Green Point 1789

(Green Point walkies #2)



Marking a landing point of the exploration by Governor Arthur Phillip of the Port Jackson (now Sydney) colony.

Through the gap in the trees there you can see the footbridge and railway bridge from Woy Woy to Koolewong.




There was a metal plate on each side of the obelisk.

"The obelisk marks the place where
[On] the 9th of June 1789
They landed while Captain John Hunter,
Later to become second Governor of the colony,
Took the latitude at noon that day
That he computed to be
33 [degrees] 26' 30" South"




"This is the Northernmost area reached
By a party led by
Governor Captain Arthur Phillip R.N.
In an expedition of exploration & discovery
In search of suitable farm land
Governor Phillip was accompanied by
Captains Hunter, Collins & Johnston with
Surgeon White."




"This area, referred by Captain Phillip as
North West Branch of Broken Bay
Was later named Brisbane Water.
[White] Settlement did not begin until 1823.
34 years after its discovery"




"This spot is on the original grant of
640 acres of Crown land
Promised to John H. Edwards
By Sir Ralph Darling in 1829
And granted on 30.9.1839
To Major Henry Smyth who called it
GREEN POINT"

The plate at the bottom was the usual one saying the obelisk was bunged up in 1988 for the 200 year anniversary of the white settlement of Port Jackson (Sydney).




Point Frederick (Longnose) from Rocky Point at Green Point. Green Point is the suburb. Rocky Point and Ironbark Point are points within Green Point. Make sense?

Anyways, I am quite chuffed about getting this photo. Longnose is very hard to capture. It usually just fades into the background of the shore behind it. This time it was outlined clearly against the its background. Bloody lucky capture. Especially considering I've been trying for it since bloody 2005.

Its background this time is Point Clare and West Gosford.

Green Point mappage

Gov. Phillip thingies from the March 1788 visit at The Rip Bridge, Pearl Beach & St. Huberts Island.


Local linkage
Ferry news
Updated ferries timetable, includes putt putt day runs & footy ferry

Beach photo
Some of them anti-climate change peeps made a 350 on Umina Beach a couple of weekends back. Not entirely what it was for but apparently they don't like global warming. Fair enough.

The photo was taken from Mt Ettalong Road looking down on the eastern end (caravan park end) of Umina Beach.

Old photos
Golden Oldies want to see your old photos and memorabilia. November 11th at the Ettalong bowls.

"This is an informal day and encompasses local schools, factories and telephone exchanges pre-1960s ... With the passing of time our numbers are thinning and perhaps the pre-1970s would like to join us".

Contact details in local rag

Green Point

(Green Point walkies #1)

Back. Somewhat refreshed from my holiday but shit continues to go down in my offline life so not really all that thrilled to be home.

Anyways. Green Point. Just before I went on holiday I started walking Green Point.




It's on the eastern side of the estuary (Brisbane Water) just above Yattalunga. It's a narrow strip of houses along Avoca Drive, squeezed in between the water and Kincumba Mountain.




There's not much flowering this year due to the bloody dry winter we had. This is an Illaware flame tree, a baby one leaning over an overgrown creek (Egan Gully [Creek]) in Beatties Road which is at the bottom of the hill, right next to the christian school, just as you head up Avoca Drive into Green Point proper. It's a quiet road with just a few houses and a couple of eldery golden retrievers that wander out of their front yards and gaze up at you lovingly.




There's lots of places round Brisbane Water where there's flat rocks at the waterline. The park at the end of Lexington Parade and Merindah Avenue is one of those places. There's wee tiny rock pools and a scattering of broken shells and sea glass and, sometimes, stripy rocks where you can see how the sediment was laid down or whatever it was all those aeons ago. Cool.




Can you see it? Locals should be able to pick up the shape of it. It's the footbridge over at Woy Woy/Koolewong, the one with all the wires. It's photos like this that remind me to get a new camera already. This one has reached its limits.




Just for pretty. Tascott and yacht. The other side of Brisbane Water always looks so far away in these photos I take across it. I swear it's not half that far.




I walked fuck-all of Green Point on my first walk there. Just three tiny streets. They all had a park at the end and I slothed out on the grass for a while. It was a warm day. We skipped spring this year and went straight into summer. I laid there under a tree listening to the breeze making the casuarina trees whisper in their soft howl and watching a couple of pink and grey galahs fossick about for something to eat.




It's kayak season. Some local crowd at Koolewong I think it is runs a kayak tours thingy where you go on a wee tour of the estuary in their kayaks. You see an occassional hardy kayaker out on the water in winter but it's summer that's the busy season and it's par for the course to see them bobbing in the wake of the ferry as it heads round to the stop for the Davo. (Get off at Central Ave, walk up Davistown Road and turn right at Murna Road.)

Weird to put the first photo last I know but there you go.


Holiday reading

I bring you leopard porn, the bad!fic that broke Wincon 2007. Olden but golden. From the fandom that brought you yak!crack.

*hearts the internets even though it should probably take its meds more often*

My island home

Got a walk to blog this week but will leave it for when I come back (24th October) in favour of looking at why Australia had two wee tiny earth tremors while Sumatra is a crumbling ruin and half Samoa’s kids were washed away in a tidal wave.


(Maps from Wiki Creative Commons)

Those big black lines are where there’s frequent and/or bad earthquakes. Australia's got a fair few dots but this map shows all quakes from 1963 to 1998 not just bad ones.

You can't even see New Zealand and New Guinea and Japan. That's how many quakes they have.



(Actually a volcano map but clearer.)

Notice how the quake lines go round Australia and don’t touch it. New Zealand is over there to the right of Australia and down a bit, right on the edge. That line on it is why it’s known as the Shaky Isles.




There’s been some medium-sized earthquakes in South East Asia (the green bits) over the past couple of weeks.

Then there was the 8 off Samoa on Wednesday and the tidal waves from it hit Western Samoa (2 left dots), American Samoa (single right dot) and Tonga.




Video simulation of the tidal wave from the earthquake

Panic button




Then a big quake hit Sumatra and pretty much wrecked it. They’re still searching for survivors in the rubble there. Not so much in Samoa now. Only bodies are being found there now.

There’s a bit of a Samoan and Tongan community in Australia. Some of our best rugby players are from Samoa and Tonga and both are small countries that just don't have the resources to provide the bright lights big city thing yer average young adult wants.

New Zealand also has a bit of a Samoan and Tongan community and so the same scenes have been on the news there as well as here: weeping anxious stunned people flying home to bury their families. One poor bugger showed a picture of her extended family. 21 of them were dead. That left 2 or 3 people in that photo alive.

Tonga also got hit by tidal waves from the same earthquake. Less powerful waves but people were killed there too and there too the land was stripped and made barren by the sea salt dumped on it.

Samoa lost a lot of kids. Surviving adults told of how the force of the water was so great it ripped their kids from their arms. Christ.

Samoa and Tonga don’t have the numbers of emergency services personnel to cope with this sort of thing. We do. Australia has been sending RAAF Hercules aircraft loaded with supplies, doctors and trained emergency workers. New Zealand has been doing the same.

Samoa's population is about 250,000, Tonga's about 101,991, Sumatra has heaps of peeps but the political situation there affects the emergency services.

Yesterday I overheard some wanker complaining about our sending help to “all these pissy little places”. Like hello! One, we can afford to be nice, two, we need their rugby champions to help us beat New Zealand and, three, who else are our emergency services practice going to practice on?

Australian survivors...have urged people to continue sending aid (videos & photos)

Another powerful earthquake hits off Tonga, Samoan

Red Cross for donations to Samoa & Tonga

Red Cross for donations to Sumatra

Red Cross for donations to the Philippines (copped fatal flooding & about to get hit by another cyclone/hurricane)


I shall return

24th of October. I'm off for a badly needed holiday in which I intend to lay about in my underpants with my mobile and my brain both switched off and anyone who says the W word (work) will be stoned to death. If I can get up the energy.

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