This isn't Sydney

Sick Note #244

2010-09-22T15:37:00.004+10:00

Jesus H. Christ.

Bloody got sick again. Another bloody round of the bloody flu. No fair.

Been laying on the sofa for days with a rug over me, a jar of Vicks to sniff and 4 seasons of Supernatural to keep me company.

The good news is, no-one's started world war 3 (unless I slept through that news bulletin) and I seem to be on the mend at last.

Got some pictures somewhere to blog but my enfeebled brain can't find them. Next week.

Fuckwittery

2010-09-11T12:00:00.002+10:00

Muslims are welcome on this site. Koran-burning fuckwits are not. Burning holy books, whoever they belong to, is not on.

Just wanna make that perfectly clear. Whatever this Koran-burner does, no matter what the reaction in the Muslim world, that welcome still stands.

I am not a fan of behaviour designed to provoke another war, more dead soldiers in the current war, more dead civilians in war-zones, religious riots or unpleasantness or whatever in Sydney's streets or any streets anywhere on the planet.

We are all the same. Outbreaks of fuckwittery, whatever their motivation, all over the globe and through all periods of history, are proof of that.

Our differences are pretty minor and are there to be enjoyed. If you really need to make other people miserable to "improve" your life, it's time to bite the bullet and look at why your life is so shit.

This yes-no-yes-no Koran-burning fuckwit needs to be arrested and assessed by a psychiatrist. If he's got to make a fuss to enjoy himself, why can't he just join an amateur theatre like normal people?

Fucking flu

2010-09-08T17:02:00.004+10:00

(Live from the sofa)

Jesus H. Christ.

No sooner had I left off writhing about in pain and an unseemly fashion than I was struck down by the Dreaded Lurgy. A proper Lurgy not the ManLurgy! Thought I'd escaped the lurgy this winter then some swine sneezed at me in the pub.

Several packets of antibiotics later and I'm out of bed again, my face has stopped throbbing and I'm no longer fondly contemplating an early death.

The photo above is not my sofa. It's Sorrento House at Empire Bay, remodelled and complete. Thank yer, Craig.

Got a stack of photos on the other computer of it in the building process, with its cladding off and its chimney stack showing. The other computer seems very far away. You'll have to hold yer breath.

Christchurch

Apart from mass attacks of gastro and nippy nights camped on their front lawns and stuff, the Kiwis of Christchurch got off pretty lightly compared to that Haiti quake which was apparently the same size. But they did have a nasty big after-shock. And I was gonna say something else about their quake but my brain has conked out.

"Devastatingly vicious" aftershock rocks Christchurch (SMH, includes video links)

NZ Herald: Quake articles, photos & links

Shaking Maps (NZ's quake watch site)

The quake on Wiki (includes NZ's quake history)

NZ is roughly the size of Japan or the UK (Britain) including all of Ireland or California plus half of Oregon. Its entire population is about 4,400,000 (Sydney's population is 4,500,000). Christchurch is NZ's seond largest city and has about 380,000 people.

Where the hell is New Zealand anyways? (mappage)

NZ from space (pretty)

Major towns & cities of NZ (Christchurch marked)

Vic floods

Some of those poor bastards who copped it in the Black Saturday bushfires are now under flood. Fucking hell.

New threat after floods: disease (includes video)

Bloody Blogger

The no-click weirdness continues on posts. It seems to lick in after a day or two so either be very quick making comments or make them on older posts like this one. I get a comments alert thingo.

Okay, that's it from me for now. My head is throbbing again and I'm desperate for my dinner.

Still bloody crook

2010-08-17T11:51:00.003+10:00

(Sick note #244)

Boring shit

Still bloody crook. Laying in a sunny window resting after all that writhing in pain last week. This being crook shit is fucking boring.

Weird shit

Everything works when I log in but when I just go to the front page of my blog I can't click on any of the links, not even the comments link. Never happens visiting anyone else's blog. Very weird. Far too weird to figure out right now.

Fun with links

Boganpedia (What bogans are)

Uncyclopedia "WARNING! This article is designed to offend.
If you are not offended by it, please edit it so that you will be in the future."

Sick Note #243

2010-08-08T15:56:00.003+10:00

Argh!

Lovely winter's day in Woy Woy. Sun's been out all day. Could be outside running round enjoying myself. Instead, I've been groaning in bed clutching the guts since yesterday. My stupid poo tubes are having another hissy fit. I am not amused.

Gone

The wee house on the right is gone now. Couple of weeks back I think but I kept forgetting. Pity. Twin houses are fun. But Lefty's still there.

~~They~~ It is at Parks Bay, just across the water (and the railway tracks) from Woy Woy. Head out from Woy Woy going along Brisbane Water Drive towards Gosford. As soon as you get through the lights and past the pub, take a squiz to yer left and you'll see it as soon as you get to the railway bridge. Which is always sooner than you think it will be.

Local linkage

Winter floraland and the Bluetongue footy fixtures in this month's ferry newsletter.

Ta, Michael, for the heads up about the comments thingo disappearing from the last post. All my sidebar stuff is down the bottom of the page too. Fuck knows what that's about. I think that happened once before then came good. Anyways, I'm way too tired to work it out today. Comments are still working on this post.

I'm going back to bed with a hot-water bottle and the remote.

Winter in the Paperbark Forest

2010-08-01T12:50:00.003+10:00

(Random walkies in Woy Woy)

(The camera battery carked it, hence the low res mobile phone snaps.)

The Paperbark Forest is a wee sliver of bushland sandwiched between a suburban street and the golf course. It's official name is the Everglades Lagoon Wetland. I've been there before. It's one of my favourite bits of Woy Woy.

Wandered up to the forest mid-morning during the week.

There's been a decent bit of rain in the last week or so and the wetland's lagoons are fairly full. The ground is covered in leaf litter right to the water's edge and you can't tell where the mud starts and ends. Put a foot wrong and you'll end up on your arse. You gotta tread slowly from stick to fallen stick.

Had a bit of a wander about then picked a firm bit of ground to stand on, in a tiny clearing back from the water. Just stood there and looked and soaked up the leafy quiet of the place.

Small patches of light outlining the shadows on the ground of the big trunks, there was the plucking almost-cluck of a tree bird at the very edge of the lagoon, the high almost-honk reply from a dozen trees away. Over and over. They should just get together already and do brunch.

Mmm ... brunch ... Dug quietly in my pocket for a bar of chocolate, leant on a spider-free trunk and ate and listened.

The wetland backs onto the golf course and there was the faint sound of a golfball being sworn at. Eventually, the bloke managed to hit it and went off after it and the golf course disappeared from the aural landscape.

A chocolate brown butterfly with white-edged wings flittered about nearby and starlings or something twittered in the trees like twinks at cafe.

After I'd been still for a while, there was a faint rustling in the bracken under a cluster of trees. Some sort of wee beastie perhaps. Up near the edge of the forest, where it's sandy, there were a dozen small holes dug by small paws. Don't think lizards really hang out in wetlands that much. Could be wrong though. But there's definitely bandicoots on the peninsula and I know they like it sandy.

The breeze picked up again and two tall paperbarks moaned as they rubbed together as slow as Sunday sex. Above that was the soft silvery sound of the breeze shivering through the tops of the trees.

A whole stand of tall straight paperbarks had all grown leaning slightly in one direction. The longer I stared at them, I more felt like I was standing crooked. Started to get vertigo and had to look away.

In the drier ground, back from the lagoons, native violets spread out in wide patches. Just a few flowers so far, in the sunny spots, more at the edges of the forest where there was more light.

Long pale branches radiate out across the ground from the trees they've fallen off. Their shapes are flowing and take your eye across the wee clearings to where there's a lone baby cabbage tree palm or gun tree sapling.

A lone kooka gave that faint drumming ound in its throat they do before they laugh. Stood there patiently but it was only warming-up not actually laughing. It sounded like a teenager and I've heard them do that a lot. Maybe they can't laugh until they're adults.

In the spreading trunk of a big old tree, some kids had built a platform for a cubby-house. In the raft of branches laid overhead there were some sheets of newspaper and more sheets all around the tree like they’d been blown out or rained out. Guys, your cubby is in the middle a bloody paperbark forest. You sure there’s nothing better to make the roof out of?*

There was a cabbage tree palm every hundred yards or so. Along the edge of the forest, where it borders the lane, there was a thin line of casuarina trees and a gum every now and then. Other than that, the paperbark forest is all paperbarks.

Summer on the left, winter on the right

Paperbark Forest in summer

Bonus photo

Traditional Aboriginal uses of paperbark

Stuff

My favourite shop name on the peninsula? Acropolis Yeeros Chinese Takeaway. Menu includes, kebabs (kabobs to Americans), rainbow steak, chow mein and steak sangers.

Illustrated Ducktionary addition, courtesy of Ron in Fort Bragg

World wide walkies

Fabulous wilderness photos from Kansas

Local linkage

Some fresh this week, some a wee bit late.

Woy Woy at Wordpress

Fabulous fish and crab photos from a kayaker

Comment from old Woy Woy cinema worker on Stevo's model of same

Last chance to see, includes GPS & directions to the Woy Woy hieroglyphs

ACDC concert that never was

A year to the day (Roy Sainty finally found and buried, my sympathies to his family and best wishes to all those still missing a child)

Slightly eerie dusk photo of the beach

Fabulous photos from Empire Bay

Tribute to Vaughn Bode

2010-07-24T13:24:00.002+10:00

(Random Woy Woy walkies)

This is Cheech Wizard. He was the best-known charater of Vaughn Bode. He's on a Bode tribute wall in a lane off Alma Avenue in Woy Woy.

(Locals, Alma Ave is the wee street of small factories and stuff off Trafalgar Ave next to the fire station at the shops.)

Bode was an American artist who did underground comics, graphic design and graffiti. He died in 1975 at 33. His most well-known character was Cheech Wizard.

Part of the Tribute to Vaughn Bode wall.

The green creature on the left might be Razzberry, the offsider of Cheech Wizard.

Left end of the mural. Rest of the mural.

My favourite.

Bonus photos

Other murals & (good) graffitti around Woy Woy

Gallery at Bode's homepage (on his son's site)

Bode on Wiki

Cheech Wizard & Razzberry

Other tributes to Bode

Local Linkage

The local ferries crowd has their new newsletter out with the footy ferry and timetables and stuff. Go here.

Nice bit of info about Rileys Island from a bloke whose family was one of its many owners. Ta, mate. (Scroll down to Duncan's comment.)

Righto, that's yer lot for the week. My ride is here.

Winter weather watch

2010-07-17T14:02:00.002+10:00

(Random winter walkies)

Last week in Woy Woy.

Saratoga from Blackwall Point. Go down Blackwall Road from the railway station. When you get to the mountain, go left and left again at the carpark sign.

This week in Woy Woy.

Barrenjoey Head and Lion Island from Ettalong Beach. Get the ferry from Palm Beach or go down Blackwall Road from the station then Memorial Avenue, straight ahead through the first roundabout, left at the second one (into Bourke Road) and park when you get to The Excresence.

I'd better piss off quick. Off to a nice sunny barbie. Will have a sausage sanger for yer.

The wattles are coming

2010-07-04T15:04:00.004+10:00

(Random walkies in Woy Woy)

It's clouding over, blast it. It was a sunny winter's morning here in Woy Woy. Froze my bloody nuts off yesterday with the icy wind, and that was only a short scuttle from car to home. Bloody lovely sun though. All warm and toasty.

The golden wattles are starting to bloom. Not sure which wattle this one is. It blooms first round here anyways. The local wattles, A. prominens AKA Gosford Wattle and Coastal Wattle AKA Acacia longifolia or A. sophorae come in a month or two. Acacia pycnantha is the national wattle, the one on our $5 note and the old 2 shilling stamp and the 41 cent stamp in 1990 and under the roo and the emu on the coat of arms thingo.

Wattle-gasm at my Flickr

I've been spending my mornings in a sunny window, covered from head to toe in beanies and rugs and uggs. July's the coldest month in Strayla.

10 questions

A bit of entertainment from Device dear

1. What's your earliest memory?

Not getting to wear a fairy skirt at kindy. It would've looked fabulous with the cowboy hat.

2. What was the last thing you ate?

Breakfast. Boring I know.

3. Would you support a comeback by Steps?

Yes. No. I'll get back to you on that.

4. What is your dream car?

MGB

5. How tall are you?

5 foot 10.

6. Margaret Thatcher vs Queen Elizabeth II: Who would win and why/how?

The queen because no-one's fiercer and the corgis are pretty feral.

7. Mama Cass died choking on a sandwich. What sandwich filling would you happily choke on?

Jared Padalecki.

(Sasquatch & Jenny-bean

8. Has a pick-up line ever worked for you? If so, what was it? If not, what was the worst reaction?

Never used one. *slinks away*

9. You find yourself inexplicably cloned, barely wearing something sexy, and gagging for it. You would, wouldn't you?! Just out of curiosity, or maybe for some other reason?

Would definitely do it. Purely in the interests of science of course.

10. How did you find this blog? Go on, indulge me!

You made some terribly witty comment over at Glitter for Brains and I clicked you.

Local linkage

Flemings, one of those little old local supermarkets, is no more. Woolies have built a large flash two-storey job on the other side of the road, hedging in the library, and Flemings is empty.

Michael's photo of Flemings-as-was

Straylya-wide linkage

Orphans and other former inhabitants of children's homes, the Forgotten Australia site is collecting "personal histories of those who were placed in children’s homes – a voice for those who were inside and a chance for others to understand." It's a National Museum of Australian thingo. Some bloody disturbing but very powerful material on that site.

Web-wide linkage

Lee over at Glitter for Brains got to 1,000 posts last month. That's staying power.

Buggered if I know how many I've done. Got 598 posts on the counter for This isn't Sydney (this one) and maybe a couple of hundred at Woy Woy Walkies

The Doctor

Add your vote to the eternal question: Tennant or Baker?

The Doctors Who

P.S.

Ta Stevo for the heads up with the dashboard thingy for widening. Fiddled with it for a bit but the bastard only widened one bit. Will give it a kick up the khyber another time.

In with the cool kids

2010-06-24T17:55:00.005+10:00

Straylya is now officially one of the cool kids. We now have a girl Prime Minister.

Went to bed last night with K-Rudd stating rather tensely that he was PM and PM he was bloody well going to stay, and woke up to the sound of Our Julia being declared winner of the overnight power struggle.

Um, okay. Yeah. Righto. Sorry to see you go, Kev. Ta very much for the Sorry and getting us out of the GFC recession so quick. Better luck next time. Hello Julia.

Gillard takes up PM role in Parliament (video)

Gillard becomes Australia's first female prime minister as tearful Rudd stands aside

Rudders...not proud of blubbing (poor love, more video)

How world reports Gillard's ascension

Poo Tubes re-visited

As Stevo pointed out, I forgot to mention the dunny cart man when I blogged the Poo Tubes.

Read all about him:
Talking Heads
Dunny cart lanes
Pommy Town
Ettalong - vastly different in the 40s and 50s

(By the way, Stevo, the new blog format is looking good.)

Great Woy Woy Tea Cosy Showcase

No photos sorry, Erica. But a couple of mates send this report: popped round from pub, had a scone with jam and cream (yum), looked at the tea cosies (very nice and, um, warm), enjoyed the winter sun, returned to pub.

Where the bloody hell am I?

Still crook. Absolutely buggered. Utterly lacking in motivation to do more than totter round the block a few times and collapse back on the sofa.

Seeing a lot more of the telly than I usually do. Very much enjoying Dirty Jobs, Breaking the Magician's Code and that one with Stephen Fry where he stands on a sandbar at the beginning. And Good News Week and Dr Who of course. Long time Dr Who addict. And when the fuck are they gonna put Supernatural back on? I need my Padalecki and Ackles fix.

Anyways, I'll be back when I'm back. I'll pop round my blogroll before then but. Takes less energy.

Ta very much for all the nice get well comments.

Poo tubes

2010-05-30T14:30:00.004+10:00

(Where the fuck have I been all this time?)

See that red circle at the left edge of map? Just along that road a bit are the sewerage farm and the tip (garbage dumping place). I woulda put them into the map exactly where they were but it was either do a new map with an extra bit down that side then have a nice long lay down or post this map and actually fucking update the blog already.

The yellow bits are the main road, the grey bits are the shops, the row of black dots is the railway line, the other dotty bits are the main beaches and the green bits are parks and reserves and wetlands. And the blue lines are creeks. Unless they're really straight in which case they're drains that used to be creeks.

Round the streets of Woy Woy and all the other places I walk, I see council workers fixing roads, electricity company workers getting branches off powerlines after the wind, Telstra workers putting in new phone lines and fiddling about down holes with PMG covers, the garbos in their truck picking up the bins, and stuff like that.

All stuff that makes a town tick. It happens all around us every day and we hardly notice it.

But we'd be stuffed without it. Civilisation is supposed to be 2 hot meals from breakdown. I reckon it's more like a week with the sewerage backed up. Gazundas and latrines just wouldn't cut it in urban society. We'd be rioting in the streets.

Anyways. This post was inspired by something I overheard on the train from a bloke who laid sewerage pipes for a living. He was talking specifically about Woy Woy and other local towns. This is the gist of what he said:

Where you've got yer older suburbs and towns, like Woy Woy, you've got an older sewerage system.

Under a given road there's a sewerage line and into it empties the sewerage lines from each house.

All well and good.

But then you get one of these places where some developer knocks down an old house. The old house had one sewerage line servicing one or two loos (toilets), a couple of adults, 2.4 kids and the Christmas influx of aunts and uncles and cousins. Up they all get in the morning, flush the loo and off to work and school.

Now that house is knocked down and half a dozen units are slapped up in its place. Half a dozen units each with one or two adults and maybe the 2.4 kids and the Christmas influx of aunts and uncles and cousins. That's 6 to 12 adults, 2.4 to 14.4 kids and 6 Christmas influxes of aunts and uncles and cousins.

And up they all get in the morning, flush the loo and off to work and school. Except the main sewerage line under the street, the one that carries it all away, hasn't usually been upgraded to carry the extra load.

So, in conclusion, old streets have narrow poo tubes. And there's other stuff like water pipes bringing clean water in that can be pretty old and need flushing out and replacing etc. We had that recently in Woy Woy. I escaped the worst but Stevo copped it.

The point of this post is just to say ta to all the blokes (and chicks) who fix the poo tubes and so on.

Collection of Lost Things

All my old St. John's photos

I've been collected again. Over at a fun Aunty project called Lost Places.

It's essentially my Gone set of photos writ large and with the whole country doing it. Pop over for a gander.

Local linkage

Craig wants to hear from locals about Empire House at Empire Bay.

Fabulous and fabulously named collection of Woy Woyan and Gosford area memorabilia and photos at Gostalgia. Ta very kindly for the linkage, Michael. Hope to fuck I got your link right this time.

Where the fuck have I been for the last 2 months?

Crook. Sick. Buggered. Stuffed. Bit of trouble with my own poo tubes. Gross symptoms. Let's not go there.

Spent most of it sleeping it off then, for the last couple of weeks, dozing on the sofa with the remote. Saw that thing where that guy died wheelie-bin surfing down Kingsview Drive/Lone Pine Avenue (the high steep bit is Kingsview, the long straight bit is Lone Pine) and watched 16-year-old Jessica Whatsit sail in through the heads after a lone trip round the world in a pink boat.

Still crook but managed a shuffle round the block every day this week so things are looking up again.

Okay. That's zonked me out for the day. Off back to the sofa with a blanket and a nice big cuppa tea. See you again soon-ish.

Hairy maps of Tassie

2010-03-23T08:26:00.000+11:00

Rambling

This is actually a sick note but I thought I'd enliven it with a title from a visitor to the Ducktionary. When you get a stats thingy on yer blog, you can go in and have a gander at how people got to you and what search terms the random visitors used. Like "hairy map of Tassie".

Ducktionary's visitors' favourites:

tracky daks
guest of her majesty
sausage sanger

And, in a short-lived burst of energy, I added The Illustrated Ducktionary. From little things slightly bigger things grow, to misquote Kev Carmody.

Great Manly Debate Part 2

Michael popped up to the look-out at Gerrin Point for us. Well, slogged really. There's outdoor stairs and crap and we've been having a parting shot from summer over the last week or so. Hot sunny days. Thank yer kindly, Michael, for services to Coasties.

Michael's Gerrin Point photos

To get to my point

So anyways, this sick note. I am buggered. Too much pain lately on top of too much family-related angst. Have been up this morning since fucking 4 A-fucking-M. Again.

It's now fucking 10AM and I've been slaughtering typos and deleting circular sentences and random irrelevancies in this post for about 3 hours. Might be time to give up and lay on the sofa for a week with a stack of DVDs. Call it two weeks, just to be on the safe side. Which is ... the start of April. Might be back before that but don't put money on it.

P.S.

I am not nearly dead, ta for asking. I get emails from lurkers every now and then asking if I've got something fatal. Much appreciated emails BTW but don't worry about me popping off.

Bullimah Beach & the Great Manly Debate

2010-03-16T12:27:00.004+11:00

(Bouddi/Killcare walkies #6? 7? Technically it's #2 of the Killcare walkies but Hardys Bay and Killcare look like one small suburb when yer walking them and they're both on the Bouddi so let's go ahead and call it Bouddi/Killcare #6 or 7.)

Lovely day today for walkies and photos and I'm stuck inside with an aching gut and a pile of work I'm ignoring. Been off sick for days.

Bulimah Beach. Tiny wee beach, as you can see, tucked in between Putty Beach and Gerrin Point on the Bouddi peninsula. Or the Bouddi, as she is known locally. That's bood-eye not bood-ee and bood rhymes with hood not food.

Where the top photo's taken from. Beach Drive (lower) and Grandview Crescent Putty Beach/Killcare. Technically, the suburb is Killcare but who wants to live at a suburb name when they can live at a beach name?

Had a trot round the streets of Putty Beach/Killcare. This is every-street walkies I'm doing after all. Like anywhere with views, there's plenty of big pricey houses looming along the view streets but, like everywhere around Woy Woy/Brisbane Water, there's plenty of the nice quiet old places left.

Just for pretty. Hill-top above Grandview Crescent Killcare/Putty Beach.

This nice quiet old place looks to me to be the perfect place to walk home from the beach to.

After a nice long day messing about at the beach, you'd plod along the road in yer thongs, lairy beach towel over yer shoulder, head down and a fine crust of salt still drying on yer skin. Along the road with the banksia trees all along one side, up a bit of a hill, through a lane, round a corner and there's home ahead of you. Cool shady veranda with its scatter of old dogs and deck chairs. There's icy cold lemonade in the old Kelvinator and and there'll be chops and mashed potatoes and peas for dinner to finish off a splendiferous summer's day.

Heaven.

Bonus photo: On the beach (sand, surf, peeps, dogs, `nother view of Bullimah Beach)

Is it is or is it ain't?

This is a close-up of the view photo from the Putty Beach post. Much more detail at this size. I got a new camera but it's only a PLC (pissy little camera) with 10MP res so this much detail means the thing is pretty close.

Hmm. Look at that wee faint headland to the left of the big clear one. Didn't notice that bit before.

So, is this big cliffy bit Manly/North Head or the Careel Headland or Long Reef? Opinions vary.

Okay, opening up the map of Sydney. Getting out ruler to check out this "Manly is only 30 kays" (18.64 miles) business... Hmm.

Bangelly Head (Careel Headland Res) is tall enough to be the close one. Long Reef is long but would not be visible from the Putty Beach angle. Manly is tall enough and cliffy enough and sticks out far enough but has gotta be the wee faint headland furtherest away.

Looks like it's Careel and Manly. Michael and Steveo win this debate and the admiration of their peers.

`Course when Michael goes up there to see what it says at Gerrin Point look-out, it might be a whole `nother debate.

Manly stuff

While we're on the Manly/North Head subject, we may as well have a gander at some links and a factoid.

In WWII there were fortifications up there. North Battery on North Head had two 9.2 inch Mk X guns, the Shelley Battery (Shelly Head, Manly) had one QF 12 pounder gun and, across the other side of the mouth of the Harbour, the Signal Battery on South Head had two 6 inch Mk XI guns.

Manly Ferry photo, factoids & video
North Head Quarantine Station (outsides & insides of buildings)
Quarantine Station factoids
Old photos of the Quarantine Station (And old rock carvings made by the quarantined)
Manly (harbour side) factoids & photos
Manly Beach (north side) photos & factoids

Enjoy. I'm off to lay with my feet in the sun and an icy cold lemonade in my hand.

Putty Beach

2010-03-08T15:12:00.002+11:00

Back again. How was yer February? Hot (Straylyans)? Snowy (Mericans)? Hello, Melbourne, that big hail all melted now?

New computer's buggerising around, by the way, so this won't be a very talky post.

Through the banksias and pigface to the sand.

Putty Beach is an ocean beach. That's the Tasman Sea right there.

Ettalong Beach is an estuary beach but Putty Beach is on yer actual coast proper, on the edge of the Tasman. Which is between us and Kiwiland (New Zealand) and at the bottom of the South Pacific Ocean. (Mappage at end of post.)

Anyways, it's a beach. From it you can see Barrenjoey Head, where the lighthouse is. Squint a bit and you can see it in this photo. White job with a bit of red.

You can drive to Putty Beach from Ettalong, over The Rip Bridge, along Empire Bay Road, right into Wards Hill Road, right into The Scenic Drive, round two hairpin bends, left into Beach Drive and down to the carpark at the end. You can a bus there from Woy Woy station. In the Christmas holidays, you can get a ferry there, the old Cockatoo ferry.

A few people told me that big cliffy bit there on the left is Manly/North Head but it looks way too close to me. On the other hand, I got no idea what it is so maybe they're right.

North Head is one side of the mouth of Sydney Harbour. The Manly ferry (the biggest of the Sydney ferries) goes across to the inside part of North Head, the Manly part. It goes fairly close to the mouth of the harbour and when the sea is really big the Manly ferry gets cancelled. (Mappage at end of post.)

Putty Beach, Hardys Bay, Barrenjoey Head, which way to Sydney.

Manly, North Head, Sydney Harbour and which way to Woy Woy.

More maps

American readers note that this is a thong. Now you can see why we giggle when you talk about wearing thongs on yer bums (butts).

Random linkage

Links I've been meaning to link to for yonks. Don't even remember what half of them are. Consider them a lucky dip.

Ferries of Sydney (ferries, obvs)

APSCCG (native plants photos & factoids)

The sport of A-to-Zedding (some to do with maps?)

Cactus Bones (pretty pictures)

Bloody sidebar is still in semi-exile at the bottom of the site. Fucked if I can find the code for how to get the bastard back where it was.

Grab Bag

2010-02-13T13:50:00.002+11:00

Quick snippet. Normally I don't blog in Feb. It's my annual blogging holiday.

Winter wonderland

From the safe distance of an Australian summer, this snowstorm business in Pommyland and Europe and America looks rather fun. I loved the story of the train passengers stuck in the Chunnel for 18 hours with nothing to eat but packet sandwiches and fruit loops. And the thing where Washingtown has been shut down by massive piles of snow is quite entrancing for this snow-virgin sweltering away in Woy Woy. `Course the Washingtonians and Chunnel users might see it slightly differently.

Must pop over very soon to my fellow bloggers and see how they're enjoying it.

Local linkage

Trawler at Woy Woy (nice arty snap of Woy Woy Channel)

Pop across to Stevo's for some excellent local WWII snaps and info. Love that old landing barge at Brooklyn, ta mate. Also, that Woy Woy Theatre graphic you did is the one that was where Woolies is now right? Looks great.

Michael puts his new camera going through its paces at the Rumbalara Res look-out. My favourite is the misty one of Lion Island.

The Biker Bunnies are hard at it again on the Gossie to Woy Woy on the cycle path with some nice scenery snaps.

Bivoir always gives good photo. Check out Umina Beach in HDR.

Caitlyn and the knocking shopper: the tale of a lonely brain cell.

Photo of Ett jett, the Ettalong jetty on Ferry Road, the wharf from which you catch the ferry across to Palm Beach. The fact that the ferry wharf road is called Ferry Road leads to confusion amonst non-locals trying to get back before the last ferry goes.

Non-local: "Excuse me, where's the ferry road?"
Local: *points* "Go along there a bit."
Non-local: "What's it called?"
Local: "Ferry Road."
Non-local: "Yes, thanks, but what's it called?"
Local: "Ferry Road."
Non-local: *cries*

Add in an accent and/or a tenuous grasp on English and you end up escorting the poor dears down far enough to point at the sign.

Snakes and snoozing

2010-02-09T13:30:00.007+11:00

Back at last. There was computer issues and some other offline crapulence which was really boring so we won't go into it. How was yer Chrissy?

Discarded snake skin. Found it under the holiday house. Apparently it’s a diamond python’s skin.

It’s very cool. Got no idea how to turn it inside out though, without ripping the bastard to shreds.

Saw a live snake too. One like this (Wiki photo). Red-bellied black snake, Pseudechis porphyriacus. Very sexy. Not a snake to go feral and bite the cautious admirer but very sexy.

The rest of my holidays was more snoozing than bushwalking. The weather was all over the shop, pissing down one day, back to normal stinking hot summer the next. I vegged out on the veranda and watched the brush turkeys and their chicks.

Photos & factoids

This poor little bugger died not long after this shot. Thought he was going to make it for a while there but no. He kept nearly getting to his feet then collapsing again.

He’s a baby brush turkey and he was mauled by a cat or something. Cats are not native to Australia so most of the native animals have no defences against them.

Buried him under the house and put a rock on top of him so he wouldn’t get dug up again and scattered about the place.

There was a brush turkey’s incubation mound further down the hill so maybe there was another chick that made it.

Roosting in trees
Immortalised on local bus-stop
Single Brush Turkey Seeks Same

Since I got back, the weather has been shit for walkies. Up around 34 (95-96F) one day, dark as night and stormy the next.

Haiti

Poor bastards. Bloody poor country, as corrupt as fuck, war, 3 hurricanes in the last 4 years (about that) and now the place is totalled by a massive earthquake.

So it's a bit off when those christian types were refusing aid to some people on the grounds they were of the voodoo religion.

The throw-away lines on the news about Haiti being the “home of the zombie” weren't terribly helpful either. Might be a bit smarter to point out that yer actual proper Voodoo/Hoodoo/Voudon/etc. zombie has fuck-all to do with the movie zombies.

Real zombies are people willingly taking part in a religious ceremony. They are spirit-ridden. They invite a good spirit into their body for a little while for religious purposes.

They aren’t green and oozing and they ain’t interested in eating your brain.

And while we’re on the subject, the voodoo dolls are bullshit too. They sell them for the tourists in New Orleans (and fuck knows they could use the tourist dollars, poor bastards) but they’re a Hollywood thing too, whitefella misinterpretation and invention. Sticking pins in dolls was something done in Europe many moons ago.

I loved and that Big Brother/zombie apocalypse piss-take on SBS but I do not enjoy my ABC making the sort of random statements I expect to find on bloody channel 9 or 7.

Now where’s my blood pressure meds?

Zombie linkage

Proper zombies

Haitian Voudon at Wiki
Voodoo Brings Solaced to Grieving Haitians
Living Vodou (podcast)
Louisiana Voodoo
Lucky Mojo (Hoodoo, similar to Vodou & Voodoo)

Movie zombies

Shaun of the Dead (rom zom com par excellence)
White Zombie
Bloody Ian Fleming
Dead Set (Big Brother vs the zombie apocalypse, on SBS)

Right. I'm off to set up base camp on the lower slopes of Mount Inbox.

Filthy dirty filking

2009-12-12T08:47:00.007+11:00

(Random hung-over, Christmas-party fueled whingeing & filking*)

O Christmas bush
O Christmas bush
O Cerapetalum apetalum

In New South Wales at Christmas time
You come out in December heat

O Christmas bush
O Christmas bush
O Cerapetalum apetalum

With petals red and orange too
Only after pollination

O Christmas bush
O Christmas bush
O Cerapetalum apetalum

There's also Cerapetalum gummiferum which is the same until you get up close and see the leaves are arranged differently. And the gummiferum is pretty tall and "during World War II it provided the butts for all rifles made in Australia". Huh.

Off to my fourth Christmas party this week this arvo. May not survive. Normally I avoid office parties like the fucking plague but I called in a lot of favours this year and the payback is showing up as stand-in date. The next person to offer me a mince pie is dead.

Local linkage

Bike bunnies do Umina

Dickhead factor rockets during school holidays

Woy Woy as was

Love the photos and stories of old Woy Woy in the local rag. Woy Woy Steve is back writing them again and Fred Landman and Keith Whitfield are regulars and I've got one from June 2009 by Bruce Richards.

Sometimes the old buildings they talk about, old cinemas and milk bars and so forth, are gone now and sometimes they're just re-invented but I can usually see where they were or their remnants are. Adds a whole new depth to my walkies to have personal histories tied to the streets and buildings of my town.

Keep writing, guys.

Christmas story re-visited

How the angel got on top of the tree (click 'n' scroll)

Want my thingy in yer whatsit?

I'm off for Xmas. Off away from the madding crowd to a place where the bush turkeys roam free.

I'll be back ab-o-u-t ... Let's call it mid January. The 16th. Yeah.

Pick one or two of the thingies below for RSS or inbox pings or whatever.

Atom

Have yerselves a merry little Xmas.

* Filking ain't really dirty. I mentioned it to a Dear Old Thing one day and she reacted like it was a very naughty swear-word and now when I say it I get a naughty little thrill. It's that thing where you replace some or all of the words of an existing tune with your own words, like I did with Oh Christmas Tree. Go filk yerself (with links).

Up and down

2009-12-06T16:52:00.002+11:00

(Random Woy Woy walkies)

Here we're looking north-east or east-north-east across The Bays (Correa Bay, Horsfield Bay, Phegans Bay & Woy Woy Bay) to Brisbane Water proper and the low part of Saratoga/Davistown and beyond that to Kincumba Mountain. Though it was Killcare/the Bouddi but the map says no.

One blue-sky day in the last week synched with a day I was well enough to take the camera out. Got a mate to drive me up to a street with views, tottered out of the car, took a couple of snaps, back home again.

Spent most of the week writhing round on the sofa in another bloody bout of bloody gut pain. No end of fucking fun. The rest of the week it was lovely and cool but way too cloudy for camera outings.

The bark falls off some of the gum trees at this time of year. You can see some of the bark in the cleft of this tree. The spots and dots and dimples of colour and texture where the bark has fallen away are normal.

Chrissy is nearly upon us. There is a frenzy of shopping and barbeque-ing and getting off yer face on the weekends and the rest of it. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Local linkage

Bloggers

We've lost another blogger. Ian at Grumpy Old Journo. A local. He blogged from 2005, 4 years, same as me. He will be missed.

But gained a blogger at Copa (Copacabana, a local beach).

Others

Bensvillians unite at facebook. And yes, that thumbnail is one of my photos.

Photos of Woy Woy and Lion Island from the Kur-ring-gai National Park.

Pop over to Bryan's family history page for a great old photo. Bryan is locally connected through Picketts and Humpries at Holy Cross Church/St. Joseph's in Kincumber.

Other family historians with local connections are welcome to email me their website address for local linkage.

The ferry news

Cockatoo ferry AKA Codock II AKA the lovely old one is running again. Timetables

Drive-by

2009-11-29T19:05:00.001+11:00

Wagstaffe Wharf Mulhall Street Wagstaffe

This is a drive-by posting. Been out all day and about to go out again. I am a wee bit drunk.

Anyways, there was another bloody dust-storm today. My throat's as dry as a dead dingo's donger and that's after all the beer and some hideous cask wine. Will have a furry tongue in the morning.

And I am fucking hating this evil early summer crap.

That is all.

And the photo is there because everyone likes it.

Local lickage

Coast not perfect but we love it, Pulse survey finds

Green Point 1839

2009-11-21T12:00:00.004+11:00

(Green Point walkies #5)

Always charge yer bloody camera before going walkies. I bloody well forgot and the bastard died on me one photo in. Nothing worked. No amount resting it, no amount of swearing at and threatening to gouge out its USB port with a rusty knife, nothing worked.

But the sky is blue and the water is a very nice shade. It was a warm day. Spring has not sprung this year and we've gone straight from a mild winter into a red hot summer.

This was taken from a nameless laneway off Avoca Drive between Merindah Avenue and Edgewater Avenue, on the water side of Avoca Drive.

About Green Point

From the history obelisk thingo (Green Point 1789) we know when Green Point was settled by whitefellas and the name of the first one:

"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 local history whatsit at the library has some stats:

"1788 - The true extent of the Aboriginal population in the Brisbane Water District is unknown, however it is estimated that several hundred people lived in the area before white settlement.

1823 - James Webb, the first white settler of Brisbane Water, takes up land at The Rip.

1828 - The Census of 1828 records approximately 100 persons in the Brisbane Water Police District, which included Lake Macquarie, Brisbane Water and Lower Portland Head. This figure did not record the number of aboriginal persons, however a census of aboriginals in Brisbane Water taken in the same year records 65 persons between the Hawkesbury River and Wyong. This figure is increasingly believed to underestimate severely the native population, which may have numbered several hundred.

1836 - 621 persons
...
1901 - 7,186 (Census)
...
1947 - 18,700
...
2001 - 161,204 - (Preliminary estimate)"

So 3 years before the major got his land, there was 621 whitefellas and perhaps the same amount of blackfellas living round the whole of Brisbane Water. Not what you'd call a crowd.

On the "1843 Brisbane Water list of Electors" a "Smyth, Henry (Major)" is listed as having "Freehold" on a property at "Broadwater".

Bear in mind that "Broadwater" is not The Broadwater, up between Fagans Bay and Point Frederick on yer 2009 map of Brisbane Water, or even Kincumber Broadwater. It's a vague and confusing term that was applied to pretty much everywhere on Brisbane Water at some point in the past.

In Greville's Official Post Office Directory NSW - 1872 there's no-one listed as living at Green Point but some of the names on the list of locations don't exist anymore (the names not the locations) and some are extremely vague.

In 1882, waterfront land and big fat blocks were being sold at Green Point as "Suitable for Country Residences, Villa Sites and Farms".

In 1911, another land sale has a map of Green Point showing 2 existing waterfront cottages, Green Point Wharf, Green Point Post Office, three un-named streets and Avoca Drive down as "Kincumber Road". Looks like the 1882 land auction made bugger-all impact.

The un-named road leading to the wharf looks like the current Orana Street, just near the Bayside Drive lights.

Have yerself a gander at the Sub-division maps for Green Point and Kincumber, which borders on Green Point in the north.

Nowadays Green Point is a thriving suburb-slash-village of the Greater Gosford/ the Gosford City Council area/ Brisbane Water district. Bustling Downtown Green Point is a supermarket, a bottle-shop (liquor store), a local history marker and a nice park, a teasing hair-dresser, a couple of estate agents and another shop I can't remember for the life of me.

Code Red

Most of New South Wales was on a total fire ban during the week, due to the drought and the wind and stuff.

Then the storms came on Friday and there were fires started here and there by lightning strikes. Nothing here, thank fuck, but summer ain't over yet. Hasn't even officially started.

Are you prepared to survive? - checklists & stuff at the RFS site

I've got me go bag sorted, like they said after Black Saturday. Photos, insurance policy, data back-up, towel, clean underpants. Grab and go.

Local linkage

My trek to Nepal - local bushwalker training for trekking

Kayaking Ettalong to Iron Ladder Beach - good photos, Iron Ladder is just near Box Head and the Palm Beach ferry goes quite near it.

We tease to please

2009-11-14T13:59:00.000+11:00

(Green Point walkies #4)

Nice old weatherboard house on Asca Drive. Looks about 1900 to 1920s. But don't quote me on that. Can't find the book to check.

It had both brick piers (stumps) and stone ones but the stone ones are not original. They're too wide for their sheets of tin (to stop the white-ants). Original stone stumps are as narrow as these brick ones. Sometimes all the old stone piers on an old house get replaced, sometimes just some of them.

Green Point traffic is on a go-slow for a bit while they rip up bits of Avoca Drive (the main road) around Bayside Drive. Not sure what they're doing on this side but on the other side it looked like they were widening it.

Avoca Drive is one of the main roads of the Lower Central Coast/ Greater Gosford/ Brisbane Water area. If you're in Woy Woy and you want to go to Bloody Erina (Erina Fair, one of them big shopping centres) you go over The Rip Bridge to Daleys Point, along Empire Bay Drive past St. Huberts Island, Empire Bay, Bensville and Kincumber South, left onto Avoca Drive and through Kinumber, past Yattalunga, round and up through Green Point and right into The Entrance Road, past the barracks then right at Fountain Plaza and up Karalta Road and there you are at Bloody Erina.

Stared at this sign for a good long while as I walked towards it. It looked like it belonged to the real estate agent and I wondered how the fuck teasing prospective home buyers was a good idea. Eventually I noticed the name if the hairdresser at the top of the sign. Jesus, I'm quick.

Just for pretty. Mangrove stump in the shallows.

Bonus photo

The lovely old wooden ferry at her mooring in Cockle Channel not far from Central Wharf (where you get off for the Davo) at Davistown.

She still does some runs over to Hardys and so forth. They changed the timetable again so I better get a new one. Haven't been on her for a bit. She's my favourite local ferry. Possibly my favourite ferry ever.

Google-botted

My stats are showing heaps of human and machine visits from Googlebot HQ. Must find out what that's about before I crash or something. Am I being checked out for some sort of fabulous feature thingy on the blogspot blog about blogspot blogs? The Inaugural Blogger Award for the Gratutious Use of the Word Fuck in a Walkies Context? Or maybe the googlebot just got the hiccups.

Along the water

2009-11-07T15:06:00.007+11:00

(Green Point walkies #3)

Starting point. Rocky Point in fact. Bottom of Orana Road.

To get to this park, come down Avoca Drive from The Entrance Road and turn right into Bayside Drive at the lights or Orana Road just after them.

If you're coming from Woy Woy, come up Maitland Bay Drive and over The Rip Bridge and up Empire Bay Drive to the wee stone church at the roundabout in Kincumber and turn left into Avoca Drive and go straight through Kincumber then up the hill and round and left into Orana Road just before the lights.

Wee old houses nestled between big flash houses on Point Frederick.

This is pretty much the same as anywhere there's big pricey houses along the water round Woy Woy and Brisbane Water and up and down the Central Coast. There's still some wee old houses from before the seventies, before the war and before the first war when land was cheap and there was fuck-all houses around Brisbane Water anyways.

It's like a miniature history of the Coast on one street. This particular street being Albany Street, the street running from stem to stern of Point Frederick AKA Longnose. In the background yer looking at Rumbalara Reserve (hill in shadow) and what appears to be Waterview Park AKA Presidents Hill above the trots in Gosford. Locals will know Presedents Hill as the hillside on which The Castle sits.

Bit of the park. It's a narrow strip of grassed land between the water and the houses with a private jetty and boat parked opposite nearly every house. Again, same all round Woy Woy and Brisbane Water.

Some mangroves can get quite tall. These ones were about 15 metres (49.21 feet). Usually they're 2 to 6 metres (6.56 to 19.69 feet).

The inevitable tinny.

A wee muddy creek at Ironbark Point, about halfway up the park. Could be a storm drain all full after the bit of rain we had in October but it looked more creeky with the trees round it.

Scribbly gum bark found in the wee bit of bush beside Kenmare Road. Scribbly gums are Eucalyptus haemastoma. The link has a good photo of the tree.

The scribbles are made by a wee tiny beastie, the larvae of the Scribbly Gum Moth (Ogmograptis scribula).

Bonus photo

Woy Woy to Koolewong footbridge as seen from Green Point.

Much clearer view of the footbridge. Couldn't find the bastard last week.

New new timetable

Local ferries timetable. Yep, same ferry as takes the Dear Old Things to the Davo.

I don't get paid for the local ferry adverts, by the way. I just love ferries.

Green Point 1789

2009-10-31T12:04:00.005+11:00

(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

2009-10-24T11:16:00.002+11:00

(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

2009-10-03T11:12:00.004+10:00

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.

Put in yer email and you'll get a ping in yer inbox.

Atom

(Got a favourite ping thing not on this list? Be a dear and chuck it in the comments.)

It's back

2009-09-26T09:44:00.005+10:00

Today's dust storm is mostly clear now. The sky's a sort of weak blue round the edges but otherwise clear. It was pretty mild today compared to Wednesday's red dawn, just a white-grey haze at six, like a slightly dirty fog. Made me sneeze and itch though when I took the garbage out and it didn't smell great.

Brizzie copped it again too and New Zealand copped Wednesday's dust on Friday.

Embiggen satellite image

Wednesday's dust made world headlines and the bastard could be seen on satellite stretching from Cape York to Sydney. Cape York is the pointy bit at top of Australia. NASA put it at 3,500 kays (2,170 miles) and it grounded water-bomber choppers fighting Queensland bushfires. The air quality was clocked at 15,000+ grotty bits per something or other. A normal day is 20 grotty bits and a bushfire makes 500 grotty bits. Fark.

Pop over to the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water for air quality updates. Or just stay home and have the phone sex.

Sex Degrees of Separation

Everybody's doing it. Calculating how many people they've indirectly shagged. I got 13 million. Hope they were all hot.

Sex calculator

Ugh

Going back to the sofa with a pillow and the remote. Buggered after a month of half-sick half-not crapulence. Normal services will resume shortly.

Red dawn

2009-09-23T16:08:00.002+10:00

(Dust storm over NSW)

The view out my window at 6am this morning.

The dust was covering the coast from Woollongong to Newcastle (includes Sydney) at six. Few hours later it had reached Brisbane.

The airport was shut down and international flights were diverted to Melbourne. The ferries on Sydney Harbour were stopped. They move heaps of communters every morning but they couldn't see far enough not to prang into each other.

The local ferries were stopped due to the visibility plus the big winds. Sydney traffic was on a go-slow and traffic here was quieter than usual.

It was bloody spooky. Not to mention, bloody dusty.

Taken from Ettalong Beach at lunchtime. Note the invisibility of Lion Island and Barrenjoey Head.

Same view today (left) and any other day (right).

Dust storm photos from Sydney (Flickr)

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

"The fiery haze was the result of the sun hitting the blanket of dust, Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jane Golding said.

"The reason for the dust is we had some really strong winds in the inland areas of NSW and in South Australia for a sustained period yesterday," she said.

"That's lifted a whole lot of dust off the ground because it's quite dry out there, many of those areas are still drought affected."

The lifted dust had been carried by the winds into Sydney.

"I've not seen anything like this before," Ms Golding said.

The reddish haze was expected to fade as the sun got higher in the sky, Ms Golding said. The haze had turned from a crimson red to orange by about 7am, and then faded to yellow by about 7.30am.

But it was not known what would happen to the dust."

Dust turns Sydney sky red (links to video & photos, including a really fabulous one of The Coathanger)

Central Coast Ferries (Woy Woy etc. ferries) said:

"Ferries cancelled until further notice due to low visibilty and poor conditions as a result of the gale force winds and dust storm. Call skippers on 0418631313 for info on resumption of services predicted for this arvo."

It's clear now so they might be back on but it's still bloody blowy.

Spring flowers

2009-09-19T13:32:00.002+10:00

The flowering of the gums sends the lorikeets berserk.

Bloody lorikeets in a feeding frenzy outside my window. Low res but the noisy bastards are coming across loud and clear.

These are coming out.

And these.

These are a garden favourite.

So are these. Waist-high bush covered in tiny wee pink flowers.

Local wattle species growing at Ettalong Beach last year.

And, of course, Australia's favourite golden wattle, the silver wattle. It's called that after the silvery grey of the leaves.

Golden wattle in the wind. Taken at the old Gosford quarry a while back. You don't often get to hear the wattle.

Lazy bastard

What with feeling crook and generally just being an unorganised bastard, I'm a month behind on my email. I'll get to yer.

Six degrees of Flickration

Got added to some new feature at Flickr. Gallery of sailboats.

Fire and boats

2009-09-12T10:41:00.006+10:00

Bushfire to the West of Woy Woy. Taken yesterday, the 11th August 2009.

Can't find out where exactly the fire was but it looks like it could have been in Ku-ring-gai or around Mooney Mooney up on the F3. (The F3 is an intercity highway with a fearsome reputation for prangs.)

We got a new thingy added to our fire safety signs: Catastrophic AKA Code Red. That's because of the Victorian bushfires.

The signs used to say: "Low / Moderate / Very High / Extreme". Catastrophic is obviously higher than Extreme. Catastrophic means get the kids and go now.

NSW Rural Fire Service (Woy Woy falls under the RFS)

Current Fire Danger Map (NSW RFS)

Bushfire report: Stay or go policy on the line (It's your ABC)

Ferry news

"The SS Baragoola (as she was originally named) was built in 1922 for the Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Company Ltd. ...
Her name (in a local Aboriginal dialect) means "Flood Tide". ... In the 1970's and early 1980's, along with North Head, Baragoola was the backbone of the Manly ferry service. Baragoola was withdrawn from service and passed into private ownership in 1983.

Following a failed attempt to use her as a floating university, she was sold again in 1988." (Baragoola website)

Floating university? The mind boggles.

Baragoola in 1922

Putt Putt Regatta 2009

It's on again for putt putts and people young and old. Sunday 1st of November down at the Davistown waterfront.

Putt Putt Regatta website

Local boating news linkage: centralcoastferries.com.au

Argh

I am going back to bed. Feeling rather crook again. Stupid health.

The lion in winter

2009-09-05T11:58:00.002+10:00

(Random blogging urge)

18th of June 2007, after a big wind

I've been walking and photographing for 4 years now. I've got about 2,000 walkies photos on my Flickr thingy.

Only just realised I've got a year round record of Lion Island. It's one of my favourite views. Won't bombard you with the whole year's worth of photos in one go. There's 26 of them.

So let's be looking at just one season at a time. It's spring here now, officially and in fact but I like the title 'The lion in winter' so much I'm ignoring inconvenient real-world facts.

30th of June 2005, from Umina Beach

7th of July 2006

23rd of July 2005

26th of July 2005

5th of August 2008, from Ettalong Beach just near Bustling Downtown Ettalong

Australia really doesn't have a noticable winter in terms of bare trees and stuff. Not unless yer in Tassie and it's snowing. Pretty sure you'd notice winter then, even without the bare trees.

Excuses excuses

Did not go walkies this week. Had the annual flu. Not swine flu, thank fuck, and not even man flu just yer bog standard 3 days in bed crap.

Right now I'm off to seek sustenance in the form of a barbie and a steak sanger. Doubt if I'm up to a bonk today.

Yattalunga finished

2009-08-29T08:30:00.002+10:00

(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

2009-08-22T11:58:00.002+10:00

(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

2009-08-15T11:48:00.003+10:00

(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

2009-08-08T10:50:00.003+10:00

(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

2009-08-01T12:56:00.003+10:00

(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.

Hastings Wharf

2009-07-25T09:50:00.003+10:00

(Bensville walkies #1)

Winter in Woy Woy.

Actually up the road a bit in at Hastings Wharf in Bensville but I couldn't resist the alliteration.

This is looking west towards Woy Woy. What you can see is the end of Shelly Beach Road in Empire Bay (left), Cockle Channel between Empire Bay and Davistown, and a bit of Davistown on the right where the mangroves are. That's Kyoga Avenue, Romford and Alkoomie Close in Davistown. Not that you can see the houses. Away in the distance there you've got yer hills and ridges behind The Bays on the other side of Woy Woy.

Bensville is the orange dot near the right hand edge of the map, bit under halfway up.

Bensville is a wee town in a quiet bay on the eastern shore of Brisbane Water. It has just under 3,000 peeps, four shops, a park, a scout hall and the wharf.

In March 1788, just after landing at Botany Bay, Governor Phillip, the boss of Straylya's first colony, came up from Sydney and had a sticky. He looked round near Bensville and other parts of Brisbane Water and went back to Botany Bay. (More on that.)

This is Davistown seen from Bensville.

Bensville is named after Ben Davis, of the local ship-building clan. He built 15 ships there in the 1870s. Davistown is named after another of the Davises. Bensville was called Sunnyside before it was changed to Bensville. Very apt. (More on that.)

Bensville scout hall nestled in amongst the mangroves and casuarinas and gum trees.

Mangrove tree. Just for pretty.

Cloud sandwich. There was one cloud. This was it.

Nice moody snap of the wharf itself

Fabulous Bensville photos by Bobesh

Moon or Mars?

Whatcher reckon? Do we go back to the moon and learn more stuff about it and probably about us or do we aim for a colony on Mars?

Peak of Eternal Light (coolest name ever for a lunar colony)

What's in it for us? (SETI Home board on what would spur Mars colonisation)

Mars Society Australia (Cool photos & mock-ups)

Glug glug

2009-07-18T09:58:00.004+10:00

This is Woy Woy peninsula as it is today. Not flooded. The peninsula is 1 metre above sea level. That's roughly 39 inches, American readers.

The tsunami warning a few days ago got everyone's brain ticking on where they would run to if the next warning is for real.

The peninsula is flat, except for the lone peak of Blackwall Mountain and the ridges at the back of the peninsula. We would all hurtle up the mountain or up the ridges obviously but what would it look like flooded?

Woy Woy under a couple of metres (roughly 6.5 feet) of tsunami.

Would we all make it if a proper tsunami hit?

The population of the peninsula was roughly 35,000 in 2006 so let's call it 37,500 now.

And bear in mind that Woy Woy is the world's largest above-ground cemetery so we got a large number of Dear Old Things to be gathered up and hustled up the hill. And most of them would refuse to go without the budgie or their handbag.

So, assuming we all made it, with budgies and handbags, that's 37,500 bewildered people perched atop Blackwall Mountain and crowded into the half dozen streets high enough to be above the new water-line.

Interesting scenario.

Let's just have another stunned look at the peninsula under flood, shall we?

There it is.

I can't see my house.

I can't see my walkies.

All I can see is the top few floors of the Excr escence, the new island that used to be Blackwall Mountain and the deck of The Rip Bridge.

Railway station? Gone.

Pu bs? Gone.

Bustling Downtown Woy Woy? Gone.

West Street? Gone.

Booker Bay? Gone.

Ettalong? Gone.

Umina Beach? Gone.

Pelican Island? Gone.

Rileys Island? Gone.

St Huberts Island? Gone.

Non event

2009-07-16T16:38:00.002+10:00

Taken today.

The tsunami would have come in through the mouth of Broken Bay (heads pictured) and hit at Umina Beach (in foreground).

Australia & NZ map on last night's post

Taken today. You can see how much damage there isn't.

Similar views taken a couple of weeks back.

Before and after

Before and after

Bit of an anti-climax but it got us thinking about where we'll run to when the real thing comes.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand

"Four more strong aftershocks have shaken Fiordland this afternoon following last night's 7.8 earthquake.

One quake measured 5.3 and hit the area at 12.24pm. Another tremor, measuring 5.6, was felt 20 minutes later, followed by a 5.1 quake at 1.30pm.

The latest, at 2.13pm, measured 5.1 and was at a depth of 12km, 80km west of Te Anau.
...

The initial quake, which was centred 100km northwest of Tuatapere and 12km deep, struck at 9.22pm yesterday and triggered an alert from the Pacific tsunami warning centre in Hawaii."

Full article at NZ Herald

Not drowned

2009-07-16T08:30:00.002+10:00

Still here. No tsunami.

The warnings came around bedtime last night so most of the neighbours didn't even know about it.

Peeps up round The Entrance (half an hour up the coast) copped damage from big seas last weekend so they must have been really pooing themselves. Half their backyards floated out to sea already then there's a tsunami warning.

Sydney Morning Herald this morning

The damage in Kiwiland (New Zealand) seems to be fairly minimal. No deaths reported. They gotta go round and check all their bridges and whatnot. And in an area called Fiordland, that'll take a while.

NZ Herald article, map & links to photos

Tsunami or puddle

2009-07-15T22:31:00.004+10:00

Caught the very end of a news update a few minutes ago and nearly weed myself. There was a graphic of an earthquake in New Zealand and a line all up the NSW coast where a tsunami is expected to hit.

Woy Woy is barely a metre (about 39 inches) above sea level. I pictured myself hurtling up to The Rampart with my computer under one arm and a blanket under the other to sit out the night with my fellow Woy Woyans.

Right now some bloke on the ABC is saying don't panic but don't get yer camera and go down to the beach because you'll be the first death if the big wave does come.

Latest off the Met's warnings pages

"TSUNAMI WARNING NUMBER 3 FOR PARTS OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Issued by the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC) at
09:25 PM EST on Wednesday 15 July 2009

TSUNAMI THREAT TO THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

SUMMARY:

Tsunami warning for the marine environment for parts of NEW SOUTH WALES.

Threatened areas extend from Gabo Island to Seal Rocks including Batemans Bay, Bellambi, Botany Bay, Gabo Island, Jervis Bay, Kiama, Merimbula, Montague Island, Moruya, Moruya Heads, Narooma, Nelson Bay, Norah Head, Shell Harbour, Sydney Harbour, Ulladulla and Wollongong.

Possibility of DANGEROUS WAVES, STRONG OCEAN CURRENTS AND SOME LOCALISED OVERFLOW ONTO THE IMMEDIATE FORESHORE for several hours from 09:45 pm (EST) Wednesday.

Although major evacuations are not required, people are advised to get out of the water and move away from the immediate water's edge.

Next update will be issued by 10:25 PM EST on Wednesday 15 July 2009

For latest and further information call 1300 TSUNAMI (1300 878 6264) or visit www.bom.gov.au".

So basically it'll be about the same as a king tide at Christmas time only a lot faster.

Map & full text of warning

Acros the ditch

(Country in black above Australia is Papua New Guinea. Grey islands are part of South-east Asia.)

"We've had big differences in the measurements of the quake , ranging from 6.6 by GNS Science, to 8.2 by a tsunami warning centre in Hawaii - we're issuing a precautionary message," said an emergency management spokesman in Wellington, Vince Cholewa.

People ran from restaurants in Queenstown as buildings shook, and lights and phone lines went down.

It was felt across the South Island."

Full article at New Zealand Herald

"The US Geological Survey said the epicentre of the earthquake was about 160km west of the city of Invercargill, on South Island, at a depth of 33 kilometres, US Geological Survey (USGS) reported.

Police in the town of Tuatapere on South Island say they have reports of minor cracks in buildings and stock falling from supermarket shelves, but there'd been no reports of serious damage or injuries so far.

The quake was felt widely across the South Island.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre also issued a warning, saying: ``An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines in the region near the epicentre within minutes to hours''.

The centre added it was not immediately known if a tsunami had been generated."

Full article at Sydney Morning Herald (includes quake map)

Shaky Isles

"There are betweenn 10,000 and 15,000 earthquakes in and around New Zealand each year. Most are small, but between 100 and 150 are big enough to be felt, according to GNS Science.

The biggest known quake in New Zealand was the magnitude 8.2 Wairarapa earthquake of 1855.

The biggest New Zealand earthquake since instrumental recording began was the 1931 magnitude 7.8 Hawke's Bay earthquake."

Full article at New Zealand Herald

That's why NZ is known as the Shaky Isles.

And while we're not panicking

Australia now has 20 swine flu deaths and 10,000 current cases of swine flu.

Are we panicking? No, we are not. Okay, maybe that really panicky type down the pub who reads News of the World and believes it but not the rest of us.

Told yer.

Swine flu: [predicted] 10,000 death toll 'alarmist'

In strangely related news

Got 7th place in a NZ travel blogger awards thingy. Thank yer kindly, Tripbase.

Tripbase Blog Awards 2009

Blue sky cold day

2009-07-11T12:53:00.002+10:00

(Random walkies in Koolewong)

Cycle path at Koolewong.

Lovely avenue of trees along this part of the path. A long stand of casuarinas whispering in the wind on the park side, mangroves with the water slapping about their roots on the water side.

(Kept typing root instead of roots. Wonder what I'm thinking about!)

Koolewong from Koolewong.

Koolewong is a shallow bay. This is taken from one side of the bay looking at the other.

Well, okay, technically it's two bays. This bay and Murphys Bay.

Shade on the ridge and the soft filtered light through the casuarina needles.

Soft weird sky seen through the casuarinas.

That's Koolewong there in the red box. It's a narrow strip of flat land and a couple of streets going up the ridgeside a bit.

It has bugger-all streets compared to Woy Woy. Or compared to anywhere really. Except maybe Patonga, which has five streets.

Pissing down most of the week. Today can't make up its mind. I can. I'm off to a barbie. At which I will not eat bacon, pizza or those really fat sausages not matter how good they smell. Nor will I be imbibing of the amber fluid. How boring is that?

By the way

That Rip Bridge photo everyone loves got invited to the Best of Australia group in Flickr. One of them invite-only photo groups. Goes to show how a bit of practice can turn a crap photographer into a decent photographer.

How to take decent photos

Views from a bridge

2009-07-04T12:28:00.003+10:00

Booker Bay from The Rip Bridge

Look at that water. Still as. There was a cold cruel wind yesterday but otherwise it's been days and days of still blue skies. Magic winter weather.

Hardys Bay from The Rip Bridge

I love the swirly patterns on the water. Some of them are obviously boat tracks but the big patches seem to be made by the sandbars. Which we have heaps of. Which is why we have the Great Dredging Debate

Ettalong knob/Booker Bay sandbar

Somewhere in my increasingly large photo archive at Flickr is a nice view from the mountain showing most of the sandbars. Can I find the bastard? No, I cannot. Didn't tag the effing thing properly, did I!

The Rip Bridge from Hardys Bay (plus photos of Bustling Downtown Hardys Bay)

Stupid health

I ain’t on death’s door or nothing. Just not terribly sprightly at the moment. Had to have more tests last week. Dr says I’m to stay off the booze for a year, a whole year for fuck’s sake, and go easy on the pizza and bacon.

So I’ve chucked out all the bacon and bought myself a T-shirt that says “designated driver”. Sigh.

Local linkage

First one is Woy Woy hero bunnies at Biker Bunnies.

Second one is some keen bushwalkers have bunged up a new local freebies website called wildwalks.com.au.

They've got “various walks in the Brisbane Water and Bouddi national parks including Warrah Trig, Patonga, Maitland Bay and Staples Lookout.”

It’s got some good local photos and some chat about each walk and you can print out a map to take with you. Holding it up the right way is yer own responsibility.

B day

Shit. I've spent so much time on the first B of the day I'm in danger of missing the second.

Saturday is B day:

Blog
Barbie
Booze
Bonking (if my sex drive is at home to visitors)

(Tuesday is soylent green day.)

All is calm, all is quiet

2009-06-27T12:04:00.005+10:00

Went walkies along the western side of Brisbane Water, looking from Brisbane Water Drive across at Green Point and Saratoga and beyond to Kincumber and Avoca Beach and Killcare.

The gentle winter sun shone down, the ducks and heron-type-thingies browsed in the shallows, the commuters wished they were out on the still quiet water.

Wading and snapping. The heron-type-thingy wading sedately with that gawky knees-up walk they have. No idea what this one was eating but he didn't seem to be finding much of it. The ducks were finding plenty, poking their beaks into the sea grass and snapping their beaks in a satisfied way.

What ducks eat. Seemed to be wee creatures in the sea grass or the sea grass itself.

There's very nearly more boats than people around Brisbane Water. These ones looked scrumptious in the soft fading light.

Bonus picture: You wouldn't be dead for quids

Spider bites it

This is Gorgeous. Well, her body anyways. She's dead now.

She was my pet/flatmate. She moved in a couple of months ago, when the nights started to get cold. She hung out in the kitchen during the day and watched TV together and she slept behind a picture in the living room. We chatted when I made my morning cuppa and stuff.

Then a couple of days ago she disappeared. It was too cold outside so I knew she hadn't left. I found her body yesterday. She'd died of natural causes I think and fallen down behind the dish-rack. I buried her under the geranium.

Dark week

2009-06-20T12:44:00.003+10:00

From blue blue winter skies to dark dark winter skies. Pissing down again as we speak. It's been a dark wet week in Woy Woy. I've been having the lights on at three in the afternoon.

Boy duck.

Went to Empire Bay when the sun was still with us. Had fish & chips on the foreshore. Bloody lovely day for it.

Girl duck.

Beautiful warm winter sun on water and shore.

And a couple of planes making weird contrails in the distance. See them? Above the boats. They looked like they were over Sydney.

Still missing

Can't find any fresh news about the Woy Woy bloke who went missing last week. They found his surf ski and life jacket and paddle off Saratoga but no sign of him, poor bastard.

Map

Full article at The Australian

Dementia walkies

Regular walkies helped a Dear Old Thing survive when he got lost in the bush last week.

"Dr Fulde believed Mr Ludbrook's regular long walks would have been crucial to his survival.

"Big time. People who walk serious distances - not just the 20-minute stroll with the dog, which is also good - do well in situations like this.

"His heart would have been able to deal with the stress much more easily that the average lounge lizard.

"In the end, that's what hypothermia does - it leads to heart attack - and having a healthy heart from lots of walking protects from heart attach as the patient cools down."
...
For decades, Mr Ludbrook's neighbours had become used to the sight of him walking the streets of Fernhill."

There you go. Us walkers are on the right track. Even when we're demented.

Full article at SMH

Warm winter sun

2009-06-13T15:26:00.003+10:00

(Random Woy Woy walkies)

Bloody cold in the wind a couple of days ago, with the gusts up off the snow. But other than that, we’ve had days of blue blue winter skies. The warm winter sun has been glorious. Perfect for walkies and photos.

This picture is from Booker Bay Road Booker Bay. That’s Booker Bay in the foreground and Rileys Bay across the water there.

Taken from the same place. Note the wee cut-outs of cats along the jetty there. They seemed to be working. It was the only jetty with no duck shit on it.

Look at that red. Glorious. It’s been down to 1 degree (about 3 Farhenheit) overnight. Some years it doesn’t get that cold and, if you want a good red on your poinsettias, you gotta put them in the fridge. They’re not native to Australia.

The Rip Bridge

2009-06-06T12:11:00.003+10:00

Took me a lot of walkies to get all the angles I wanted on this landmark. Here they are all in one go.

The Rip Bridge from Guyra Street Booker Bay. My favourite view.

It's called The Rip Bridge because it goes over The Rip, which is a bit of fast-flowing water in the narrow bit between the Woy Woy peninsula and Daleys Point. When the ferries go through it their engines have to strain a bit and a kayaker can paddle as fast as they like on The Rip and get nowhere.

Where it is.

The Rip Bridge is a Brisbane Water landmark. You can see it from all the way up Brisbane Water Drive as far as Point Clare. It's one of the busiest bottlenecks on the Central Coast. And when the big fires in 2006 closed the F3 motorway, the fire trucks had to come down the eastern side of Brisbane Water and across the bridge to get to The Bays next to Woy Woy.

Daleys Point end of the bridge. The road that goes over it is called Maitland Bay Drive on the Woy Woy side and on the bridge itself, then it changes its name to Daley Avenue, then at the roundabout at the top of the St Huberts Island ramp, it changes its name again to Empire Bay Drive. This takes some explaining when giving directions to lost tourists.

Just behind the railing about the middle you can see a bit of The Rip. The ridges in the background are the western side of Brisbane Water. The two mangrove islets in the left middle are nameless. St Hubert's is the island on the right (houses) and behind that is the hill of Saratoga.

Fishermans Bay, where the moving speedboat is, and Rileys Bay. Looking east-north-east from the bridge.

Booker Bay from the Woy Woy end of the bridge. Money lives in Booker Bay. It didn't used to.

The Rip Bridge from Blackwall Mountain. Orange Grove Road in the foreground. The houses at the left end of the bridge are at Daleys Point.

Thar she blows. The Rip Bridge from Daley Avenue Daleys Point.

Bloody idiots

There's been a spate of bashings of foreign students of Australian universities. Bashing foreign uni students is a fucking stupid idea. Particularly in a recession. They bring a shitload of money into the country.

International students (what uni's call foreign citizen students) pay around three times the money an Australian citizen pays to go to uni. So if a B.A. costs a citizen 20,000 it costs an international student 60,000. If a medical degree costs 60,000 it costs an international student 180,000.

They pay higher fees which means the uni can afford to stay open to educate Australian citizens when the government is taking shitloads of funding from education to spend on wars. (Former Prime Miniature John Wanker Howard, this means you).

They pay for accommodation. This is money into the local housing market.

They eat. This is money into the local shops.

They phone home. This is money into the local telephone companies, the same phone companies you use.

They go places on buses and trains. This is money into the local bus-drivers' pay packets.

Think you're doing Australia a favour bashing international students? You're doing it an injury. Grow a brain, numb nuts.

Right! I'm off for the long weekend. Running a mere 24 hours late and with a premature case of title="Ducktionary">shagger's back. Argh.

Have a good one, Straylya.

Warm winter beach

2009-05-30T11:31:00.005+10:00

(Random walkies in Woy Woy)

Right now it's pissing down again but a few days ago the winter sun was blazing and the dogs frolicking and the locals popping down to the beach.

This is looking out from Umina Beach through the heads of Broken Bay.

Box Head, the northern head of Broken Bay.

Box Head gave its name to the crowd who make Box Head surf gear. Or made. They don't got a website so maybe they got bought up. Anyways, they used to have their office in a house in Memorial Avenue right near Bustling Downtown Ettalong.

View south from Umina Beach. Mt Ettalong on the right, the arse end of Lion Island on the left edge of the photo, Pittwater and Commodore Heights (Ku-ring-gai) in the middle.

Lion Island from Umina Beach, looking south.

Geraldton Wax blooming in the winter sun. Proper name Chamelaucium uncinatum. It's an Australian native but is actually from WA (Western Australia) not NSW. I love it.

"[O]ne of Australia's most famous wildflowers and is widely used as a cut flower in Australia and overseas" says ASGAP. Pop into yer local Interflora today.

ASGAP fact sheet & photos

Second wave

We're well and truly into the 2nd wave of the swine flu now. The peeps who know about this sort of thing said it's normal and would happen and so it's happened.

But it's still not time to panic yet. Relax, eat yer vegies, lay back on the sofa with a DVD on and for fuck's sake don't watch those panic-merchant news reports on 7, 9 and 10. Bloody half-witted commercial TV channels. Switch over to Aunty and yer blood pressure will go down. ABC news is at 7pm.

What can you do?

"Influenza is spread from person-to-person through coughing or sneezing of infected people. There are many things you can do to prevent getting and spreading influenza:

* Cover your mouth when you cough, and wash your hands regularly.
* Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the garbage bin after you use it.
* Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective.
* Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.

Try to avoid close contact with sick people.

* Influenza is spread from person-to-person through coughing or sneezing. Stay away from people who are sick.
* If you get sick, stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to avoid infecting them." (More at NSW Health Dept prevention info)

"Department of Health and Ageing swine influenza information...

Advice for returned travellers
...
Travel advisory" (Swine flu advice at the NSW Health Dept)

"Swine Flu Symptoms

Since swine influenza infections typically present in humans as seasonal influenza, most of the cases are detected by chance through flu surveillance. Swine flu symptoms, similar to those of seasonal influenza may include:

* Cough
* Runny nose
* Fever
* Headache
* Joint aches and pains
* Fatigue
* Nausea
* Vomiting
* Diarrhoea
* Acute pneumonia

The Federal Government has set up a swine flu hotline for public information: 1802007" (Aunty on teh interwebs)

Bloody wet

2009-05-23T11:36:00.004+10:00

It is too bloody wet and too bloody dark for walkies. It is this dark. Took that in 2008 but it's the same dark this week only wetter.

Anyways, here's some I took last week when the sun was out.

Rocks and yachts at Koolewong.

Looking north-north-east up towards East Gosford/Springfield. The low ground in the left background is the low bit of Tascott/Point Clare and Longnose (Pt Frederick) and the flat hill on the right is Kincumba Mountain.

Mangroves beside Brisbane Water Drive. The bare-branched one isn't bare-branched because it's winter. It's just dead. Mangroves are evergreen, like most Australian trees. It's mostly the imported species of trees that are deciduous.

Jetty building equipment near Woy Woy wharf.

Jetty building equipment near Woy Woy wharf.

That's Pelican Island in the near background, with the pointy hill of Saratoga behind it.

Woy Woy from Brisbane Water Drive

The pines are at the war memorial on Brick Wharf Road, the white building with the dark side is the fish and chip shop, the red-roofed building is a storage thingy either for the fish and chip shop or the commercial wharf in front of it. I forget.

The square white building is Roma (now St. Vinnie's), the two-storey building beside it is the pub (Woy Woy Hotel, the CWA is the low grey roof in front of the pub.

The ferry wharf is all those white pylons in the water and that big gum is in Anderson Park, a wee park behind the other pub.

Not drowning, wading

As soggy as it is here in Woy Woy, our rain is fuck-all compared to what they're copping up north.

"The worst drought in South-East Queensland's history is over." That's what the Queensland Premier said about the flooding in Brissie. Give that pollie an award for understatement.

Brissie (Brisbane) is a fucking disaster area. Brissie is one of Australia's bigger cities. It has about 2 million peeps. And it's built on a flood plain.

Thousands of peeps around the Queensland/NSW border were told to pack up and bugger off to higher ground. And maybe something has been learnt from the Victorian bushfires because they went and they went without a murmur. (Apart from a few argumentative types of course, but you always get them.)

The good news is Lake Eyre is filling with trickle-down from the flooding in Queensland a couple of months back (during the Victorian bushfires). Lake Eyre is a fucking huge salt lake in South Australia. Since 1885 it has filled six times.

Mappage:

Australia, with Queensland highlighted (New South Wales is immediately below Queensland)

A river runs through it (Satellite photo showing why Brissie is currently flooded)

Luscious satellite photo of Lake Eyre

Speaking of water

Lately I've been hoicking my carcass up to North Gosford and Wyoming and the like for walkies.

And not loving it. They are too far from the water. I like walking near the water. There's no two ways around it.

So I'm temporarily re-focussing my walkies to only towns and suburbs that border on the water.

That includes, from south to north:

Pretty Beach (started but not finished)
Hardys Bay (started but not finished)
Killcare
Killcare Heights
Empire Bay (started but not finished)
Bensville
Kincumber South
Kincumber (started but not finished)
Green Point
Rocky Point (part of Green Point)
Ironbark Point (part of Green Point)

(Walkies Map May 2009)

The purple bit is what I've temporarily crossed off my list.

The orange lines outline my walkies target area. The filled-in orange bits are already walked.

The blank islands are uninhabited and have no roads. The green lines are landscape contours lines indicating hills and ridges.

Walked so far:

Woy Woy Peninsula:
(clockwise from station)

Woy Woy (station)
Blackwall
Orange Grove
Booker Bay
Ettalong
Umina, Ocean Beach & Umina Beach
Pearl Beach
Patonga, Dark Corner & Brisk Bay
Woy Woy South/Correa Bay

The Bays:

(where the fires were, next to Woy Woy)
Horsfield Bay (Deadmans Bay)
Phegans Bay
Woy Woy Bay
Parks Bay (old/semi-official name, part of Koolewong)

Clockwise round Brisbane Water from Woy Woy:

Koolewong /Murphys Bay
Tascott
Noonan Point (old/semi-official name, part of Tascott & Point Clare)
Point Clare
Fagans Bay
West Gosford (started but not finished, outside revised target area)
Gosford (started but not finished)
Point Frederick (Longnose)
Caroline Bay (part of East Gosford)
East Gosford (started but not finished)
Peeks Point
Springfield (started but not finished, outside revised target area)
Erina (started but not finished)
Yattalunga
Saratoga
Davistown
Kincumber (started but not finished)
Empire Bay (started but not finished)
St Huberts Island
Daleys Point (started but not finished)
Fishermans Bay
Hardys Bay (started but not finished)
Pretty Beach
Wagstaffe
Kourung Gourong Point (part of Wagstaffe)

'Started but not finished' doesn't mean I've abandoned that walk. It just means it's now outside my revides target are. Plus I'm just a random bastard these days.

Mum

2009-05-16T11:49:00.003+10:00

Streaky reflections from Brisbane Water Drive Koolewong

Was going to blog a stack of walkies photos today but there's a post I've been trying to get off my chest for a bit and now is the time.

Mum

My mother died 18 months ago. She had cancer and went twenty years ahead of her time.

Technically it was the cancer that killed her but there's a bloody good chance she would have beaten it if she'd got a bloody divorce.

I never understood my mother. She was a person of normal intelligence, not an idiot, she got along with people, she appeared to outsiders to be living a normal life. But behind closed doors she was the monster's keeper.

She threw her life away. She spent her entire adult life keeping my father out of the mental hospital. She refused to admit he was barmy. She spent her every waking moment pretending he was normal, that the daily foaming-at-the-mouth rants and the bizarre behaviour were "just his way".

Why? What the fuck was there that could possibly be gained from keeping an aggressive fuckwitted unmedicated nutter at large in the community? What possible advantage was to be had by his never being medicated?

It's not like she was happy when he was normal. Even when he wasn't having an episode, way back twenty years ago when he was still sane some days, even then he was a horrible prick.

What the fuck was wrong with her? What had gone so fundamentally fucking wrong that she thought staying married to an abusive nutter was worth doing?

I loved my mother but I will go to my own grave wondering what the fuck she thought she was doing.

This isn't Pelican Island

2009-05-09T12:30:00.003+10:00

(Random walikes in Woy Woy)

The clouds piled up high in the north-east in the morning, a big wide front in an otherwise blue sky. I went walkies while the sky was still blue.

Wandered along Blackwall foreshore. Which runs from the playground up behind the bowls at the end of North Burge Road to the jetty at Blackwall Point. Scroll down for the map.

That wee tiny islet covered is pelicans is pretty much a tidal islet, that is, it's not there at high tide. At low tide it whiffs something cruel due to all the pelican shit.

It is the islet that isn't Pelican Island. Peeps think it's Pelican Island because it's covered in pelicans but it ain't. Yer actual Pelican Island, as blogged in April 2009 and January 2007.

View along the waterline to The Rip Bridge joining Booker Bay/Orange Grove in Woy Woy to Daleys Point. That's Blackwall Mountain lurking in the background on the right. The bridge goes from its foot across to Daleys Point.

The ducks really appreciate the private jetties. That tree is a mangrove.

The bike path from Gosford to Woy Woy is finished at last. It goes up to Allfield Road or one of those streets near there then disappears.

The view is across to the low bit between Mt Pleasant at Saratoga and the lower hill of Davistown. That flat-topped mounain in the background is probably Kincumba Mountain at Green Point.

Small roundish stingrays what lurk in Brisbane Water. Someone sent me some photos of them last year.

Look at that balcony there on the top. Excellent spot for drinking in the warm winter sun whilst eating yer breakfast.

The red line is Blackwall foreshore.

The red spot is Bustling Downtown Woy Woy.

The BM is Blackwall Mountain.

The straight road running from the red spot to the BM is Blackwall Road.

Mmm...maps

Blackwall foreshore from Blackwall Mountain (photo)

Local linkage

K.P. Brown, another Yank in Oz, blogged a few nice view photos from the ridge above Koolewong.

Right then. Ravenous. Will stop adding links and go and hunt some lunch down. See yer next week.

Can we panic yet?

2009-05-01T18:31:00.004+10:00

So this is it, we're all going to die!

Naaaaah. Not this time, not next time, not even the time after that.

"The first influenza pandemic was recorded in 1580 and since then influenza pandemics occurred every 10 to 30 years." says Wiki. So if they happen every 10 to 30 years and we're not all dead yet, it's probably not worth panicking.

All the news programmes keep talking about the 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions of people all over the world. But yer gotta remember we got antibiotics and shit now.

How the flu virus works

Influenza pandemics and how they work

1918 flu pandemic

Officials say don't panic (includes video of thermal scanner in action)

Australia still clear of new virus

"The areas with the most number of possible cases are South-East Sydney and the Illawarra with 20 and Northern Sydney and the Central Coast with 13. There are 12 each in Sydney's West and the Hunter and New England."

Notice that's possible cases not actual cases. Possible cases includes people with a bit of a sniffle, people with yer bog standard annual flu and man flu.

"Dr Grant encouraged anyone with symptoms such as fever, coughing and a runny nose whic began within 7 days of returning from an overseas holiday to contact their GP, local public health unit or to go to an emergency department, especially if they had been in the USA, Canada or Mexico."

Full article at SMH

Swine flu: a beat-up or a real fear?

The lighter side of swine flu

Masks

The word is to get the "fitted respirator masks known as P2 masks" and make sure they fit tight. No gaps to allow the germs to wiggle in through.

Full article at SMH

Wash yer bloody hands

That's what all the medical types are saying will help slow it down heaps. That and don't bloody well cough on people. Tissues were invented for a reason.

The shipping news

Codock II AKA the Cockatoo ferry

Wooden ferry fans, Bets of Central Coast Ferries says "The SARATOGA is getting a spruce up and a bit of engine maintenance this week so the trusty old CODOCK II is purring along on the run."

Timetable info

Local wildlife

Snakes on a beach

Lone Pine

2009-04-24T17:56:00.002+10:00

(Random walkies)

Australia and New Zealand hold memorial services for the war dead on ANZAC Day. It's like Memorial Day in America or Poppy Day in the UK. ANZAC stands for Australian & New Zealand Armed Corps.

In World War I the Anzacs fought a series of terrible battles in appalling conditions against Turkey at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli. Many of our boys died there and still lie there in Turkish soil. The Turks look after them for us along with their boys.

(To my mate currently serving in the Middle East: Don't get shot at, pet, and enjoy all that khaki crumpet.)

Rosemary is for remembrance.

It says:

"Pinus halepensis

Lone Pine or Plateau 400 was the scene of a major diversionary offensive launched by the 1st Australian Infantry Division on 6 August 1915. The Turks had cut down all but one of the trees that covered the ridge to clothe thrie trenches. The ridge dominated by the single Allepo Pine (Pinus halepensis) became known as Lone Pine. In three days of fighting the Australians lost more than 2000 men and the Turks losses were estimated at 7000. Seven Victoria Crosses were awarded.

As far as we know two Australian soldiers souvenired pinecones from the ridge that found their way back to Australia.

Lance Corporal Benjamin Smith of the 3rd Battalion, whose brother was killed in the battle for Lone Pine, sent a come home to his mother, Mrs McMullen at Inverall New South Wales. Mrs McMullen kept the cone for 13 years before planting the seeds in 1928. She grew two seedlings, one of which she presented to the town of Inverall and the other to the Parks and Gardens section of the Department of the Interior in Canberra. The Duke of Gloucester planted this second tree at the Australia War Memorial in October 1934. Today iot stands over 20 metres in height.

SGT Keith McDowell of the 24th Battalion carried a pinecone in his haversack until the end of the war. Upon returning home to Australia he gave it to his aunt, Mrs Emma Gray, who lived at Grassmere near Warmambool, Victoria. A decade or so later Mrs Gray planted the seeds and [unknown word] seedlings were grown. One was planted in May 1933 at Wattle Park, Melbourne. Another at the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne and another at the Soldiers Memorial Hall at The [unknown word]. The last was planted in the Warmambool Gardens.

In 1990 two trees were taken back to Gallipoli with war veterans who attended the memorial service to mark the anniversary of the battle of Lone Pine.

Since the 1980s many trees have been grown by seed and grafting techniques from the tree at the Australian War Memorial. This tree is one of those trees."

The photo above is of the marker under this tree. "This tree is one of those trees."

More on Anzac Day at the Ducktionary

The Woy Woy Dawn Service will be at the memorial park on Brick Wharf Road next to the blue fish and chip shop. The march starts at 10.30am from the carpark of Deepwater Plaza, George Street near Railway Street in yer street directory.

Pelican Island

2009-04-18T15:12:00.005+10:00

If you live in Woy Woy you can't not know Pelican Island. It's right there opposite the ferry wharf, about as far across the water as a seagull can spit, barely a hundred yards from the train station and Bustling Downtown Woy Woy.

But hardly anyone ever goes there. It's uninhabited, except by pelicans and trees. And mozzies (mosquitoes). Fucking squadrons of the bastards! We were eaten alive, even with the bloody repellant slathered on like cream on cake.

As you can see in the in-set map, Pelican Island is actually two islands with a narrow channel running between them. Another narrow channel, a dead end, runs into the interior of the larger island. (In-set map borrowed and modified from the local ferry crowd.)

There's a few tiny wee beaches for landing on the island. The biggest is maybe ten metres long. That's about 33 feet in American. Give or take.

The rest of the shore is thick with mangroves. Those white lumps on the mangroves roots are rock oysters.

A few feet from the shore and the casuarina trees (left) start. The other name for them is she-oaks. They have needles instead of leaves, not smooth but with tiny segments like bamboo. (Close-up of needles) When the wind whispers through them it gives a soft whispery howl.

The island is made of sand and can't be more than a metre (about 3 feet) above sea level at high tide. We could see where big waves or king tides had swept sea grass and floating stuff up over the wee beach and several metres inland.

Going into the interior of the island it was surpisingly open. There were lots of casuarina but a few dozen banksia trees as well and grasses I didn't recognise. That's a banksia there in the middle ground.

Once you're into the trees it's easy to forget how close you are to town. This is looking from the north-east end of the island across Woy Woy Channel to Lions Park at the end of North Burge Road (red cross on map.)

That's the Lady Kendall II of the Gosford ferries passing the park. She does the tours.

Then you look away to the east and there's Rileys, the other uninhabited island near Woy Woy. (There's also half a dozen wee islets barely wide enough to spit across.)

Pelican Island stats 'n' stuff

Rileys Island stats 'n' stuff

Wee islets nearby: Unnamed Isles, Oyster & Retention Islets at St. Huberts, Islets of Fagans Bay & the one people think is Pelican Island but isn't

Then there's Lion Island, which is in the mouth of Broken Bay not in the Brisbane Water estuary itself. But, just so yer good and confused, the estuary is in Broken Bay. (Maps)

Easter Bilby

2009-04-09T17:34:00.004+10:00

The Easter Bilby (right) and his longtime companion the Easter Wombat (left) with their child made with a turkey baster and a lesbian.

For Suzanne's kids. (Vengaman, bilbies and wombats are on the shelf in Woolies in Blackwall Road and in Kmart in Deepwater.)

Have a good Easter, peeps. Maybe by next week I'll have My Humps out of my head.

(But wait there's more: Always Argyll & the Scottionary, another translation thingy.)

Always Argyll

2009-04-09T16:57:00.002+10:00

Been listening to an old CD of my grandmother's. She and my grandfather were Scottish. They migrated to Australia long before I was born.

They landed in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, along with a stack of other Scottish migrants. Perth is named after a town in Scotland.

They hung out with a lot of migrant Scots but they also put themselves about with Australian-born people and generally made an effort to fit in. That was partly because some of the Scots they knew missed Scotland terribly and talked about it constantly and my grandparents didn't want to fall into that trap.

My grandfather had a good voice and he used to hum quietly for a bit then burst into singing out loud. But there were a couple of songs he wasn't allowed to sing. He'd start absentmindedly humming them and my grandmother would tell him to stop in this really tense voice and he'd say "Oh aye" and abruptly start singing 'Donald where's your troosers?' out loud. A couple of times I asked about it and he'd say "It's nothing, it upsets your grandmother" or just shake his head.

'Donald where's your troosers?' is a funny song and a good distraction and over time he hummed the forbidden songs less and less and I forgot about it.

But now I'm listening to this old CD I recognise the start of the forbidden songs and I know why he wasn't allowed to sing them. The songs were 'Always Argyll' and the 'Skye Boat Song'. Songs of the homesick. Now I know my Gran was stopping him from torturing himself with missing Scotland.

Always Argyll

MP3

I've seen the red sunset glow gold on Loch Fyne
Have I seen these strange wonders for the very last time?
The bright lights of Tarbert are beckoning bright
In the shivering coldness of a dark winter's night.
The Kyles in their glory are spread out below
The high hills of Aran are white-capped with snow
I'll soon have to think of Australia as home
But the truth will be always Argyll.

Always Argyll, always Argyll
Long will the memory linger
I'll soon have to think of Australia as home
But the truth will be always Argyll

High above Tignabruch I look out to sea
It will soon be no more than a memory to me
So I'll shed these few tears as my heart will allow
And maybe in time, I'll be happy somehow.
The thoughts of my childhood spin round in my mind
As I think of the beauty I'm leaving behind
When they ask where I come from, Australia I'll say
But the truth will be always Argyll.

Skye Boat Song

MP3 (Different lyrics, right tune)

The islands are calling
Me back home again
And I long for the skyline of Skye

A lassie is waiting
My girl of the glen
‘Neath the beautiful skyline of Skye

I left her on springtime
Though I loved her so
The blue mountains whispered,
You’re foolish to go

As I sailed with the tide
Something died here inside
How I cried for the skyline of Skye

Speed bonny boat
Like a bird on the wing
Onward! the sailors cry
Carry the lad
That’s born to be king
Over the sea to Skye

In memory I’m hearing
A ghost of a tune
It keeps haunting my heart with a sigh

It tells of our parting
That sad afternoon
It’s the song of the skyline of Skye

The road to the mountains
Leads down to the sea
And that’s where my love
Will be waiting for me

And together we’ll stay
‘Til we’re both old and grey
‘Neath the beautiful skyline of Skye

Yes together we’ll stay
‘Til we’re both old and grey
‘Neath the beautiful skyline of Skye

Donald where's your troosers?

(Whilst listening to this song, picture a braw young lad who's a wee bit shy but good enough to eat.)

YouTube

I've just come down from the Isle of Skye
I'm no' very big and I'm awful shy
The lassies shout when I go by
Donald, where's your troosers?

Let the wind blow high
And the wind blow low
Through the streets in my kilt I go
All the lassies say Hello!
Donald, where's your troosers?

To wear the kilt is my delight
It isna wrong and I know it's right
And all the folks would get a fright
If they saw me with no clooses!

Let the wind blow high
And the wind blow low
Through the streets in my kilt I go
All the lassies say Hello!
Donald, where's your troosers?

A lassie took me to a ball
And it was slippery in the hall
And I was feared that I would fall
For I had no' me troosers!

Let the wind blow high
And the wind blow low
Through the streets in my kilt I go
All the lassies say Hello!
Donald, where's your troosers?

I once went down to London town
I had some fun in the Underground
A lassie turned her head around, saying
Donald! Where's your troosers?

Let the wind blow high
And the wind blow low
Through the streets in my kilt I go
All the lassies say Hello!
Donald, where's your troosers?

The lassies want me, every one
Just let them catch me if they can
You canna take the breeks off a Highland man
For I don't wear no troosers!

Let the wind blow high
And the wind blow low
Through the streets in my kilt I go
All the lassies say Hello!
Donald, where's your troosers?

Let the wind blow high
And the wind blow low
Through the streets in my kilt I go
All the lassies say Hello!
Donald, where's your troosers?

Donald, where's your troosers?

Scottionary

2009-04-09T16:49:00.004+10:00

These definitions are known to me through my grandfather who left Scotland in the 1950s.

(Those getting email delivery of this blog (see sidebar) will get this post in their inbox every time I update it.)

beastie
beast, animal

A wee beastie is a small animal. A tiny wee beastie is a very small animal or an insect.

bonny
good, beautiful

A bonny day is a beautiful day. A bonny child is good or good-looking.

braw
big, strong, fine

A braw fine lad is someone you would want to chat up.

canna
can't, cannot

clooses
clothes

didna
didn't, did not

fillum
film, movie

isna
isn't, is not

laddy, laddie
boy or young man

lassy, lassie
girl or young woman

no'
not, none

trews
trousers

troosers
trousers

wee
small, tiny

May be used in conjunction with "tiny" to indicate extreme smallness or youth, i.e., "a tiny wee lad" is a very young boy.

Spiketionary (Spike-speak)

Ducktionary (Translates Australian into American)

Chatspeak (Pre-txtspk but still good for a giggle)

Wyoming walkies

2009-04-04T15:06:00.003+11:00

Bustling Downtown Wyoming. Glamorous, isn't it? Went there last week, before all this rain, and had a random stroll. There's not much to note in the main part, other than traffic whizzing past on its way up the Coast.

Wyoming has no sheep needing to be taken up the mountain and watched by horny blokes. It's a suburb about twenty minutes north of Woy Woy and forms the nominal northern border of my Flickr group Woy Woy to Wyoming.

It has a small industrial area around Brooks Avenue, just to the left of this photo, and other than that is mostly houses.

Wyoming was Kur-ring-gai country before it was settled by whitefellas. In 1824 Fred Hely (after whom Point Frederick is named) called bought farmland there and in 1954 the first major building went up: the pub.

Wyoming is named after some American poem. ""Wyoming" is believed to be a Delaware Indian term for "wide, grassed valley"", says the library, and "By 1930, the Gosford network had a grand total of six telephone subscribers in Wyoming." Probably got more phones than that now.

From Wyoming I walked back into Gosford enjoying the mild autumn sunshine. This nice old place was on the Pacific Highway, in sandstone and boards and fibro. Bit worse for wear but still looked solid.

It still had a leadlight window at the front too. Very pleasant.

Art Deco shops on the highway, further down towards Gosford.

Saddle-sore and trail-weary graffitto near the end of my walk. This is better than the usual fare. Lift yer game, taggers!

Local linkage

1930s aerial photo of Umina Beach

S Daggar's Woy Woy photos

Lion Island from Blackwall Mountain

Our Olive

Our Olive lives on in song and legend across the world:

Sugar Water Love and Death

Oddee

And there has been an even older blogger discovered after Olive's death.

109-year old Ruth Hamilton of Florida died shortly before for 110th birthday in January and had been blogging on a site called GrowingBolder.com

Bloody but unbowed

My blog's been lacklustre lately. I admit it. Been feeling unenthused for blogging and walkies. Offline life is keeping me on my toes. In a good way but it distracts from blogging. But I'm getting a bit of non-walkies exercise since my sex drive came back so it ain't all bad.

Anyways, I ain't quitting blogging yet. It and walkies got my health back on track and they'll keep it on track so I'm sticking with both.

Working boats of Woy Woy

2009-03-29T13:10:00.003+11:00

(Woy Woy and nearby anyways. The title looked way better without the nearby bit.)

Did not go walkies this week. Too much slaving over a hot keyboard and not enough exercise. I'll get fat. Anyways, here's some boats to look at. How'd yer be spending yer working week out on the water on one of these?

Hard to tell with a boat this size if it's a commercial fishing boat or just belongs to a very keen amateur. Moored at Eulalia Wharf Davistown in 2007.

This one is definitely a commercial fishing boat. Belinda K moored off Brick Wharf Road Woy Woy in 2007.

Oyster farm boat moored at Empire Bay in 2006.

Jetty building pontoons moored just off Woy Woy Wharf, along side Brisbane Water Drive. 2006.

MV Gladstone at Gosford Wharf in 2006. She appears to be a picker-up of flotsam and jetsam from Brisbane Water's traffic lanes.

Could not post yesterday. Bloody ISP had some sort of fit. Either that or the whole internets was down. Then I forgot it was Saturday. My brain is going soft. Thank fuck nothing else is. Fucking hours it's taken me to do this post today. Sunday brain. See yer next week.

Victory Parade

2009-03-21T10:57:00.003+11:00

That's Victory Parade, a street on the water in Tascott, not the sort with marching bands. The one that's a street on the water in Tascott is less exciting but just as pleasant.

This lovely old house I've been trying to photograph for a year or more and every time I've had the chance to stop off there it's been pissing down or something. Got the bastard at last!

Architecturally speaking, it is a Federation Bungalow built circa 1890-c.1915. There's some lovely bungalows in Woy Woy and round Brisbane Water.

The house backs onto the water and has its own jetty and boatshed. There's a decent bit of garden as well and the house has a nice deep veranda for when it rains. Definitely on my list of favourite houses.

This photo is taken a few houses down. That hedge-y looking plant in the foreground is mangroves clipped low, thus maintaining the view whilst not getting expensive visits from the Council.

The street looks out across the water from Green Point (not the little one) on the eastern side of Brisbane Water, down past Yattalunga (just to the left of the tallest hill) and Saratoga (the tallest hill) to Pelican Island and Woy Woy at the south end, and even to Lion Island (locals & sharp-eyed readers will spot it behind the power boat) and then up the west side of the water to Koolewong and the main part of Tascott.

(Links go to posts on each suburb.)

Woy Woy is the white buildings on the right edge, behind the boat and in front of Lion Island, and those tall trees which are along Brick Wharf Road.

That's Victory Parade marked in the red line up the left side of the big bit of water.

More maps

Good luck for your life

2009-03-15T11:31:00.002+11:00

Bloody guts are playing up something cruel. Couldn't possibly have anything to do with how wasted I got over Mardi Gras. Have spent most of the week stretched out on the sofa whimpering with a bucket handy.

Wanted to blog the march-through on Saturday by our boys and girls in bell-bottoms but tottered into Sydney too late. Did have an entertaining time though standing on a corner rating naval crumpet as it went into the pub.

50 million

Peaceful demo in Belmore Park in Sydney on Saturday, English part says "Support 50 Million Who Have Quit the Chinese Communist Party"

50 million Chinese citizens have torn up their communist party membership, making it clear they do not support the current Chinese government.

This is a good thing.

English part says "SuJaiTun: The Auschwitz in China"

It's also pretty risky, even when everyone else is doing it. The communist government is pretty fucking scary. People get disappeared or shipped off to "re-education" camps for some incredibly petty reasons. Under those circumstances, saying I don't want you to your government is brave.

A Greens senator supporting the demonstrators

To Chinese people, good luck for your life.

Back

2009-03-07T11:58:00.003+11:00

(Get to the pictures already!)

I'm officially back from my annual month off.

I was unofficially back on the 8th of Feb to blog the Victorian bushfires. And thank yer on Victoria's behalf to all those readers who clicked through to the donation sites from TIS.

A couple of days ago the tally for cash donations was $138 million. The donations in the first few days were mainly up around $100 a go, so a lot of that is from us 20 million Australians. But the rest of it came from outside Australia. Thank you, world.

Blood donation sign-up (for burns victims) or ring 13 14 95. Give money online to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal or at 1800 811 700.

If you missed the broadcast of the national day of mourning, go to ABC iView or YouTube.

Gosford walkies

A weekday morning in the heart of Bustling Downtown Gosford. Looking south along Mann Street from the footbridge that goes from the railway station to an arcade with a bookshop down the bottom and offices up the top.

The wee bit of grass you can see on the edge is the wee park outside the station and any sunny weekday will find half a dozen drunks there. The blokes in the green shirts are council workers not drunks.

The squat brown brick building at the end of the park is the tourist info thingo. You can get a nice map or three there.

That very tall pam looks like a Cabbage Tree Palm which is a local native plant.

Just before those matching tower blocks in the background is Jephson's Corner. (You can't actually see it here so don't strain yer eyes trying).

Also on Mann Street are the sturdy Hotel Gosford, the lovely Art Deco funeral parlour, the yummy little old sandstone church, and the pleasant war memorial across from the Blackett and overlooking the wharf.

Gosford is at the northern end of Brisbane Water.

Couple of old shops in the main street of Bustling Downtown Gosford. The one on the right is dated 1934.

Gosford Wharf on a weekday morning. The ferry is the Lady Kendall II. It's the biggest ferry on the estuary. It does tours with a lunch thrown in. Popular with the tourists and a nice ride from what I hear.

The Lady Kendall II is not to be confused with the Lady Kendall, the wreck of which was raised at Koolewong in 2007.

That's Iguana Joe's on the left edge there, of Iguana-gate fame.

Footy* ferry

Ferries to Mariners games at Blue tongue.

Departs:

Empire Bay (on request) 6:15 pm

Davistown–Central Wharf 6:20 pm

Lintern St Wharf 6:30 pm

Saratoga– Veterans Hall 6:35 pm

Woy Woy (on request) 6:45 pm

Arrives Gosford Wharf app 7:15pm for a 8:00pm game.

Other ferries timetables

Lady Kendall II tours

Local linkage

Nice old local photos and stuff at the Mahony family history. Scroll to the bottom for more photo links.

Nicked the link off of Our Steve who got it off a bloke who read his local history piece in the local rag. (3 degrees of bloggfication.)

* Footy at the Ducktionary

Search and Recovery

2009-02-28T16:59:00.002+11:00

37 still missing as more soldiers join bushfire search (The Age, today)

"Ninety reservists from interstate flew into Melbourne today to join the search and recovery effort as authorities warned of another severe fire threat with extreme weather conditions early next week.

...[Police, soldiers and other official personnel] will go right through the 1,300 or so sites that were affected by the fire to confirm that there are no more human remains.

"It's not an easy task. We know that there are 37 missing persons still, the odds are we will come across human remains during this search.''"

Jesus. Thank fuck someone has got what it takes to do that job. Dunno if I could.

National Day of Mourning

Watched the broadcast of the service at the arena in Melbourne. It was very well done. I sniffled through the entire thing.

If you missed the broadcast, go to ABC iView or YouTube.

Not over yet

"As well as predictions of increasing temperatures, the Department of Sustainability and Environment's chief fire officer Ewan Waller said winds would average between 60 to 80km/h with gusts of up to 140km/h in some areas on Tuesday.

"Tuesday's severe weather day will significantly increase risks for firefighters," Mr Waller said. "The threat of falling trees and limbs will increase in these conditions."

"There has been a fantastic team effort by all agencies, including our interstate and international colleagues, in working to contain fire lines.

"However, we remain vulnerable to breakaways as well as new outbreaks, particularly as weather conditions once again deteriorate this week.''

Fire crews have made the most of a cool change that swept through key areas late yesterday to continue containment work on the main fires, including the Kilmore East-Murrindindi complexes, to reduce further risk of flare-ups and breakouts.

By 4pm today [Saturday 28th Feb], the 623 fires listed by the DSE had burnt up to 400,000 hectares, with four major fires still burning out of control." (The Age, same article as above)

Donate

Blood donation sign-up or ring 13 14 95.

Give money online to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal or at 1800 811 700.

Give at the Salvation Army 137 258 or go to salvos.org.au.

Thank you to all who clicked through from this blog to donation sites.

(I'll be back next Saturday. Sign up in the right-hand sidebar and I'll ping yer inbox. I fixed the feed that was buggered.)

Victorian Bushfires memorial service

2009-02-22T10:08:00.005+11:00

Today at 11am Sydney time. (Sunday 22nd February 2009.)

Only those directly affected by the bushfires will be allowed into the arena. Registration for entry is closed.

Broadcast live on all national TV stations and Sky from 11am Sydney time. Also on ABC radio.

From The Age

"ROD LAVER ARENA
MELBOURNE PARKING
There will be no public parking on site at Rod Laver Arena, public transport is encouraged. Public parking is available (at a
charge) from 8am at the MCG via Gate 3 off Wellington Parade.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Travel on all metropolitan trains, trams, buses and V/Line services will be free between 9am and 3.30pm for people attending the memorial service. Visit metlinkmelbourne.com.au for information or call 131 638.

Special trams will operate to and from Rod Laver Arena between the corner of Londsale and Spencer streets and the Swan Street tram reserve. Trams will run every 5 minutes before and after the service.

ARRANGEMENTS FOR PEOPLE IN BUSHFIRE-AFFECTED COMMUNITIES
Rod Laver Arena - You need to have registered your intention to attend this service to ensure space is reserved at the arena. For information phone 1800 136 762.

ROD LAVER ARENA
Gates open 8.30am
Service begins 11am
Service ends 12.30pm

SIDNEY MYER MUSIC BOWL
Gates open 10am.
The public may also view the memorial service on a big screen at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.

BIG SCREENS
Others can watch on screens at Hisense Arena, Federation Square and the Docklands.

REFRESHMENTS
Food and non-alcoholic beverages will be available at the venue.

FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS
Floral arrangements may be placed at the base of flagpoles at Rod Laver Arena.

DONATIONS
Donations should be directed to the Australian Red Cross 'Victorian Bushfire Appeal 2009' on 1800 811 700 or at www.redcross.org.au.

CANDLES
People are asked not to bring candles as no naked flames are permitted inside the stadium.

SEATING
Ushers will be on hand at the venue to direct the public to seating. Seating cannot be reserved."

Australians honour bushfire victims in day of mourning

"Australians will today observe a national day of mourning to honour the victims of Victoria's bushfires.

Services will be held across the country, with the largest taking place at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena at 11am AEDT.

The Melbourne service is expected to draw up to 100,000 people, and will be broadcast live on ABC1 (Aunty, Channel 2) and ABC Online.

ABC Local Radio will also broadcast the service, with a program to start after the 10.00am (AEDT) news."

If you miss the live broadcast

Go to ABC iview for the podcast.

ABC bushfires articles, photos, maps, videos

ABC podcast & feeds index

Many good people now lie dead*

2009-02-16T20:22:00.002+11:00

Today is the anniversary of Ash Wednesday in 1983. Before last weekend's fires in Victoria, Ash Wednesday was the worst bushfire in white Australian history. 75 people died that day.

The body count for the Victorian fires is now up to 189 and counting. The forensics people say not all the bodies will be found or identifiable.

Fire fighters have been sent from New Zealand (ta very much) and America (thank yer Uncle Sam) and a forensics team with experience from the Bali bombings has been sent from Indonesia (terima kasih, hope I got that right).

Gutless bastards

One of the Victorian arsonists has been charged. They found kiddie porn at his place as well as getting him for arson. His solicitor (lawyer) said protective cutody is not impregnable and might not be a safe enough place to put him. Tough shit.

And another kind of gutless bastards nicked bushfire donations.

Scale

All week we've watched the footage on TV, the blackened hills and piles of ash at the ends of driveways, tangles of burnt-out cars on the roads, hundreds of homeless people crowded into tent cities.

But the scale of the disaster is hard to grasp. So much destruction, so many people dead. The single thing that brings home the size of the bastard, to me, is the amount of money donated: $90 million.

Dig deep

Donate blood for survivors with burns online at donateblood.com.au or ring 13 14 95.

National day of mourning

Next Sunday, 22nd of February.

* Said by the PM last weekend, that time he had a little cry in the interview.

Donate Blood

2009-02-11T08:18:00.002+11:00

(It's raining here so don't worry about Woy Woy bloggers going up in flames.)

Victoria needs your blood.

Register online or at 13 14 95 to donate blood for bushfire burns victims.

The Red Cross is asking that first time donors register and wait for the call as your blood is needed.

Is your blood healthy enough to donate? Online quiz here

"About 20,000 people have called to give blood in the past three days. Ordinarily, the service would expect 120 donations in that time. Blood stocks are yet to dip below adequate, but the service is reiterating the need to maintain donations over the coming months.

"People's donations will be more valuable in the coming weeks and months for burns victims," the service's spokesman, James Aanensen, said. "Having said that, the response we've had from the public has been extraordinary."" (SMH)

Register online or at 13 14 95 to donate blood for bushfire burns victims.

Beware of bogus charities, donors warned

"[T]he Australian Competition and Consumer Commission warned of fraudulent charities taking advantage of the country's generosity. Police in Queensland were investigating two reports of fraudulent collection, offences that carry sentences of five years' jail.

The commission reminded the public of the counterfeit websites and street collections in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami. "Not only do these scams cost people money, they also divert much needed donations away from legitimate charities and causes." the commission's chairman," Graeme Samuel, said."

Donate money online to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal or at 1800 811 700

Map of fires stll burning

Police fear 300 dead in the ashes

How to help

Red Cross 1800 811 700 or go to redcross.org.au

Salvation Army 137 258 or go to salvos.org.au

NAB relief fund 136 622

Register online or at 13 14 95 to donate blood to bushfire burns victims.

To donate through Myer, visit a store's service desk

Donations of clothes and household goods to the Salvation Army, Brotherhood of St Laurence, St Vincent de Paul or the Red Cross

(Be aware they need cash more right now and the telly is saying they have enough clothes and goods.)

Not missing?

The Red Cross needs to tick you off its list. Ring 1800 727 077 and they can tell your family, friends and neighbours you're alive and well.

Deliberately lit

2009-02-09T13:06:00.002+11:00

Bushfire Appeal numbers & links

They arrested the bastard who lit the Peats Ridge fire on the Central Coast. And there have been no known deaths in the NSW fires. (For NSW and Victoria see map below.)

In Victoria the police are treating all the fires as crime scenes and they already have some evidence and suspects. The arsonists could be charged with murder. Good. Gutless bastards.

The bad news is the death toll in Victoria is now over 100. That makes it at least 30 more than the previous worst record of bushfire deaths in Australia which was 75 on Ash Wednesday in 1983.

Wiki Creative Commons

Yesterday's bushfire locations map

One of the reasons we're so scared of bushfires in we don't have that much farmable land. Australia is 80% of the size of mainland America but has a whacking great desert in the middle of it and even in the farmlands the soils are ancient and not very fertile.

Wiki Creative Commons

Map of world climate zones

Australia's size compared to America, the UK and Europe and Asia.

Victorian bushfire info line 1800 240 667 (for infomation on relatives and friends missing in the fires)

1800 811 700 has been swamped and the Red Cross is asking that people donate online instead at redcross.org.au.

Salvos Bushfire Appeal

"Donations can be made to The Salvation Army Disaster Relief fund by calling 13 Salvos (137258) or by going online to www.salvos.org.au."

Victorian bushfires

2009-02-08T17:47:00.003+11:00

There are no fires in the Woy Woy area and the big fire at Peats Ridge fire is miles away. All we've had here so far is a shitload of smoke the other day.

Pop over to Steve's for a photo of just how smoky it was here.

Peats Ridge (dot near Woy Woy) is nothing compared to what's happening in Victoria. The death toll there is now (6.30pm) being reported on the ABC as 65 people. That's more than four times the amount of people we usually lose in a bad weekend of bushfires.

The situation is still pretty unclear, as it always is with disasters, but there are 3 or 4 small towns being reported as almost completely gone.

The worst part is some of the fires were deliberately lit. Australia is a very dry country. Bushfire is one of our most devasting disasters. People who deliberately light fires should turn themselves in.

Bushfire disaster: 'We all grieve with you' (ABC)

Bushfires rage in Victoria (SMH)

Army called in to help battle Victorian bushfires (The Australian)

Marysville destroyed by Victorian bushfires (The Australian)

$10m bushfire relief fund, Army on way (ABC)

"People affected by the Victorian bushfires will be able to apply for payments as part of a $10 million disaster relief fund set up by the Federal Government.

The money will go to people who were seriously injured or hospitalised, and to those who have lost their homes.

Eligible adults will receive $1,000, and an additional $400 payment will be made per child."

Victorian bushfire info line 1800 240 667 (for infomation on relatives and friends missing in the fires)

Salvos Bushfire Appeal

"Donations can be made to The Salvation Army Disaster Relief fund by calling 13 Salvos (137258) or by going online to www.salvos.org.au." (Direct link to donation page)

Bendigo Bank Bushfire Appeal (online donation form)

Donations of $2 or more are tax-deductible.

View from the fifties

2009-01-31T13:26:00.006+11:00

View of 1950s Woy Woy Peninsula from Blackwall Mountain.

Emailed by an anonymous blog reader. Thank yer kindly.

Have had this photo for yonks and went up the mountain several times trying to get the same view now. Couldn't find it. It's a bit bushier up there than it was then. Got all hot and cross and nearly fell down the hill coupla times but not photo joy.

If you can't read the green print, the bottom right street is Wallaby I think, could also be Warwick. Memorial Avenue in the middle bottom. A major thoroughfare* morning, noon, and night.

Above Memorial is the bent bit at the eastern end of Gallipoli Avenue. Above it is Springwood Street. Then Trafalgar Avenue, the one with the old WWII airstrip is the top street.

The arrows are pointing at Lion Island (left) and Pearl Beach.

Bit closer. So many wee small houses back then. And Umina (most distant part of flat) is hardly populated at all.

More fifties photos at 1950s Woy Woy

Straylya Day

Had a good weekend away. Bit too warm but the beer was cold and the company was hot. Hoped to get back in time for the Woy Woy fireworks but didn't make it.

Shame because, as Michael confirms it apparently pissed down but they set the fireworks off anyways! That woulda made some interesting photos.

Storms & bushfires in the Hunter over the long weekend (Woy Woy is on the Hunter Coast, as well as on the Central Coast, in the Sydney region, the Greater Gosford, and regional Australia.)

This month I reached 2,000 uploads on my Flickr.

While yer at flickr have a decko at Michael's latest local photos, including a Tassie devil from the local reptile park.

Matt Lauder also has some spiffy local water-scapes.

Stevo has more models of old Woy Woy buildings and a link to the near-extinct Masonic Hall.

Time off for good behaviour

The dreaded February heat has well and truly kicked in here in Woy Woy. This means its my annual month off from walkies. I'll be back in March. Be good or I'll rip yer bloody arms orf.

Sign up below and I'll ping yer inbox.

Atom

This Isn't Sydney at Technorati

(One of those is stuffed and I'm buggered if I remember which one so sign for two to make sure.)

* A major thoroughfare by Woy Woyan standards, so as many as twenty cars an hour!

Live and sweaty

2009-01-23T18:12:00.003+11:00

Way too hot for swimming in the unshaded ocean. Under the railway bridge would be a good shady spot if it weren't for the power boats zooming through every 5 secs.

Boats going under the bridges are heading into Woy Woy Inlet, Woy Woy Bay, Phegans Bay, Horsfield Bay and Correa Bay (Deadmans Bay as was).

In 1934 a kid was taken by a grey nurse shark at either Phegans Bay (top red cross) or Horsfield Bay (lower red cross).

There's a local story I think about every time I go over the The Bays. In Horsfield Bay in 1934 a kid by the name of Roy Inman got taken by a grey nurse. Promised his mum he'd come out of the water after one more jump off the jetty. He jumped and the shark took him and had a go at his sister.

Only the history books and the Dear Old Things seem to remember it. Sharks are not even a blip on the radar in Brisbane Water these days, not to us landlubbers anyways.

The Peninsular News

Woy Woy Steve's shark and skeleton tales

Jimmy Little's tales of sharks and Barry the milkman

Meme thingo

Volunteered to do a list thingy (from Device dear). No idea why as I am crap at these things.

Dreadful news from a mate.

Drank a well dry due to this dreadfully hot weather.

Dean Winchester and her wot plays Rita in Dexter do not grow less delicious.

(Straight guy readers need not be alarmed, this Dean link does not contain snuggling.)

Um...

Dying for another storm to hit and take away the muggy.

Pop over and see Woy Woy Steve's excellent bushwalkies photos.

Lost my copy of the local rag, Steve, with yer latest article in it. You are becoming quite the journo.

Oh yeah

Nearly forgot to say I'm giving you a lick and a promise tonight 'cause I'm off for the weekend. Happy Straylya Day.

P.S.

Woy Woy will once again be the scene of lantern parades, fireworks and live bands and dancing. Be there or be square. See the local rag.

Back

2009-01-17T11:08:00.004+11:00

X marks the spot. Clouds over Woy Woy. They look like con trails but I didn't see any planes.

Found these laying about in my photos folder. Took them late last year. No good for photos today. Very overcast.

Low tide off Blackwall foreshore. That bit of sand is a tiny tidal islet and smells hideously of pelican shit.

Rip Bidge and Orange Grove Road from the aptly named Bay View Crescent. Which is the only road on the mountain. The other one is just a short acess thingy for the council workers.

Meandering path going up Blackwall Mountain. It's not too steep if you follow the paths. Makes a pleasant bushwalk.

Views from the lookout

Did yer miss me?

I had a good Chrissy and New Year's, thank yer for asking.

New Year’s smelt like jasmine and beer and BBQ sauce, a heady perfume. My sex drive popped in for a visit. Strolled in like it had never been away, beckoned to a couple of old fuck-buddies, had its wicked way with them, then pissed off again. Leaving me clutching my beer with my mouth open.

The visit was due to spending two whole days watching that pair of spunky lust bunnies in Super natural and talking about all the strange that’ll be coming to town for Mardi Gras.

And how the fuck did I miss this photo?

Okay, they're not starkers or nothing but that is worth all the photoshopping on the internets. Think I'll have a little lie-down now.

P.S. Don't tell me it's just good photoshop! I can never spot good photoshop and then someone tells me when it was allegedly taken one of them was in Siberia or dead or something and I just get cross.

Argh

Cane toad found at Umina

"Once established cane toads can spread quickly. A female cane toad can deposit up to 30,000 eggs at a time, and may lay several times over the summer season.

Cane toads can be identified by their dry, warty skin and their large glands located behind the ears.

Cane toad sightings in the Central Coast area can be reported to the local NPWS office at Gosford on 4320 4200."

Cane toad factoids & photos

Tattoo aces interview

Tattoo gets island reef job (includes video)

Ta for the heads up from the mystery correspondent.

Local linkage

Stevo's models of old Woy Woy buildings. I particularly like Noonan's as she was, and the old cinema which was where Woolies is now.

Miniature train spotter's blog (Woy Woyan)

MyDoona's Monologue ('nother local blogger)

Great texture photos from Umina Beach

Straylya Day sail past wants you and yer boat

Cockatoo ferry running to 25th January

Australia Day at Woy Woy - Anderson Park (beside the ferry wharf) 2pm - 9.30pm (last year's, Straylya Day at the Ducktionary)

International Fairy Bread Appreciation Day

For Suzanne's and Vangaman's kids.

Fairy bread is the favourite party food of Australian kids and gentleman who prefer gentleman. IFBAD was last week.

Instructions

Berry Island

2008-12-20T13:06:00.002+11:00

HMAS Waterhen AKA "the Chook" in Wollstonecraft Bay Sydney Harbour. (Spot the top of the Coathanger in the background.) The Chook is all about mine warfare and is home to our spiffiest mine countermeasures gear.

The Chook was originally an actual ship before she became a base but was sunk in WWII. "Waterhen, with her sister ships Stuart, Vendetta, Vampire and Voyager became famous as the 'Scrap Iron Flotilla' in the Mediterranean. She was lost at sea 30 June 1941" says the Navy.

Crashed at a mate's last weekend just up the road from Waterhen. We strolled down in the morning to see if we could see any nice sailor boys but they'd all gone home for Christmas.

Wee beach at Wollstonecraft Bay

Nice spot Wollstonecraft. It's three bays west of the Coathanger, a quiet suburb of leafy streets and gorgeous 19th century houses.

It was named after a bloke who was the nephew of Mary Wollstonecraft, one of them suffragette chicks. She was around in the 18th century writing stuff, being in France during the French Revolution and giving birth to Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein when she was 19. She started it sitting close by the fire in the summer of 1816. It was a year of "volcanic winter", a year without a summer.

Three big volcanoes went off in 1812 (La Soufrière in the Caribbean), 1814 (Mayon in the Philippines) and 1815 (Mount Tambora in Indonesia). The volcanic ash in the atmosphere build up and up and up and blocked a lot of the sun's light. Temperatures dropped all over the world.

Brown and red snow fell in parts of Europe and the rivers rose. The Napoleonic Wars between France and England had only just finished and food was already in short supply. When there was no summer and no crops there was even less food and the people rioted in the streets just to keep warm.

In America the New Englanders set off to settle the Midwest, also in search of warmth. In Asia China was devastated by crop failure and famine and the rest of Asia didn't exactly do well either.

Art and velocipedes were pretty much the only thing that did any good out of 1816. Some bloke called Turner got all excited by the glorious sunsets the volcanic ash made and got famous as a painter.

Horses starved for lack of oats in 1816 and in Germany in 1817 Karl Drais invented a horse-less form of transport, the ancestor of the bicycle. Which eventually led to the Straylyan poet Banjo Paterson writing Mulga Bill's Bicycle about a bloke who can't ride for shit and goes hurtling down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek.

Balls. Tiny ball-shaped flowers smaller than the tip if yer little finger. No idea what the plant is called, looks like a native though. Growing in the park across from the Chook.

Down here in sunny Straylya in 1816, Macquarie was governor of New South Wales, there was a flood of convicts and free settlers following the Napoleonic Wars and the whitefella population reached a whopping 35,000. Macquarie set up convict Greenway as Sydney's architect, ordered people to get married and named practically everything after himself. Except Australia, which he formally named Australia.

The Year Without a Summer (worldwide info)

Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death (detailed stuff from North America)

Paintings of striking sunsets show effect of huge volcanic eruptions on climate

Brimstones and Bicycles

Local news

Kitesurfer 'peels off half his face'. Juicy headline no? It's that kite-surfer what slammed into Ettalong last week.

Woy Woy Steve has scary water.

Local photos

Flickerite Bivoir, who appears to be a guinea pig (hamster), has some nice Central Coast photos, particularly this one.

Amusement Park

Homemade lightning

Merry Xmas to all and to all a good night

This is the last Saturday before Christmas so have a good one and I'll see yer in January. May it not piss on yer barbie.

All the leaves are green and the sky is grey

2008-12-13T10:19:00.003+11:00

I have been working my arse off this last couple of months. Have not even walked for a whole month. Hideous state of affairs. Must remedy. Holidays coming up and I'm trying to wangle a whole month off in which to have rest and walkies and rest and stuff and rest. Meanwhile, Woy Woy is blooming with summer flowers.

Jacaranda and Hakea

Jacarandas are an exotic species (imported and not native to Australia). Gorgeous trees. Currently looking fabulous against the Woy Woy skies. An aerial photo of a town when these are flowering will instantly tell you where the older areas of the town are.

Hakea (or possibly grevillea) is a native species and a popular garden bush. Couple more looking spiffy on a black background here.

Christmas bush

Ceratopetalum gummiferum. Native species. Coming into full flower now, hence the name Christams bush.

Close-ups

Lillipilli hedge. A native species, Syzygium smithii. Not flowering but leafing. The leaves on top go red in spring and summer.

The flowering gums (native species) have finished flowering and those noisy lorikeet bastards have buggered off to greener pastures. The giant cacti are budding (exotic species).

Woy Woyan flowers both native & exotic

All the native flowers posted since I started tagging plus Winter floraland for added seasonal confusion.

Local linkage

The duck problem (Ta for the link, Ian.)

Excellent mappage and link to war stories from Steve. Had no idea the war came so close to the NSW coast.

Kite-surfer airlifted from Ettalong Beach. Looks like he came ashore at the end of Barrenjoey Road near those 60s flats. Poor bastard. Sorry I missed the chopper landing at Ettalong but.

Girl priest raises Woy Woy's PCF (Playground Coolness Factor).

Buy one get one free ferry tickets on the Codock II AKA Cockatoo ferry from the 27th.

Give me the Southerly or give me death

2008-12-06T19:34:00.003+11:00

Jetty building platform boats at Woy Woy Wharf a few weeks ago.

It is bloody hot and bloody sticky. Got to 34 and about 300% humidity. I am irritable and miserable. We were promised a nice cool Southerly and so far there's been fuck all.

Have you seen this dog?

These signs and others are still up all around Woy Woy.

Sanji has been missing since the 9th of November. She is part of the husky team that pulls Santa's sleigh to shopping centres and old people's homes.

Reward for her safe return. Phone 4341 2684/040 504 3306.

Full text of notice

Local Linkage

Tascott is now on facebook. It has photos and a cocky video. That's a video of a cockatoo not a video with an excess of self-confidence.

Right. I'm off. It is my intention to climb into a bath of icy cold beer armed only with a straw.

Smiley face in the sky

2008-12-02T08:39:00.004+11:00

Bonus post. Once in a lifetime event. Next appearing in Southern skies in 2036 or something.

Taken by a mate in Sydney.

Saw it here too but it didn't show up on my pissy camera. Here it was clearly visible through a light mist of cloud. A big cosmic smiley face up there in the sky. Glorious.

"[O]n Monday (1 December 2008) there will be a spectacular conjunction between the two planets Venus and Jupiter and the crescent Moon. Though the conjunction will be impressive from anywhere in the world, it will only smile on Australia and Australian longitudes almost in the form of a “smiley” emoticon. From the USA, for instance, the conjunction will be in the form of an upside down sad face."

Venus, Jupiter and the Moon: a smiley face in the sky (has photos)

December 2008 night sky guide and podcast

Another Sydney photo

Bugger

Caitlyn says my RSS feed doesn't work. Ta for letting me know. Will fix the bastard as soon as I work out how.

Linkage to my site can be had in the "Compose" tab of Blogger. Click the wee button of a green disc and link.

Or just copy this text link.

Okay, I'd better piss off. I officially started work an hour ago.

A few of my favourite things

2008-11-29T15:12:00.004+11:00

These are my favourites of my own photos. Been meaning to show you these for a bit. Hold yer pointer over a photo to see its title.

Took yonks to trim that lot down from 30 to 13 pictures. I've taken heaps more good pictures than I realised.

Rumour has it

Apparently some tool wants to build a 7-storey building in Peaceful Downtown Hardys Bay.

That would be fugly.

Local linkage

Some interesting local photos at Blu Ocean Imagery

Onya Stevo

Woy Woy Steve has got himself in the local rag again. Full page article on the hieroglypics up at Kariong. Read all about it.

There's also a snippet from him about the gateway to the lost Egyptian civilisation at Kariong and an older post about the hieroglyphs and other local strangeness.

Kookaburras

2008-11-22T11:54:00.002+11:00

Wiki Creative Commons image

Kookaburra, Laughing Kookaburra, Dacelo novaeguineae.

Lots more kookaburras on the Peninsula lately. Maybe the La Nina was a good breeding season for them.

They are shy but live in the suburbs quite happily. The closest I've ever got to one was about 3 metres and that was prety unusual. Usually they get twitchy as soon as you look at them and then a few seconds later they're off.

They hang out in gum trees in gangs of three or four or half a dozen. As the sun gets low they give a few brief chuckles then they start up their chorus of full-on laughing. Other than the didgeridoo, you don't get a sound much more Straylyan.

MP3 of kookas laughing

(Device dear, you might consider the Blue-winged Kookaburra (D. leachii) as a replacement for Mrs Beaky as it specialises in maniacal cackling.

Kookaburra nest in a dead gum tree at Umina Beach. Can you see it?

The entrance to the nest is the small dark hole in the brown section. (Hur hur.)

Kookaburra factoids

* Breeding males have blue bums, "Breeding male: Centre of rump bright blue" says the library book

* They are silent gliders when they come in to land in a tree or on a fence

* They land with their tails up then lower them slowly

* They sit on a branch and wait for the menu to wander past

* They eat meat, rats, small lizards and birds, large insects and snakes

* They are biggish compared to something like yer crow and come in 28-42 cm (11-17 inches in the old money)

* Families groups are 4 to 8 birds

* Teenage kookas often sit alone on a fence or in a tree

Distributon map. Where kookas live in Australia. Red dot is Woy Woy.

An old photo of kookas found on the Powerhouse's Flickr.

"General information about the Powerhouse Museum Collection is available at www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database."

(The internets has made it possible for museum's to show off the shitloads of fabulous old photos they've have stashed away. I *heart* the internets.)

More kooka photos

Families that laugh together stick together

So whats for Lunch?

Head shot

Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree (pool of photos)

Wiki has heaps of good photos

Um, yeah

2008-11-20T16:44:00.004+11:00

Missed another Tuesday blog. Work is piled high. Brain is numb.

Might be a couple of months before I can manage Tuesday posts again so let's go with just Saturdays for a bit.

P.S. Promise I'm not going to stop altogether. I still like doing it.

Stick yer thingy in the slot and I'll ping yer inbox.

Atom

Our Steve

Woy Woy Steve, commenter and local blogger, got himself in the local rag. Read all about it.

I read yer article, Stevo, over someone's shoulder in the train. Very good. Couldn't get my own copy but everyone was talking about it. Onya!

Snippets

A few links and stuff from the back of the cupboard.

Freo Boys High at the Lock Family's Ramblings (Yes, that is my photo)

Native flowers fact sheets with pictures

Marvellously lethal (a cautionary tale)

South Lobster

2008-11-15T12:06:00.006+11:00

Embiggened version

The Brisbane Water/Great Gosford area is chockers with cliffs like these. They are a magnet for rock climbers.

Not that I'm a rock climber. I ain't that intrepid. I'm more yer supervisory sort. Very good at standing at the bottom of the cliff with a beer, waiting until they get to a hard bit then saying "Nah, see, yer doing it all wrong, you shoulda turn left twenty feet back". And no doubt I'd show up in the morgue a bit later with a crampon rammed up the clacker.

But they fascinate me. They show up in searches I do for posts and I love their secret climbers' language. Don't understand a bloody word of it but I love it anyways.

An example of ClimbSpeak:
"Reach up around the lip for a large jug then crank out onto the main face... Crux move up thin face to the juggy lip."

What?

The red blobs are local rock climbing sites. The orange blob on Box Head is a look-out you can bushwalk to.

Bear in mind this map marks only the sites I could find online. Doubtless there's more mapped and to be mapped.

Rock linkage

Links have got maps and stuff and more examples of ClimbSpeak.

Blackwall Mountain

Phegans Bay, cliffs visible from Woy Woy station/Railway Street

Reeves Street/Fountain Creek, Narara which is just up past Gosford. Gosford is at the mouth of the Narara valley.

Wards Hill is a "...surprisngly impressive crag located right beside Ward's Hill Rd, Empire Bay.
The crag has two distinct walls - the first is a nice looking 10m high grey wall with 5 or 6 mainly bolted routes (old carrots plus some rather mangled fixed hangers). The main wall is a bit further on, and reaches about 20m in height, with superb orange rock at the base. There look to be about another half dozen routes or so on this wall, with a variety of carrots and fixed hangers for protection."

The Bouddi has the South Lobster climb and a lot of others and some interesting info about the terrain there in the national park.

Good Bouddi pictures

Good Barrenjoey pictures

Coupla cliffy photos

Sandstone boulder fallen off the cliff at Dark Corner (Patonga).

The cliff it fell off.

Patonga walkies

Path to Pearl Beach

Cliff face on path to Pearl Beach

These cliffs are dangerous bastards. I'd rather just take a
nice walk myself.

Gotta be in it to win it

You Americans and the Kiwis as well, yer funny buggers. I still don't get non-compulsory voting. Anxious bulletins about polling day weather, all this talk about how many voters have got off their arse and registered or might feel like voting on the day.

We got compulsory voting. You turn 18, yer registered to vote. Only way out is to cark it when yer 17.

And it's not like it's a big deal. You just show up at the local primary school on the day, collect yer forms, traipse over to the cardboard booths, tick a few boxes and give the forms back.

No-one knows how you voted and it's not kosher to ask. You vote with your conscience or, if yer a goose, with someone else's, and it's over for another 3 years. It's a communal experience and you don't even miss the cricket.

Mind you, non-compulsory voting is nothing like as scary as some of the voting systems in undeveloped nations. I've seen on the telly how they do it up in PNG (Papua New Guinea) and some places in Africa where they put a different coloured piece of paper in the box depending on who they vote for and everyone in the room can see the box. Couple of heavies standing near the door watching and their mates outside waiting to beat you up if you didn't vote for their guy. Bugger me! I'm very glad I live in Straylya where we got the secret ballot.

"One of the most common forms in the modern world provides for pre-printed ballot papers with the name of the candidates or questions and respective checkboxes. Provisions are made at the polling place for the voter to record their preferences in secret. The ballots are specifically designed to eliminate bias and to prevent anyone from linking voter to ballot. This system is also known as the Australian ballot, because it originated in Australia during the 1850s. In the United States, it is also known as the Massachusetts ballot since Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to use the secret ballot." (Wiki)

Compulsory Voting (Australian Electoral Commission PDF)

International IDEA - Compulsory Voting (International Institute for Democracy & Electoral Assistance)

Compulsory Voting (Wiki)

Secret Ballot (Wiki)

The Australian ballot - born 1855 and still going strong