Fucking flu

(Live from the sofa)



Jesus H. Christ.

No sooner had I left off writhing about in pain and an unseemly fashion than I was struck down by the Dreaded Lurgy. A proper Lurgy not the ManLurgy! Thought I'd escaped the lurgy this winter then some swine sneezed at me in the pub.

Several packets of antibiotics later and I'm out of bed again, my face has stopped throbbing and I'm no longer fondly contemplating an early death.

The photo above is not my sofa. It's Sorrento House at Empire Bay, remodelled and complete. Thank yer, Craig.

Got a stack of photos on the other computer of it in the building process, with its cladding off and its chimney stack showing. The other computer seems very far away. You'll have to hold yer breath.


Christchurch

Apart from mass attacks of gastro and nippy nights camped on their front lawns and stuff, the Kiwis of Christchurch got off pretty lightly compared to that Haiti quake which was apparently the same size. But they did have a nasty big after-shock. And I was gonna say something else about their quake but my brain has conked out.

"Devastatingly vicious" aftershock rocks Christchurch (SMH, includes video links)

NZ Herald: Quake articles, photos & links

Shaking Maps (NZ's quake watch site)

The quake on Wiki (includes NZ's quake history)

NZ is roughly the size of Japan or the UK (Britain) including all of Ireland or California plus half of Oregon. Its entire population is about 4,400,000 (Sydney's population is 4,500,000). Christchurch is NZ's seond largest city and has about 380,000 people.

Where the hell is New Zealand anyways? (mappage)

NZ from space (pretty)

Major towns & cities of NZ (Christchurch marked)


Vic floods

Some of those poor bastards who copped it in the Black Saturday bushfires are now under flood. Fucking hell.

New threat after floods: disease (includes video)


Bloody Blogger

The no-click weirdness continues on posts. It seems to lick in after a day or two so either be very quick making comments or make them on older posts like this one. I get a comments alert thingo.


Okay, that's it from me for now. My head is throbbing again and I'm desperate for my dinner.

Filthy dirty filking

(Random hung-over, Christmas-party fueled whingeing & filking*)



O Christmas bush
O Christmas bush
O Cerapetalum apetalum

In New South Wales at Christmas time
You come out in December heat

O Christmas bush
O Christmas bush
O Cerapetalum apetalum

With petals red and orange too
Only after pollination

O Christmas bush
O Christmas bush
O Cerapetalum apetalum


There's also Cerapetalum gummiferum which is the same until you get up close and see the leaves are arranged differently. And the gummiferum is pretty tall and "during World War II it provided the butts for all rifles made in Australia". Huh.


Off to my fourth Christmas party this week this arvo. May not survive. Normally I avoid office parties like the fucking plague but I called in a lot of favours this year and the payback is showing up as stand-in date. The next person to offer me a mince pie is dead.


Local linkage

Bike bunnies do Umina

Dickhead factor rockets during school holidays


Woy Woy as was

Love the photos and stories of old Woy Woy in the local rag. Woy Woy Steve is back writing them again and Fred Landman and Keith Whitfield are regulars and I've got one from June 2009 by Bruce Richards.

Sometimes the old buildings they talk about, old cinemas and milk bars and so forth, are gone now and sometimes they're just re-invented but I can usually see where they were or their remnants are. Adds a whole new depth to my walkies to have personal histories tied to the streets and buildings of my town.

Keep writing, guys.


Christmas story re-visited

How the angel got on top of the tree (click 'n' scroll)


Want my thingy in yer whatsit?

I'm off for Xmas. Off away from the madding crowd to a place where the bush turkeys roam free.

I'll be back ab-o-u-t ... Let's call it mid January. The 16th. Yeah.

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Have yerselves a merry little Xmas.


* Filking ain't really dirty. I mentioned it to a Dear Old Thing one day and she reacted like it was a very naughty swear-word and now when I say it I get a naughty little thrill. It's that thing where you replace some or all of the words of an existing tune with your own words, like I did with Oh Christmas Tree. Go filk yerself (with links).

Dark week

From blue blue winter skies to dark dark winter skies. Pissing down again as we speak. It's been a dark wet week in Woy Woy. I've been having the lights on at three in the afternoon.



Boy duck.

Went to Empire Bay when the sun was still with us. Had fish & chips on the foreshore. Bloody lovely day for it.




Girl duck.




Beautiful warm winter sun on water and shore.

And a couple of planes making weird contrails in the distance. See them? Above the boats. They looked like they were over Sydney.


Still missing

Can't find any fresh news about the Woy Woy bloke who went missing last week. They found his surf ski and life jacket and paddle off Saratoga but no sign of him, poor bastard.

Map

Full article at The Australian


Dementia walkies

Regular walkies helped a Dear Old Thing survive when he got lost in the bush last week.

"Dr Fulde believed Mr Ludbrook's regular long walks would have been crucial to his survival.

"Big time. People who walk serious distances - not just the 20-minute stroll with the dog, which is also good - do well in situations like this.

"His heart would have been able to deal with the stress much more easily that the average lounge lizard.

"In the end, that's what hypothermia does - it leads to heart attack - and having a healthy heart from lots of walking protects from heart attach as the patient cools down."
...
For decades, Mr Ludbrook's neighbours had become used to the sight of him walking the streets of Fernhill."


There you go. Us walkers are on the right track. Even when we're demented.


Full article at SMH

Waterfowl & land birds of Brisbane Water

(Walkies gleanings)



Shag on a rock on a hot day. Just near the Veterans Hall ferry stop at Henderson Road Saratoga.

All these walkies I do make me notice stuff I never noticed before. Stuff like the flowers and trees and birds. I don't know a lot of the names of them but I like to see them living along side us humans, floating on the water between the ferries, wandering about on the foreshores, harassing tourists for chips, that sort of thing.




Waiting for fish heads at Correa Bay Reserve Woy Woy Bay Road Woy Woy South.




The bog standard breed of ducks, hoping for free food at Empire Bay. Someone got on the ferry with hot chips and the ducks soon clustered round. Buggered if I know why because if you chuck them a chip they won't eat it.




Pelican soliciting for chips at the fish and chip shop on Brick Wharf Road.

(In the background is an interesting 1950s block of units called "Caprice" in red brick with a pattern of dots on it formed with white bricks. The block was demolished last year, possibly earlier.)




Still can't believe how close I got to this kookaburra. They're normally very timid. This one seemed to be waiting for the local office workers to deliver its lunch.

Kookaburras are seen at all times of day up on the hills and ridges, but here on the flat of Woy woy they come in groups at dusk and laugh in gum trees.




Brush turkeys. They look like such ungainly buggers but they climb these trees quite easily, slowly placing one scaly foot ahead of the other on the gently sloping branches.




Rainbow lorikeet in bottlebrush, Woy Woy. Lorikeets are rather shy birds but as noisy as buggery in groups. At dawn they cluster excitedly in flowering trees, squabbling over the best blooms and waking up the neighbours.




Pink & grey galahs feeding in a jacaranda in someone's back yard in Umina.




Sulphur-crested cockatoo (white bird). Haven't yet got a decent photo of one of these. They move too quick and perch up high in tall trees.

The other birds are a couple of plump owls of some sort, a rainbow lorikeet hanging upside down to feed and there's a nervous-looking tree possum down the bottom.The black birds flying at the sides are black cockatoos, a seldom-sighted bird.


Colin

It's all over the internet that Colin's been put down (euthanased). Poor little bugger lost his mum last week and was found nuzzling a yacht in Pittwater, just across the water from here. A post-mortem revealed Colin was actually Colette and her mum's body may have been found washed up on a beach down south. Wildlife officers had to put the poor thing down as she was getting weaker and weaker and they couldn't feed her.

From the Herald:
"A female humpback whale abandoning her three-week-old calf? Not likely.

Experts say a baby whale alone in Sydney's Pittwater was probably separated from its mother by force. ...

The baby humpback, believed to be about two or three weeks old, was first spotted on Sunday, nuzzling up to a yacht in an apparent search for its mother.

Authorities have suggested that the calf, nicknamed Colin, may have a biological problem, which led its mother to abandon it.

Experts have disagreed, saying a humpback female is very unlikely to abandon her calf, and would nurture it if it was sick.

Wally Franklin, Hervey Bay-based marine biologist with research group the Oceania Project, says ships in the waters off Sydney could be to blame, because they can break up sonic communication lines between whales." (Humans could be to blame for stranded calf)

Sydney Morning Herald


The truth about mozzies

I posted a map and some stuff about the paperbark forest last month, the wee jewel officially known as the Everglades Lagoon Wetland, nestled amongst the paperbarks next to the local golf club.

The crowd that looks after the wetland is having walkies there next month, combined with talkies.

From their flyer:
"Everglades Wetland... Walk & Talk
Saturday 27th September, 2008
RSVP by 24th on (02) 43494756
Email: wetlands@cccen.org.au".


Nose to the grindstone

Spoke too soon about getting some time off. Got an unexpected job dropped into my lap. Some ghost-blogging. The writing sort not the woo woo sort.

So anyways, Tuesday's post may or may not be late. Put yer email in the thingy to get pinged.

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Empire Bay

(Empire Bay walkies #6? I'm so off track with these walkies numbers.)

Lovely warm blue winter sky again this morning. I popped out after breakfast and went across to Empire Bay on the Saratoga. Bit nippy with the cold breeze but the ride was nice.



Nice old place soaking up the morning sun. Boongala Avenue.

I'm putting this place in the Victorian/Federation period (c. 1840 - c. 1890/c. 1890 - c. 1915) with the veranda closed in around the 1940s and the windows at the back and sides updated in the 1980s or 90s.

It looks like there's a wee bit of sagging on the veranda but it's possible that's the camera angle. Other than that it looks like it's been looked after.




Wee old rusting cottage. Federation period (c. 1890 - c. 1915), with the front veranda partly closed in and those curly iron posts put on around the late 1940s or 1950s.




"Gosford City Council
Wetlands keep our
waterways clean and healthy
Wetlands are important
for fish breeding
Please respect the ecology
of our wetlands".




Mangroves and crab holes and bike tracks, yellow mud and scrubby succulents and native birds wading in the pools. Off Myler Avenue.

List of flora and fauna likely to be found at the Empire Bay Wetland

Gosford & District in Pictures has a lovely lot of historical photos of Empire Bay

Sat on the foreshore after my walk, waiting for the ferry in the warm winter sun. A dog was leaping with great joy into the water and bringing a ball back to its owner. A few seagulls and magpies wandered about looking for chips, a dingy puttered by.

Overhead there came the faint drone of an ultralight. We see them fairly often, crawling across the sky over Brisbane Water. They look like a cross between a paraglider and a lawnmower.



Wiki Creative Commons image

This is the type seen over Brisbane Water/the Greater Gosford.

Wiki says:
"In Australia a "Sport/Recreational aircraft" must have:

* a maximum all-up weight (MAUW) of 544 kg or 1,200 lb or less;
* a stalling speed under 45 knots (83 km/h) in landing configuration and
* a maximum of two seats.

In Australia, microlight aircraft are defined as one or two seat weight-shift aircraft, with a maximum takeoff weight of 450 kg, as set out by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. In Australia microlights are also referred to as trikes and are distinguished from three-axis aircraft, of which the smallest are known as ultralights.

In Australia, microlight aircraft and their pilots can either be registered with the Hang Gliding Federation of Australia (HGFA)[1] or Recreational Aviation Australia (RA Aus)[2]. In all cases, except for privately built single-place ultralight aeroplanes[3], microlight aircraft or trikes are regulated by the Civil Aviation Regulations."

Ultralights at Wiki, includes gallery
Rayhay102's fantastic ultralight flight over the Central Coast


Flickrite in exhibition

The wonderful Cade has been exhibited in the MMOMA in Moscow. And he thoroughly deserves it.

Barbie's Love Dilemma
Barbie does time
Survivor Toyland

A little house by the water

For long-winded and boring reasons, I can't yet upload the photos I took while I was offline. So we'll look at a few of my favourite wee old houses around Woy Woy and Brisbane Water.



#1 (Map reference)
We'll start with this lovely old place overlooking the water from Mulhall Street Wagstaffe. Its owner, Geoff, tells us it was built in 1907 and the bargeboards (those curly white boards on the edge of the roof) are original.

Geoff on the house's history




#2
On the water at Leonora Avenue Davistown. Just a few steps from the Lintern Street ferry stop and there you are. Bloody nice spot for a house.




#3
A home among the gum trees. Just like the song says. Henderson Road Saratoga, looking across the Lintern Channel to Woy Woy.




#4
Sorrento House Sorrento Road Empire Bay. One street back from the water and 30 seconds from the Empire Bay ferry stop. Must be 18 months now since this one was bulldozed.




#5
Albany Street Point Frederick (Longnose), looking down into Caroline Bay and across at Peeks Point.




#6
Croke Cottage, in the grounds of the old orphanage at Kincumber South. Out the back door and twenty yards down to the water. The old orphanage ferry stop is about 60 yards away. A very quiet spot at the mouth of the Kincumber Broadwater.




#7
Twin houses at Parks Bay, just across the water (and the railway tracks) from Woy Woy.




#8
Meena Street Woy Woy Bay, circa 1908, just across the water from Woy Woy. Sharp-eyed persons will have noticed this lovely old place in the background of interviews with Belinda "Anger Management Issues" Neal, of Iguana-gate fame.




#9
Lovely old house on Ocean View Road Ettalong. This is its back view. It looks across Lance Webb Reserve to Wagstaffe and, further, to Barrenjoey Head.




#10
Cedar Crescent Woy Woy, looking over the tops of the houses opposite across the water to St Huberts Island and Davistown. That glassed-in veranda is the perfect spot to settle down on a cold winter morning with the sun coming in and a nice hot cuppa tea and a bacon sarnie.




Match the # numbers on the photos to the map.

(Thepurple dots are the route of the ferry Saratoga, the other dots are the route of the Cockatoo ferry Codock II.)


P.S.

Is it just me or does everyone hear that line "I had an uncle who once played for red star belgrade" in Sexuality as 'I had an uncle who once laid a red star brigade'?

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.

Sorrento Road

Lovely and cool again today. Rained again last night and there's a decent breeze. Lovely Autumn weather on the 7th day of Autumn. Grey skies again however, so here's some more from last week's blue sky:



This is Davis & Settree. It's a former shop, built around 1920. It gazes out across the foreshore park and across the water to Davistown. It's perhaps 50 yards from the war memorial and the ferry wharf.

It was bought by Arthur Davis in 1921 and the shop half was run by his daughter Olive and her husband from 1928 to around 1979. Arthur lived in the other half and built the boatshed opposite. Looks like it's still standing. It's the one at the marina where the Renown is moored.

The Davises were Benjamin, Thomas, Rock and Edward, the ship-builders after whom Davistown (just across the water) and Bensville (just up the road a bit from Empire Bay) are named.

Rock Davis is the most well-known locally. Between them, the Davis brothers built 217 vessels at Davistown, Bensville and Blackwall in the second half of the 19th century. Rock Davis is buried at St. Paul's, that wee stone church at the Avoca Drive roundabout in Kincumber.

The Settrees were also local ship-builders. Alfred W.R.M. Settree built the Day Dawn in 1869 and 6 other boats. The Day Dawn is among the photos around the atrium food court called The Hub or The Hive or The Something at Bloody Erina (Erina Fair Shopping Centre). The Sttrees are also mentioned on the Empire Bay War Memorial and the memorial in the Woy Woy War Memorial Park.

From the Gosford Library's History of Davistown:

"“Scotchie”: William (“Scotchie”) Settree, carried mail between Woy Woy and Davistown using a rowing boat for 26 years. He died in 1916, at the age of 47. “Scotchie” Settree was reputed to have never missed a mail train at Woy Woy, nor a delivery run to Davistown in all of the 26 years he operated the service.

His sons continued the mail run until 1921, when Ferries were contracted for the service."

Love that image of the post being rowed across the water in fair weather and foul. Though it may well be that rowing in foul weather is what sent Scotchie to an early grave.



The back of Davis & Settree.

"FOR SALE
DEVELOPMENT APPROVED FOR 2
TOWNHOUSES

468 sqm (approx), zoned 3A
1x3 bedroom, double garage
1x2 bedroom, single garage
Majestic water views from the decks of both townhouses
Completion expected June
2007

[estate agent's contact details]"

So this lovely old place is for the chop. Bugger.



And this one too. Could they not replace it with something a bit less generic and boring?

"FOR SALE
BUY & BUILD OR
BUY OFF THE PLAN

DA & CC APPROVED

Good opportunity to purchase commercial space or brand new
executive style townhouses
Comercial ideal for professional [something]
3 stylish townhouses with fantastic water views from the entertaining deck

[estate agent's contact details]"

"Houses (2): former boarding house "Sorrento House" 9-11 Sorrento Rd, Empire Bay ... 1906, 1929". This is No 9. No 11 has been replaced with a large noughties house. Not ugly but not 1929 either.

This was Harry Davis's place. It's just across the road and down a few yards from Davis & Settree. Harry was Olive's brother.

My hist list has 2 Strom listings for "Sorrento House". One is the listing above for 9-11 Sorrento Road. The other is "House: former post office "Sorrento House" 7 Sorrento Rd, Empire Bay ... 1908". No 7 Sorrento Road is now occupied by a seventies building that may or may not have been a Post Office at one time but now houses a fish and chip shop. The fish and chips are good but you know how I hate the seventies architecture.



Houses on the Sorrento Road foreshore at Empire Bay. The boatshed and marina are just out of frame on the right.

Left to right: 'Empire House' AKA Hagan's 1908 (also for sale); 'Davis & Settree', 12 Sorrento Road, circa 1922, former shop, 14 Sorrento Road, date unknown, 16 Sorrento Road, circa 1920.

It'll wreck this part of the foreshore if Davis & Settree and Empire House get bulldozed.

Renown

Beautiful storm last night. I was up past my bedtime watching it. The first one was medium strength and just rumbled and flashed a bit. The second one was good and loud. Several whacking great crashes of thunder right overhead and the flashes of lightning were enormous.

Missed the eclipse on Saturday night. I was going to watch it but I got a bit elephant's (drunk). Have marked the August eclipse in my diary as 'total eclipse DON'T GET DRUNK'. Righto.

Didn't go to the Parade. Went to a mate's instead and we sat there on the back lawn getting slowly plastered. Mardi Gras has pretty much passed me by this year. I promised myself I'd see Swan Lake, the one with all the guy swans, but didn't get off my arse.

Watched the Kylie concert last night on Aunty. I'm not that much of a Kylie fan, musically, but she's a deadset diva and a bloody good entertainer. There's plenty of performers but not that many good entertainers.

Enough rambling. On with the photos. These are from last week. It's dark and overcast today and I'm sitting at home with a cuppa tea.



Little old house at the end of Kendall Road Empire Bay. Could be older but it looked like 1940s. It was probably surrounded by bush back then. Now the street is full and it's surrounded by seventies houses.



24 Kendall Road Empire Bay. Looks like I got here a day or two late for a good photo. Bugger.

It's in my hist list as "house .. 24 Kendall Rd, Empire Bay ... c. 1920". Looks like it was a small rectangular cottage with wooden interior walls.

There's nothing listed as heritage on either the Australian Heritage Council database or the NSW Heritage Office database. In the Gosford City Council notes for 2002 there's a motion to have the house in this photo and a lot of other historic buildings removed from the Heritage registers. That leaves them unprotected from development.


(Embiggulate)

See her? The old black and yellow ferry in the middle there. This is as close a picture as was possible with all the boats stacked up round the marina.

I can find nothing on the Renown on Google. I've never seen her out of her bay and I don't remember her name or picture in any of the library books. Speak up if you know.


(Embiggulate)

Her stern. To see her get the ferry (the Saratoga not the Codock) from the Woy Woy wharf to Empire Bay. Or turn off Empire Bay Drive at Greenfield Road and follow the signs to the Post Office or the wharf. She's visible from the wharf.