Paperbark Forest

(Random walkies, holidaying from every-street walkies)

Woke up to the sound of the wind at dawn. Small branches were breaking off the gums and clattering down on the roof. The Dear Old Things will be livid. As much as they hate leaves for falling they hate branches even more. They take them falling as some sort of personal insult. Still, the rage gets their blood pumping long enough for them to totter outside brandishing a rake and the raking gives them a cardio-vacular workout any heart specialist would approve of.


(No embiggulated version, this is my 4x zoom at max.)

The wind came and went as I walked. The trees tossed and bowed and leaves fell like flurries of snow. As I walked beside the Paperbark Forest the trees fell silent and I noticed a kookburra sitting on a branch. It's unusual to see kookaburras so close up. I was maybe fifteen feet away. This guy just sat there looking at me then looking away. Usually they fly off as soon as you point the camera at them.


(Big version)

That's a paperbark tree in the foreground. Melalucas leucadendron (long-leaved) or Melalucas ericifolia (swamp) probably.


(Big version)

One of the quietly pleasant views as you walk along beside the Paperbark Forest. Jacaranda from someone's back garden on the left, paperbark and other eucalypts and lantana on the right in the tiny sliver of bush I call the Paperbark Forest. Jacaranda and lantana are not Australian native species.


(Big version)

The top sign carries all the usual prohibitions against flying your dog or walking your model aeroplane in the reserve. The middle sign reads "Gosford City Council / Bushcare / Bush regeneration in progress". The bottom sign reads: "Spraying of weeds has been carried out in this area by Gosford City Council using the herbicide Weedmaster Duo [?] on Date 27-3-06 in accordance with EPA Licence No 007643".


(Big version)

Fifties house in Dorothy Avenue. Not bad. Still has its fibro exterior and white paint.

There's not a lot of fifties houses in the Paperbark Forest area. It's mostly forties and seventies with a few 1900s for good measure.


(Big version)

A fairly boring fifties house. Might look better from the other side but the view was obscured by a tangle of cars. It'd look much more exciting and closer to the original if that closed in veranda (right) was ripped off and replaced with an upwards tilting fifties veranda. Dorothy Avenue again.

On my way home the wind was gusting harder again. It was making that nice menacing noise along the powerlines. They used the same wind sound in Twister when the tornado's just about to show up. I think they beefed it up digitally though.

Wind porn is not too hard to get. Pretty much any movie set on the moors in England or a coast somewhere will have good wind sound. Ditto any movie filmed in bits of America like Oklahoma and Nebraska as long as the movie's not Annie Git Yer Gun or whatever that unbearably cheerful Doris Day movie was called. Look for something excluding bonhomie and including menace and there's yer wind porn.