Paperbark Forest

(Woy Woy walkies)

Missed the Everglades Wetland talk completely. Buggered off to Point Clare in the morning having completely forgotten the talk was on in Woy Woy. Scampered back in time to see the last of the organisers leaving. D'oh!


Everglades Wetland Woy Woy (Click for embiggened versions)

Everglades Wetland is the proper name of the Paperbark Forest. It is a narrow silver of bushland beside the golf course on Dunban Road in Woy Woy.

This photo is the lagoon. The floating weed in the left foreground is alligator weed, according to one of the Dear Old Things. Got here from South America a while back in the ballast of a ship.

The trees are mostly paperbarks (Melaleuca quinquenervia, with a casuarina (she-oak, Allocasuarina) poking its head up there in the left of the photo. The casuarinas have a beautiful sound, a soft rushing howl in the wind.

The reeds are some sort of reed I can't find anything out about. Can't find much at all on the Everglades Wetland online. This is off some wildlife website:

"The lagoon...habitat for birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals." (CEN, includes map)

So it's home to various native birds and beasties. Plus a few golf balls no doubt, given that the golf course is only a fence away.



The bark of a paperbark in the wetland

The foliage of the local paperbarks is like this and not like the photo at the top of the Wiki page. Smallish flat tough leaves, wee nuts in short rows along the twigs, small creamy white and pale yellow flowers.

The Aborigines used to and still use the bark of the paperbark for all sorts of things from making cradles for babies and shrouds for the dead, bandages for wounds, sleeping mats, humpies (tent-like shelters) and canvasses for paintings. There are some paperbark paintings in Australian art galleries but now most Aboriginal artists use yer bog standard painting canvas.

Modern science is using the oil of the paperbark as an anti-fungal for all sorts of things, including Siamese Fighting Fish. (Wiki)



Casuarina foliage



See original photo at Wiki

Casuarinas have needles instead of leaves. Very fine needles which, if you have a good squint at them up close, have got segments like tiny wee bamboo poles.


Fake raffle targeting Woy Woy's elderly

Tell yer granny not to open the door to strangers.

From the NSW Police site:

"Bogus raffle ticket sellers steal from elderly
26 Sep 2008

Police are urging elderly residents to be on lookout for bogus raffle ticket sellers after four robberies on the Central Coast this month.

On each occasion, a group of teenagers have stolen money from each victims home after offering to sell them what turn out to be fake raffle tickets.

The group have falsely claimed to be selling tickets on behalf of a local youth or netball club.

They have been able to enter each home either by being invited in after gaining the victims trust, or by being allowed to use the victims’ toilet.
...
“We are advising residents to...[ask] to see some form of identification".


Local linkage

Steve's Virtual Tours

Michael's photos of Woy Woy & nearby

To the beach

(Random walkies in Woy Woy)



The sun was fucking glorious again today. Freezing morning then warm warm sun. Went to the beach and toasted myself in a sheltered spot, gazed at Barrenjoey Head and wondered what it would be like to live in a lighthouse.

These top two photos were taken last month just after a big rain. It was a lovely warm day and everyone was out about after being cooped up for a week of dark wet days.

This one is the path to Umina Beach, down through the native bushes, the tea trees and the scrubby dune plants to the long beach stretching from the sandbar at Ettalong to the caravan park tucked into the fold of Mount Ettalong.




Dear Old Things examining the beach for a comfy spot to settle. Umina Beach.




The orange bits are beaches.

Umina Beach and Pearl Beach get some surf, which comes in through the mouth of Broken Bay.

While we're on the beach theme, here's some old paths-to-beaches photos to extend the beach-y feel.




Out through the heads. Looking from Umina Beach out through the mouth of Broken Bay, Box Head on the left, Barrenjoey Head on the right.

From the mouth of Broken Bay you go out into the Tasman Sea. Go straight ahead and you'll graze the top of New Zealand and end up in the South Pacific. Go left and you'll go up the coast of NSW (New South Wales) to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef. Turn right and you'll go down the Central Coast to Sydney then down to Tassie (Tasmania) and eventually to the Antartic.




Pearl Beach from the Mount Ettalong track. The track goes round the bottom of Mount Ettalong, along the bottom of the cliff. As you walk along you can see across to Box Head and Barrenjoey Head, and down into Pittwater where the Palm Beach ferry goes. You can also see the boulders that've falen off the cliff at random over the years.




An old one, just because. High tide at Ettalong Beach. Steps down to the beach from Lance Webb Reserve, off Picnic Parade Ettalong.


Coming to a night sky near you

There's another lunar eclipse in a couple of days.

How to photograph a lunar eclipse

I'm off to me dinner. This post is so bloody late because I stopped to watch Time Team.

Keeping an eye on things

(Random walkies)



We don't get much good graffitti on the Peninsula so I snap it as soon as I see it. This one appeared to be keeping an eye on the new traffic lights nearby.

We're getting two more sets of traffic lights. One on the corner of Railway Street & George Street, where you come out from Deepwater and another one two blocks away at the corner of Railway Street & Ocean Beach Road, where this graffitto was.

The Dear Old Things are very excited about the George Street lights. That intersection is a menace to DOTs and even to the fleet of foot. The Ocean Beach Road intersection is mostly a menace to front fenders.

Went walkies this morning. No idea where. Started out from home brooding on things and ended up in the bottle shop (liquor store) a couple of hours later with no clear idea where I went in between. It's been a tumultuous couple of months with all this family stuff, plus there's some other crap we won't go into. But I'm enjoying the winter and so life goes on.




Challenger TAFE Centre

Back to Freo again and one of my all-time favourite Freo buildings. Once the Royal Norwegian Consulate, now Challenger TAFE.

The style could be Federation Free Classical (circa 1890 - c. 1915) but I'm putting it down as Victorian Free Classical (circa 1840 - circa 1890). Why? Because of the whaling connection. There was a lot of stuff in the Maritime Museum about the Norwegian whaling connection to Freo.

That wee round room up the top there probably still has some sort of view over the harbour, which would once have been an uniterrupted view right across the harbour to North Freo, proably as far as the Dingo.

Warm winter sky

(Saratoga walkies #7)

Brass monkeys yesterday. A wind came up off the snow down south and froze the tits off the Central Coast. Bloody freezing again this morning but the sky is as blue as blue can be and the sun is warm.



Gymea Lily (Doryanthes excelsa). Magnificent beasts they are. This one and its friend are quite short, just a couple of metres high. They get to 6 metres (19.7 feet) and the Central Coast is at the centre of their natural habitat. You can see them in the bush along Patonga Drive.

This one and its friend are on the Paficic Highway at West Gosford between OfficeWorks and the lights. Which is not Saratoga. Got 'em on the way home.

Grow yer own Gymea - Gardening Australia Fact Sheet
Australian National Botanic Gardens - great photo of opened blooms



Reaching for the sun on Brighton Road. The blooms are as soft as they look. No idea what the plant is though. Seen it all over the Peninsula and Brisbane Water and previously mistaken it for a bottlebrush. It is not a bottlebrush. Might be a mimosa.

Plenty of flowering still going on in the autumn sun, paperbacks, whatsits, daisies having another go. Saw a few golden wattles touched by gold today. They'll be blazing in full glory soon.


(Embiggen)

Silvery roofs, silvery water, Point Frederick & East Gosford from Brooklyn Road.



Blazing colour fit to warm the cockles of yer heart. A whatsit flowering on Steyne Road.


Bayside Burglar

They finally got a description for the bastard. "Caucasian [white], 25-40 years old with greying-blonde hair" says the Advocate.

37 burglaries in 19 days this guy's done. 37 in 19 days. All between the hours of 3PM and 6PM.

He's hitting the Woy Woy Peninsula so far. And targetting Dear Old Things, walking in through the door while they're in the garden, forcing side windows, walking off with handbags and wallets.

Go round and check on your Dear Old Thing.