King tide

(Davistown walkies)

High tide this morning was bloody high. It's full moon and and the tide had swallowed all the wee beaches round the estuary and submerged half the private jetties and dozens of dingies.

The public jetties are made of sterner stuff but the Dear Old Things and I needed sherpas to get up the steep slope of the gangplank onto the Saratoga. They were off to the Davo for a steak sanger and a shandy and I was off to finish off the last few streets of Davistown.




King tide creek Lillipilli Street Davistown. Edge of the wetland beside the road under water.

Lillipilli is a native plant, "a bush" says the Dear Old Thing downstairs, "excellent for hedges". There's some good close-ups of lillipilli flowers and inhabitants here.



Wetland between Lillipilli Street and Murna Road. Looking down through the shallow water I could see the cracked earth of the drought years slowly swelling with moisture and little water critters playing about.

The wetlands are "Swamp Sclerophyll Forest", as I rabbitted on about a while back when I did Cockle Bay Wetland. This swamp is not far from Cockle Bay, a bare 200 metres.




Tidal Waters villas on a canal, end of Davis Avenue Davistown.

If you'd asked me what I expected to find lurking at the end of an ordinary-looking street in Davistown I would not have said a canal, but a canal there was. It led out past the Davo and into Kincumber Broadwater. The villas each had their own little stone steps leading down to a miniscule landing and a nice ring to tie their dingy up. It looked rather fun.




Canal running beside Murna Road Davistown. The canal leading off the Davis Avenue canal and out past the Davo and into Kincumber Broadwater. You can't see it from Murna Road unless you poke your head through the trees beside the road.




Davistown Store c.1920 McCauley Street Davistown

Not sure what this building does now. Seems to be some sort of office out the back and the front seems uninhabited.

Circa 1920 says my hist list, and it looks it. Nice inter-war bungalow. Right next to the public wharf too so handy for the boating trade in its days as a shop.

Lovely cool east wind again today. Yesterday I sat on the balcony for hours just watching it gusting in the old gum next door. Over at Davistown I sat today on the foreshore and listened to it roar soft and cool through the needle-leaf pines and the water slap and splash against the tied-up boats.




Updated my walkies progress map at last.

Saratoga and Davistown are at 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock from Woy Woy.

Walkies finished marked in solid orange. Walkies unfinished marked in orange stripes.


Still got a bit to go of Saratoga and Hardys Bay etc. Gosford I've done a bit of but not much. Bradys Gully cemetery was a North Gosford walk.


Walks I have finished since I started

The Peninsula: Woy Woy, Blackwall, Umina, Ettalong, Booker Bay, Pearl Beach & Patonga
Correa, Horsfield, Phegans & Woy Woy Bays
Parks Bay
Koolewong/Murphys Bay
Tascott
Point Clare
Longnose (Point Frederick)
Davistown
Empire Bay
St Huberts Island
Daleys Point
Fishermans Bay
Wagstaffe

Walks I've done bits of since I started

Kincumber
West Gosford (might've finished this but can't be buggered looking it up)
East Gosford & Springfield
Gosford
Hardys Bay
Pretty Beach

(There's a better list somewhere in my archives. If anyone's got the URL for it, pop it in the comments there's a dear, I've spent half an hour looking for the bastard.)

Running hot & cold

(Davistown walkies #10)



Just before it pissed down raining again yesterday morning. Been raining all week here in Woy Woy. Refreshes the soul rain does. Specially with all them boffins on the telly prophesying drought and doom.

It's crap light for photos and I forgot to recharge the effing batteries again anyways so here's some more from Davistown the other week.




Davistown Progress Hall McCauley Street. On the waterfront next to Central Wharf, where you get off for the Davo.

Fibro hall, 1940s maybe though the fibro could be a shell over an older building. Couldn't see the piles to see.

House to the right up on good tall piles. Bet they'll be glad of that come the Christmas tides. Haven't seen another on the flat on piles like that.




Restalla Avenue. Bit of a weird house to find in a street on the flat in Davistown. It's a retro Victorian (circa 1840-c.1890) / Federation (circa 1890-c.1915) terrace house, usually found in tight-packed sloping streets in Sydney's inner suburbs.




You couldn't hardly see the fence this lot was on. It was more like a hedge than a creeper. Nice light-scented jasmine.

Bloke next door to my place has stuck one of them standard rose frames in the middle of his back lawn and planted one of these jasmines under, tied to it. Got flowers on it already and of an evening the warm jasmine smell drifts in through my windows. Very nice.




It was a warm day. The local pelicans crowded into a thermal over Saratoga.




Jenkins Street. Lovely old place. Not on my hist list but I'm going to bung it down as built in the 1910-1920 period. Looks old enough (not the fibro & roof, they're much younger) and so does the tree out the back.

Original windows and door it looks like and the post-and-rail fence is a good 40 years old.




Pyang Avenue. Looks new but closer inspection reveals a mix of new (sliding door, front veranda) and old (most others) windows and doors seen in genuinely old buildings. So looks like a re-stumping job rather than a new house with a retro roofline.

The dingy under the veranda is barely 50 yards dragging from the water. Very handy.


Extra

Nice bit of info and local colour from an anonymous reader on Davistown #9 last week.


The jacarandas are flowering all over the Peninsula. Lovely their soft purple looks outlined against the grey sky, specially when the sun stick its head out for a sec and lights them up. Then it nips back in before I've got time to whip the camera out. Never mind, I'll get one against the blue sky when this lovely wintery weather goes away and the drought kicks in.