Sweat and boats

Arsed about this morning and never made it on a ferry walk. Not that it mattered in the end. The light was so bad all the view photos I was going to take would've been crap. So I walked round the foreshore a bit, got very hot and sticky and came home early. Hope that bloody storm shows tonight.




Platform boat in Woy Woy Channel just behind the Bowls (Woy Woy Bowling Club). Is there some boaty type reading who can tell us if this is purely for fishing in calm channels or what?




The jetty you have when you're not having a jetty. There were a good dozen like this, in a crowded spot near the Bowls.




Don't know if this reedy plant is native to the area but it grows here and there along the channels and creeks of Woy Woy and Brisbane Water. Whatcha think, Erica?




Crabs. Crab holes anyways. I think they only come out at dawn or at night. Never seen them during the day.




Is this your sunken treasure? Looks like a nice old wooden boat.

It too is just behind the Bowls in the Woy Woy Channel.




Ah, the old dingy and mangroves photo. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

This one's on the foreshore between Brick Wharf and Blackwall Mountain.

Notice the nice pines on the right. They make a beautiful soft rushing sound in the wind.


Tell you what, it's getting bloody dark now at 3.40. Hope it pisses--Yep, it's pissing down. Smells great.

Putt Putt Regatta 2007

Sunday was the 10th annual Putt Putt Regatta. It was held at Davistown, off the Illoura Reserve at the end of Davistown Road.

Putt putt boats are easily distinguished from other power boats by the sound of their engines. That is, their engines make a "putt putt putt" sound.




Test runners before the Regatta. The light started off all right then quickly went to buggery and stayed there.

The putt putt boats came in their hundreds from far and wide. The Davistown foreshore swarmed with enthusiasts and gawkers. Unfortunately it was a crap day for photography.




Two putt putts and the Cockock II. A fair while before the Regatta started.

There were putt putts, there were escort boats, there were dogs, there were ducks, there were stalls, there were crowds, there was a queue for the dunny. There was several seconds of video of the ground with a soundtrack of me swearing at the batteries then getting ticked off by a Dear Old Thing for Language.

It was a crap day for photography anyways. The sky couldn't make up its bloody mind if it was going to storm or not or just lay there sullenly. But dinna fesh yersel', there'll be another Regatta next year and the light will be better.




Way before the Regatta. Hardly any traffic on the water at this point and a few moorings still vacant.




Can't decide whether I like this one or Sally-Anne below better. Think I'll have both!

Yes, that's the Australian flag, yes it's usually on a blue background. The red background version is a marine version. All the ferries have got the red version.




Sally Ann. A lovely wee boat. Just the right size. Note tiller for steering, cushion on seat for comfort on those long regattas, klaxon on port side for politely requesting another boatie to watch where the &%$#! they're going, brolly under back seat (not visible this photo) to serve as shield from inclement weather and emergency sail, and ensign (wee boating flag) to denote country of registration.

Over at the Woy Woy vantage point there was humidity and pelicans and more bloody dogs. Some dickhead zoomed round the point doing the nautical equivalent of 140 in a school zone and the coppers zoomed round after him. There were the mingled perfumes of jasmine and jessamine, pertol fumes and dog shit, spilt beer and barbeques.




All up, it was a good day. Even though the bloody weather never did make up its mind.

Official Regatta site - scroll down for heaps of photos

Saratoga slog

(Saratoga walkies #8)

The great lethargy has not lifted but I did manage to overcome it for a morning and drag myself round the streets of Saratoga.

It was a blue sky day. The birds were hopping and fluttering about picking up worms and rubbing their beaks together in a flirtatious manner. The sun was warm on my back and the flowers were bright. The hills were long and steep and I'd left my map at home but it was good to be out on the road again.



This shag was not hopping or fluttering. It was having a good long soak-up of sunshine. The water birds were not very active, mostly just sitting on rocks and poles sunning themselves with their eyes closed.



Mother Duck is the name half obscured on that 3rd boat back from the front.

I like this rack of boats. Technically it'll be called a mooring or summat but I like the phrase a rack of boats. This rack is on Henderson Road and that's Rileys Island, one of the uninhabited ones, in the background.



No idea what this climber is called. It had no perfume more's the pity but it was a pleasant site draped over its grey fence.



Sandwich houses I call these ones. Don't know if there's a technical name for them, but with their flat wide shape they look giant sandwiches to me. I've seen perhaps a dozen of the 1950s ones on my travels around the Peninsula and Brisbane Water and a few in the 1970s. This one was on Shaw Street.


Embiggen

Commer bus fitted out as a camper van, Morrison Street. Never seen a Commer bus before. Google tells me they were made in the UK between 1905 and 1979 by a UK manufacturer of commercial vehicles. Commer got bought out by the delightfully named Rootes company and they ended up in the hands of Dodge.

Google spat out a stack of images labelled Commer, including a rather eccentric bus looking like a double-decker glasshouse on wheels, but no image matching this model.

An identical wheel arch is visible on a Commer/Dodge here, bottom centre image and Commer later made the postal vans for the UK Royal Mail that look a lot like Postman Pat's van.

Best guess is this is a late 1950s model campervan. Fuck knows why I didn't look at the model when I saw the bloody van.


Comments & email

Pommy commenter Patty has not yet been flooded out. Good to hear.

Trainspotty & Michael suggest flu and lack of sun as a possible solution to the lethargy mystery.

They could be right (and Trainspotty's duckshit avoidance advice is noted) but Ron's answer is best: excessive gravity. Had a look at my Gravitex 3000 and the bloody gauge is stuck on 3G's! I'll have to get a little man in to fix it.

(BTW Ron, did you get my comment on bunging videos in posts?)

Australia II

(Freo visit June 2007)



"Australia II," says Wiki, "bearing sail number KA6, represented the Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia in its September 1983 challenge for the America's Cup. The defender, the New York Yacht Club, had held the cup since 1851, dominating challengers and sustaining the longest winning streak in sport."

She was stuffed into a corner down the back of the Maritime Museum. Good display (downstairs) with all kinds of info on her and the America's Cup and even on the kind of sails they used way back in 1870.



Thar she blows. The famous winged keel.

Winged keels provide better stability for a boat, by lowering its centre of gravity.



The trim on a sail refers to the amount of cloth of the sail opened up to the wind so a trimmer looks after the amount of trim. Can't find out what a sewerman is (thank fuck) or a grinder but there's three whatsits for raising and lowering sails and three crew down as "grinder" so chances are a grinder's a raiser and lowerer of sails. The bowman probably looks after the spinnaker which is the sail over the bow.

Australia II Crew, Race seven 1983 America's Cup:

John Bertrand - Skipper
Grant Simmer - Navigator
Hugh Treharne - Tactician
Colin Beashel - Mainsheet Trimmer
Skip Lissiman - Port Trimmer
Ken Judge - Starboard Trimmer
Peter Costello - Sewerman/Grinder
Brian Richardson - Grinder
Phil Smidmore - Mastman
John Longley - Grinder
Damian Fewster - Bowman



From the original 1870 (left) America's Cup yacht style to the Australia II in 1983 (middle) to the 2000 NZ entry Black Magic (right).

These drawings are in proportion to each other by the way. Shows how tall the yachts got in 130 years.



Our Prime Minister of the time, Bob Hawke, wore this jacket on TV when Australia won the America's Cup in 1983 and famously said "Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum."

Hawke could drink a yard of beer in one go, which is what you look for in a Prime Minister.

Orientation Day



Map of Bustling Downtown Freo.

1. Maritime Museum, where the Australia II is now.
2. Cicerello's and Success Harbour, formerly Fishermans Harbour.
3. HMAS Ovens, decommisioned submarine, outside the Maritime Museum.
4. Fremantle Town Hall.
5. Round House and Whalers' Tunnel, Arthur Head.


Boat of a different design



Pasha Bulker aground on Nobbys Beach Newcastle in June 2007, taken by Michael from Stockton Beach.

To the right of her you can see the tow cables stretching away to the tugs.



Pasha Bulker aground on Nobbys Beach Newcastle in June 2007, viewed from Stockton Beach. She ran aground during the June storms and was finally floated off (in one of 2007's great anti-climaxes) about a week ago.

Taken and emailed in by Michael. Ta mate.


Dark as buggery here this afternoon. Looks like it's going to piss down again. It's weird having rain in winter again after all the drought winters.

Return to sender

(Freo visit June 2007)



American WWII torpedo in the the Freo Maritime Museum’s lost & found.

Nah, not really. It was laying outside the building pointing the way to HMAS Ovens. The lost & found presumanly holds a couple of jumpers, a single thong and a set of house keys for somewhere in Tokyo.


Biggun

Didn't do the Ovens tour. Too buggered that day and couldn’t face clambering up into a narrow sub with a pack of excited sprogs and adults and donging my head on a bulkhead.

Virtual tour of the sub

Ovens is a decommissioned sub. She lives next to the Maritime Museum on Victoria Quay. The new Maritime Museum not the old one near Cicerello's. Look for the Port Authority tower or follow the CAT bus into the carpark.


Biggun

Inside the museum was a video on Ovens's last journey back to HMAS Platypus,the submarine dock in Neutral Bay in Sydney Harbour. A Sydney friend spends much of his spare time on his Neutral Bay balcony watching the sailors bending over.

The video was cool. Showed you the inside of the sub and what everyone does when they play war games against the Americans. Panic slightly was the answer in some cases and there was all that cool naval repeating of orders thing they do. At the end, when she steamed up Sydney Harbour under the Coathanger and into Platypus, the captain had a little cry and so did I.



Her conning tower with the flags of Australia, Pommyland and America flying over a list of subs "commemorating the sacrifices made by the Allied Submarines operating out of Fremantle...during World War II".

I swear some of those subs were named by Terry Pratchett: Croaker, Flasher, Paddle, Trout and Tapir. Isn't a tapir some sort of rubber-nosed creature of the African plains?


Quizzed

Another email with some interesting questions:

I found your blog This isn't Sydney and wondered if you could help.

I am moving the the Peninsula from Sydney and am keen to get a local's thoughts and insights into the area for interest.

Do you know of any blogs that give a unique insight into the area...?

Every blog gives a unique insight but This Isn't Sydney might be said to be a bit unique-er than the average.

(am not sure if you are a local - just presumed so from your blog)

I am.

... is Umina really full of troubled youths causing chaos...?

No. Most of the population is over 55. What few teenagers there are in Umina spend most of their time saying "I'm boooooored" and going up to Bloody Erina (Erina Fair). where they annoy the shopkeepers by making one hamburger last three hours and not picking up after themselves. Newspaper stories about troubled youth sell more newspapers.

is Ettalong a haven for retired couples...?

Yes.

... what is the community feeling like in the area...?

Not like Sydney. Slower, nicer, far less aggro.

...is the area progressing?

Depends on what you mean by progressing. If you mean does it now have an over-large edifice where the RSL used to be, then yes. We also have more coffee-shops than you can poke a tourist at.

It appears I'm turning into something of an agony column for prospective Woy Woyans.

I also get a lot of mail over at my Flickr page wanting to use a picture or three for non-commercial use (only if you ask nice) and so on, including one asking for some details about local churches for a fillum.


Weather report

Magnificent wind this morning and a lovely black sky came over. Then it sailed off up the coast. Look like it’s going to piss down up Newcastle way.

Grab bag

Graffitti, or more grammatically graffitto, on Mrs Wilson's shop (circa 1910) at the Charlton Street-Railway Street roundabout.

Thank yer, that graffitist, this is much better than the usual tags.

Would've sworn on a stack of beer bottles I had a photo of Mrs Wilson's circa 1910 shop. But diligent searching on Flickr turns up nowt. Buggeration!



This is the Belinda K, a local working boat. She's a familiar sight to those on the ferry out of Woy Woy. She's moored at a private jetty on Brick Wharf Road.

Presumably the owner's house is just across the road. That'd cut down on yer commuting time, wouldn't it? You could totter across the road still clutching yer breakfast coffee cup, cast off and putt off down the channel coffee still in hand.



I rabbit on a bit about catching the ferry so here's where I catch it from. "Woy Woy Public Wharf" as it says on the sign. In the background there's the commercial wharf, the fish and chip shop all the tourists go to, the CWA and, behind the CWA, Roma.

The park (right, where the tree is) is where the Woy Woy to Gosford Fun Run leaves from. It's coming up again soon. Better start training for it.

Barely a step from Bustling Downtown Woy Woy and a nowt but short stagger from the pub.


Quizzed

The questions below arrived in a very straightforward email. I know what curious buggers you all are so here's my answers for all to enjoy:


Hi.. I just found your site recently and I love the blog.. I have a couple of questions..

1. How old are you?

I have not long been dragged kicking and screaming into my third decade.

2. What do you do for a living that you can walk in the daytime?

I am a freelance correcter of other people's theses.

3. Where are all the people? .. It looks like scenes from Stephen King's The Stand.. kind of creepy..

You are not the first to ask.

Woy Woy is at its busiest on sunny weekends when the roads are clogged with boats in the mornings and afternoons and the fish and chip shop clogged with tourists all day.

On weekdays there's the Dawn Walkers and their dogs, then the commuters, then a bit of a hiatus until the commuters come home and the pub shuts. On pension cheque days the pavements are chockers with Dear Old Things called Mabel walking very slowly to the supermarket.

Thanks.. Keep those house pictures coming..
Diane

Yer welcome. I will.

Bustling Downtown Hardys Bay

(Hardys Bay walkies #3)


(Embiggen)

A view from Araluen Drive to Hardys Bay Parade. Very restful spot with the sound of water slapping on boats and the seagulls all gone to Woy Woy for fish & chips.



Can't resist the combination of a twisty tree and wee boat. Low tide at Araluen Drive.



Early 20th century building with brand new houses on either side. Pretty typical of many Brisbane Water towns and particularly of Hardys Bay. It is not a town in which real estate is hard to sell.



Fifites house and the remains of its former companion. On the other side is an active building site. All of Araluen Drive is prime land, it's all waterfront.


(Embiggen)

Bustling Downtown Hardys Bay has everything one needs in a town:
waterfront cafes (far right & hidden behind loo)
public loo in which to find companionship (green, end of wharf)
real estate agent for those impulse buys (far right, part of cafe)
bottle shop (behind green & white boat)
street sloping down hill to provide picturesque-ness
glob of brand new units smack dab on waterfront (left of wharf)
quiet old houses to retain charm (left of glob)
public wharf to attract the tourists ("Killcare Street Public Wharf" says the sign)
public boat ramp (left of glob) for the use of locals unwilling to wade through tourists.

And, last but not least, it is but a short row across to the Ettalong pub.


Gotta love you and leave you. Plumber's bringing his plunger over in a sec. Hot it's the cute one this time.

Floating life

(Hardys Bay walkies #2)

Hardys Bay is across the water from Ettalong, the suburb of the Woy Woy Peninsula where the Palm Beach ferry docks. It's on the Bouddi Peninsula along with Wagstaffe, Pretty Beach, Putty Beach, Lobster Beach, Box Head and Killcare. (Map)

Hardys is chockers with wooden boats. Today's lot are a fraction of what's there.



Bellbird Star moored off the public jetty at Hardys Bay. Looking smart in her fresh paint.



And here she is again with her friend Alma. Love that little flourish over Alma nameplate.



Don't know the names of these two. They were just pleasing to the eye. They were moored next to the Bellbird and Alma.

Those houses in the background are on Araluen Drive Hardys Bay and the aptly named Pretty Beach is on the other side of the ridge and Wagstaffe beyond it.



Is this a launch? My knowledge of boats is restricted to knowing which end goes forward (the pointy one). Moored near the public jetty at Hardys Bay.


(To the embiggulator!)

Lady Kendall II (the ferry) and a green yacht in Hardys Bay. The green yacht (right of centre) is very interesting. I've never seen a design like that before.

I like this view. The ridges make a lovely composition of earth, water and sky and the sun haze softens the ridges and makes Koolewong and Point Clare in the background look like far away mountains.



Is the house in the middle there the narrowest house on Brisbane Water? Might be a couple of inches wider than this one in Woy Woy.

Wagstaff Avenue Wagstaffe. The blue house on the left you saw Monday, it's the holiday rental beside the Wagstaffe Wharf.

Gone



Got a photo of this one just in time. The bulldozers have been at work and its gone now. In its place there will be some of the most generic and boring luxury units I've ever laid eyes on. That's them on the sign.

It was Sorrento House Sorrento Road Empire Bay. Previously blogged.


Today I was going to have a good crow about how more Australians win the Nobel Prize than any other nation, including America. This is particularly smirk-worthy in the light of America's population being more than 10 times bigger than Australia's.

However, I'll keep my crowing to a minimum out of respect for those poor bastards who copped it yesterday at Virginia Tech.

Play Misty for me

Went off at six this morning on my walkies. Dawn wander around the local streets sans camera. It was lovely. It was nice and nippy, perfect tracky daks weather and my nose tingled in the cold for the first few minutes. The light of an overcast dawn was soft grey and the kookaburras were starting their morning chuckles. If I wasn't such a lazy bed-loving bugger I'd do more autumn dawn walkies.

The sky was overcast most of the morning but I got some more blue-sky photos from Davistown:



Misty. Never in all my walkies at and ferry trips to Davistown have I seen anyone on this boat. I suspect it's someone's holiday cottage. She's moored off Paringa Avenue and Illoura Reserve.



Restella Avenue. The style of this place I'm going to put down as Fishing Shack (circa 1900 - c. 1940). The left hand part of the house, the roof with the 1980s Federation bits on it, is an old fishing shack/holiday house/starter home I think.

Then there's been a few add-ons since then. If we look closely at the middle section of the house we can see what looks like a second veranda roof behind the bullnosed (curved) veranda roof. See it? Then behind that a two-storey roofline. The two-storey roofline suggests to me a second storey was added onto the back of the first add-on. I don't think that is a second veranda but a single-storey add-on.

Looking at the width of the weatherboard on the walls, I'd say the weatherboard went on in the 1970s with the two-storey add-on. The carport looks seventies as well. Then the bullnose veranda either in the 1980s when the Federation bits went on and then the angled two-storey roof at the right in the last few years.

The garden I'm putting down as mainly seventies and eighties with most of it, including the palms, going in in the seventies.


(Biggify)

Paringa Avenue. This one isn't on my hist list but I'm bunging it in Federation (circa 1890 - c. 1915). It looked the right age in the flesh, the chimney fits well enough, the flattened X pattern of the veranda railings fits and the general shape fits, in an Arts & Crafts way.

The leadlight door is rather pleasant. The light was in just the right part of the sky to catch it. I think it might be genuine. I'm no expert on leadlight but it doesn't look like one of those 1980s-90s repro jobs. Those ripply panels look too real. I'll put ten bucks on it being Art Deco. Which either puts the house at the end of the Federation period and into the beginning of the Inter War period, or puts the door added on later.



It's nice and sunny and warm again this afternoon. I'm off to the balcony.