed my walkies in Yattalunga. It’s not big, a small suburb of five streets on the neck of the Saratoga/Davistown peninsula. But I walked the first half of it more than 18 months ago, January 2008. That was when Our Heath (Heath Ledger) died, poor bastard.




That's Yattalunga circled in red on the right. The dotted lines are ferry routes.

The nicest way to get to Yattalunga is to get the ferry from Woy Woy to Central Wharf. Just get off when the crowd gets off to go to the Davo, then walk straight up Davistown Road.


Bonus photo



With the tilt of the roof going up, this is definitely the front of this wee fifties house. But where's the bloody door?


Umina in the news but not in a good way

Umina Bunnies coach Adam King and player Jason Eldridge were two of the blokes nicked for the exploding auto-teller thefts.

The Bunnies' home ground is at the oval between the Umina Beach SLSC (Surf Life Savers Club) and the caravan park down there on the beach. The Bunnies are a league team.

The other Umina Bunnies is the netball team. Chances are they won't be in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Footy stars accused of ATM attacks (link is to Sunday Telegraph so it also contains lolly wrapper porn and a swearing cat, enjoy!)

Palmers Lane

(Bensville walkies #5, because I called #4 '#3' and it wasn't.)



It was a cold very still quiet day when I walked Palmers Lane. Even the birds were quiet. It was still winter then, just a couple of weeks back. My nose was cold. It was good weather for walking.

We're looking north-north-east here. Palmers Lane is at right angles to Hastings Wharf. That looks like Shelly Beach Road Empire Bay in the left of the photo and the southern tip of Davistown, same as can be seen from Hastings Wharf.

Palmers Lane is right on the border of Bensville and Empire Bay. The houses on the east side of the road are in Bensville and the houses on the west side are in Empire Bay.

There was only a few houses on the west side. They were half a dozen small houses in what looked like a former paddock up near Empire Bay Road.




The bottom half of Palmers Lane is not sealed. Getting down to the water involved thrashing through the bush beside the road for a few minutes.




Lovely old house, what we can see of it behind those hedges, in Palmers Lane. Called 'Alpha' or 'Alphaville' and built about 1900. I'd give you a more accurate date but I can't find the fucking hist list it's on. The bastard was right here at the computer yesterday.

This house marks the spot where the sealed road ends and the lane continues down to the water.




Sheep in a paddock next to 'Alpha'. They looked like goats at first but I think they're just long-eared sheep.




Bustling Downtown Palmers Lane. This is the busiest part of Palmers Lane. There are no shops. The white sign says "No Through Road".



It's starting to look a lot like springtime. Golden wattle beginning to bloom at the top of Palmers Lane.

There are actually three streets at Palmers Lane. The other two are Allawa Close and Rachel Close. People who live at Palmers Lane can zip along Empire Bay Road north to Kincumber to go to the shops or south-west and over The Rip Bridge to the shops at Ettalong on the Woy Woy peninsula.

Mappage

Bonus photo


Local linkage

They nicked those ATM exploders at last. Those buggers what blew up all those auto-teller bank thingos. One of them was a Woy Woy bloke.

Article at Aunty

Have yerselves a good one. I'm off for a barbie and a shag.

Pirates and cows and ducks

(Bensville walkies #3)



It was another bright winter's day. Technically spring because spring technically started on the 1st of August but it still felt like winter.

It was quiet, as it generally is in the sleepy streets of suburbia. But it was quiet like the countryside too. Brisbane Water is pretty densely populated compared to further up the Central Coast, but even Brisbane Water has its semi rural bits.

So I was not very surprised to find a field of cows at the end of one of Bensville's suburban streets.

Cows are calming. You lean on the fence and look at them and they stand there slowly eating and look at you. When you've had a good long look at each other, you go away nice and soothed and they keep slowly eating.




A pirate flag is not par for the course in the suburbs. Footy flags abound but not pirates. Perhaps someone is addicted to the Pirates of the Carribean.

This is three streets away from the cows.




Downhill from the pirate flag, there was a still pond between the houses on Starboard Avenue and the swampy bush on the water's edge.

A couple of ducks quacked and hid themselves in the scrub at the edge of the water. A dog in a backyard barked then another dog barked then they all decided it was too much effort when they could be laying on their backs with their legs in the air sunbathing instead.




As promised last week. Bensville is a wee knot of 20 streets between water and cows and bush and marsh. I knocked it off in three lazy walks.

Bustling Downtown Bensville by Bobesh (2 of the 4 shops that make up BDB.)

Map of where Bensville is in relation to Woy Woy and Gosford.

Salty bits

(Bensville walkies #3)



Down a quiet suburban street to the saltmarsh. So many streets lead down to the water and to wee wild places around Brisbane Water and here in Woy Woy. You'd be daft to leave.

This is North Street. It's one of twenty streets that made up Bensville. (Street map next week. Map of where Bensville is.)




The low red plant might be samphire. Even though it's red it's not ruby saltbush and it's not austral seablite. The trees are casuarina. They like it by the water.




The low red plant and the spiky reed. Both of these are also at Woy Woy, on the waterfront at Brick Wharf Road.




Peaceful and quiet in the warm winter sun.




I disturbed some dozing ducks. They paddled away slowly. That's those reeds or rushes or something again there in the foreground. You don't want to go wandering through them. Sharp as buggery.

That hill in the background is Davistown or Saratoga. Hard to tell from that angle but they're both on the same peninsula anyways.


Local linkage

Deepwater Plaza mural finished at last. The bastard is bloody tricky to photograph. Bad spot re light and as soon as you get the camera out every bus on the fucking peninsula comes thundering past. Oh the humanity!

Nice Umina Beach & wildflower photos - Umina resident on Flickr


Taking the piss

Jensen Ackles lip-synching to Eye of the Tiger (full clip)

Ackles gives good giggle. On yer, mate. Oh and can I lick yer boyfriend? Please?


Warm winter sun

Glorious walkies weather on Thursday and Friday. I was trapped inside doing evil work stuff but it's the same weather today and I'll soon be out under the sun with my shirt off and a steak sanger for my lunch so it's all good.

North Street

(Bensville walkies #2)



Down the bottom of North Street, near Hastings Wharf, there's a wider bit of park perfect for chucking a stick for yer dog. It's right beside the water so there's the usual puppy pile of slumbering dinghies*, a stand of casuarinas and a couple of magpies strutting about pecking at things.




Warm winter days are my favourite for walkies and photos. The sun is soft and warm and sky's as blue as fuck.

Ron wants to know "why is blue so much blue-er down under?"

Something to do with latitudes and light apparently. Some colours look different here. Snowy white walls in your house that look great in England f'rinstance, look harsh and crap here and visiting artists twitter on about how different the light outdoors is. This thingo and this one might help. Could also have something to do with ozone.




Between Kallaroo Road and North Street in Bensville the park is just a narrow strip and a path past the scout hall.

There's rocks with graffitti cut into them by bored-yet-industrious scouts, mangroves, washed up sea grass, wet dogs who want to sniff yer bum, the gentle slap of water on seaweed and tree and an abandoned office chair.

Perfect spot to just stop and stare at how bloody gorgeous this place is.


Everyone thinks I got a big one

It's very flattering when people comment and email about the size of my camera. Everyone wants to know how big it is. Thing is, with cameras, it ain't the meat it's the motion. Can't seem to convince anybody of that though.

(Just so we're clear, my dick, however, is as much meat as it is motion!)



* Spelt dinghy right for a change! Must be all that bacon I'm not eating now. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.