End of the lane

(Woy Woy walks #89 & 90)

That's right, peeps. I finished the lanes of Woy Woy. I've now walked every road and lane of the Peninsula. I now know it a lot better than when I finished the streets last September. I had two walks left to finish up, one long one medium length. I wanted to finish before April (tomorrow) so I walked the long walk this morning and the medium one this morning. My feet ache and I got pretty warm but I finished.

Walk #89 - this morning

To get to Patonga and Pearl Beach from West Street you go down Sydney and Hobart Avenues then along Mt Ettalong Road and over Mount Ettalong.

Tucked away between Hobart Avenue and Mt Ettalong is the tail end of Umina. At the Calypta Road end it's mostly forties and a few fifties houses, then it moves into the seventies (ugh) then up around Cowper Road it's nineties and noughties.


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Albany Square sounds like some Georgian close or the place where the BBC films Eastenders.

Albany Square in Umina is three or four 1940s houses beside a small creek smack bang in the middle of suburban Woy Woy. Past the wee white posts there's a footbridge over the creek and behind the camera is a standard suburban street, albeit full of cackling kookaburras.


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This house in Burdett Place is only in the picture to show how close the New Year's Day fires got to this part of Umina.

The biggest version shows the regrowth sprouting directly from the trunk on the big tree behind the house. Pretty standard stuff for gums. They're tough as old boots.


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Ettymalong Billabong and Wetland, on Etta Road Umina at the corner with Mt Ettalong Road. Another small reserve in suburban Woy Woy. Billabong means waterhole or deep hole in a creek. This one's part of Ettalong Creek.

Behind the trees in the foreground the creek's full of bamboo and lantana. Both imported plants making a nuisance of themselves in the Australian bush. The local bushcare crowd meet just across Mt Ettalong Road and they're the crowd you see in there on the weekends in their gardening gloves ripping out the lantana by the roots and hoeing out the bamboo.


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I'd forgotten how many fifties houses there are in this part of Umina. It's the part behind the caravan park, off Mt Ettalong Road and before the road goes up Mount Ettalong.

This one's a little worse for wear but still has its original fibro. The rusty stains are from bore water. The "No through road" sign points in the direction of Albany Square. The street sign says "Elanora Road".


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Looking scruffy but there's nothing there a lick of paint and the ripping off of that cladding couldn't fix. Mt Ettalong Road.


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It's heavily overcast today and this photo's still pretty dark even after a tweaking. In the flesh, the house had a gentle glow to it. Nice cheerful colour and looked good beside the blue of the house on the right. Yarrabin Road.


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Another well-maintained house off Mt Ettalong Road. The reno windows and cladding are the standard stuff but the colours look quite smart. Also Yarrabin Road.

Walk #90 - this afternoon

Did the final walk of the Peninsula lanes after lunch. Across to the Paperbark Forest. A beautiful spot.


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The Paperbark Forest is a tiny pocket of bush between Kerrawah Boulevard and the golf course. Kerrawah Boulevard snakes alongside it but it's an out of the way road only used by the locals. You can hear a few cries of anguish and victory from the golfers but they're quite faint. Last time I was there I could see a pond through the trees but that was in winter. Couldn't see any water this time but it's only autumn.


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An escapee or a feral rabbit on the run in Kerrawah Boulevard beside the Paperbark Forest. It was nibbling on the grass beside the road and bolted when I came along.


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The spider is sheltering from the sun in the leaf. St Andrew's Cross spiders are common on the Peninsula.


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Even with the cladding and the seventies windows this place looks very fifties still. It's the palms and the colours.


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An odd little house in Dorothy Street. A likely contender for Least Decorated Exterior on the Peninsula. It looks very unfinished. It's pretty small so maybe the original owners intended to extend it when they had a bit more money and never did.


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These trees are still flowering all over the Peninsula though they're starting to look a bit tatty now. They're a big favourite with the Dear Old Things, partly because they can see them even if they've lost their glasses.

Doing the two walks today was not much of a problem. I took my time and walked slowly.

In all the walking I've done in the last year, my motivation has rarely flagged. A fair few times I've been fairly crook (sick) and I've cut walks short but only so I could recover to walk another day. On the few walks where it's been hard-going (like the Long March) I've just fallen into a daze and plodded along. Today I did a bit of that towards the end of the second walk and my feet are still aching now at 11PM. But I finished the lanes in the month I promised myself I would.

I'm looking forward to having a wee holiday and wandering pretty much at random looking for the rest of the fifties houses on the Peninsula.

Where next?

Now it's autumn and I've finished the lanes of Woy Woy, I can go back to West Gosford. Had to break off there in December due it being too hot of a morning to fuck about in buses then walk in the hot sun then back in another hot bus.

I'd hoped it'd be cooler by now than it is. Seeing it's not, I'm going to have a little holiday. Instead of going back to West Gosford on Monday I'm going to keep walking in Woy Woy for a couple of weeks. I'll wander about collecting some more fifties houses and other stuff that takes my fancy. I'll go back to
West Gosford when it's nice and nippy every morning.

Cyclone Glenda

Glenda finally crossed the coast of WA (Western Australia) yesterday. It'd been hanging about off the coast since before Larry and giving everyone the heebies. It was a category 4 when it crossed, the same strength as Tracy. No-one got killed or even hurt apparently but they're still battened down waiting for the flooding.

Not so lucky in Iran. This has got to be the third quake around there in five years. Poor bastards.