We tease to please

(Green Point walkies #4)



Nice old weatherboard house on Asca Drive. Looks about 1900 to 1920s. But don't quote me on that. Can't find the book to check.




It had both brick piers (stumps) and stone ones but the stone ones are not original. They're too wide for their sheets of tin (to stop the white-ants). Original stone stumps are as narrow as these brick ones. Sometimes all the old stone piers on an old house get replaced, sometimes just some of them.




Green Point traffic is on a go-slow for a bit while they rip up bits of Avoca Drive (the main road) around Bayside Drive. Not sure what they're doing on this side but on the other side it looked like they were widening it.

Avoca Drive is one of the main roads of the Lower Central Coast/ Greater Gosford/ Brisbane Water area. If you're in Woy Woy and you want to go to Bloody Erina (Erina Fair, one of them big shopping centres) you go over The Rip Bridge to Daleys Point, along Empire Bay Drive past St. Huberts Island, Empire Bay, Bensville and Kincumber South, left onto Avoca Drive and through Kinumber, past Yattalunga, round and up through Green Point and right into The Entrance Road, past the barracks then right at Fountain Plaza and up Karalta Road and there you are at Bloody Erina.




Stared at this sign for a good long while as I walked towards it. It looked like it belonged to the real estate agent and I wondered how the fuck teasing prospective home buyers was a good idea. Eventually I noticed the name if the hairdresser at the top of the sign. Jesus, I'm quick.




Just for pretty. Mangrove stump in the shallows.


Bonus photo



The lovely old wooden ferry at her mooring in Cockle Channel not far from Central Wharf (where you get off for the Davo) at Davistown.

She still does some runs over to Hardys and so forth. They changed the timetable again so I better get a new one. Haven't been on her for a bit. She's my favourite local ferry. Possibly my favourite ferry ever.


Google-botted

My stats are showing heaps of human and machine visits from Googlebot HQ. Must find out what that's about before I crash or something. Am I being checked out for some sort of fabulous feature thingy on the blogspot blog about blogspot blogs? The Inaugural Blogger Award for the Gratutious Use of the Word Fuck in a Walkies Context? Or maybe the googlebot just got the hiccups.

Can we panic yet?

So this is it, we're all going to die!

Naaaaah. Not this time, not next time, not even the time after that.

"The first influenza pandemic was recorded in 1580 and since then influenza pandemics occurred every 10 to 30 years." says Wiki. So if they happen every 10 to 30 years and we're not all dead yet, it's probably not worth panicking.

All the news programmes keep talking about the 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions of people all over the world. But yer gotta remember we got antibiotics and shit now.

How the flu virus works

Influenza pandemics and how they work

1918 flu pandemic

Officials say don't panic (includes video of thermal scanner in action)


Australia still clear of new virus

"The areas with the most number of possible cases are South-East Sydney and the Illawarra with 20 and Northern Sydney and the Central Coast with 13. There are 12 each in Sydney's West and the Hunter and New England."

Notice that's possible cases not actual cases. Possible cases includes people with a bit of a sniffle, people with yer bog standard annual flu and man flu.

"Dr Grant encouraged anyone with symptoms such as fever, coughing and a runny nose whic began within 7 days of returning from an overseas holiday to contact their GP, local public health unit or to go to an emergency department, especially if they had been in the USA, Canada or Mexico."

Full article at SMH

Swine flu: a beat-up or a real fear?

The lighter side of swine flu


Masks

The word is to get the "fitted respirator masks known as P2 masks" and make sure they fit tight. No gaps to allow the germs to wiggle in through.

Full article at SMH


Wash yer bloody hands

That's what all the medical types are saying will help slow it down heaps. That and don't bloody well cough on people. Tissues were invented for a reason.


The shipping news



Codock II AKA the Cockatoo ferry

Wooden ferry fans, Bets of Central Coast Ferries says "The SARATOGA is getting a spruce up and a bit of engine maintenance this week so the trusty old CODOCK II is purring along on the run."

Timetable info


Local wildlife

Snakes on a beach

Palm Beach

While the Palm Beach ferry is a hot topic, let's pop back across to Palmy.




Pittwater and Brisbane Water ferry routes. The bottom route goes from Ettalong to Palm Beach and is the one threatened by the sandbank.

(Incidentally, everything on the green and blue map is on the Central Coast and everything on the blue map is in Sydney.)




Fantasea Crystal at Palm Beach. A comfy and efficient ferry but not exciting as ferries go.

These two are also of the Palm Beach fleet:

Crystal Spirit, at Wagstaffe
Myra & friend, wooden ferries at Palm Beach

Floating life - ferries, dingies, wooden boats, putt-putts, a hull, a raised wreck, and a sub




Lion Island from the Palm Beach ferry. I never get tired of Lion Island.

List of birds & beasts on Lion Island
Islands of Broken Bay







Seaplane at Palm Beach, with Barrenjoey Head behind it. The seaplane takes off from Sydney Harbour and does sightseeing tours up the coast to Pittwater.


Work work work

Have been working long hours. Hence the late posts recently. Made the deadline though and there's a bit of calmer water ahead, thank christ.

Palm Beach again

(Palm Beach again)



Our trusty steed Fantasea Crystal at Ettalong Wharf. She is a 25 metre aluminium catamaran and takes a max of 192 passengers.




Lion Island, looking south from the Palm Beach ferry. Notice the cliff at the head end, facing out therough the heads of Broken Bay, and the lion-ish shape of the whole thing.




Lion Island from the Palm Beach ferry.




Head on of Lion Island. Rock climbers can occasionally be spotted inching their way up its face.

The island is on a couple of my old maps as Elliott Island, named in 1789 by Governor Phillip after another Island where his mate General Elliott gave the Spanish and French a kicking. It's 8 hectares and was made into Lion Island Nature Reserve in 1956. There's quite a few beasties living on it, mostly birds though of course.

White-bellied Sea-Eagle
Osprey
Kookaburra
Grey Teal
Fork-tailed Swift
White-throated Needletail
Pied Currawong
Australian Raven
Mistletoe bird
Nankeen Kestrel
Peregrine Falcon
Silver Gull
Crested Tern
Yellow-faced Honeyeater
White-cheeked Honeyeater
Great Cormorant
Little Pied Cormorant
Little Black Cormorant
Tawny Frogmouth
Blue Petrel
Fluttering Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Wedge-tailed Shearwater
Short-tailed Shearwater
Eastern Rosella
Little Penguin
Southern Boobook
Silvereye

Water-rat
House mouse

Eastern Water Dragon
Robust Ctenotus
Copper-tailed Skink
Eastern Water-skink
Three-toed Skink
Lace Monitor

Proper names at NSW National Parks

Sydney Climbing



Embiggen

Barrenjoey Head from Pittwater. Note the flat strip of land on the right hand side of the Head. That's the golf course, with Palm Beach itself on the other side of it and Barrenjoey Beach on the Pittwater side, which is this side.




Myra leaving Palm Beach wharf. She does the bays and wharves of Pittwater. She's too small to go across the mouth of Broken Bay to Ettalong. She'd be all over the place in a decent swell.

She is a 15 metre woodern ferry and "the pride of Palm Beach Ferry Service". She takes a max of 130 passengers.

Sister ship Crystal Spirit at Wagstaffe wharf

Palm Beach ferry fleet

Ettalong to Palm Beach map

More Broken ferries & boats

Islands of Broken Bay


And that's yer lot for the year. I'm on me holidays now and will be laying on the beach and having barbies for a couple of weeks, storms permitting. Have a good Chrissy and come back on the 15th of January.

Sydney to Gosford ferries

(Letting my fingers do the walking)



Hawkesbury River railway bridge opening May 1st 1889

Brisbane Water got busier after the railway came. More day-trippers up from Sydney, more people buying land and moving up here from Sydney or down here from further up the Coast.

Before the railway you got here from Sydney by slow boat round the back of Sydney and up the Hawkesbury or up the coast on a small ferry from Circular Quay or Darling Harbour. Must've been a long queasy trip on rough days.

"The SS Woy Woy runs every Tuesday and Friday at 8am from the foot of Erskine St for Gosford and Woy Woy, calling at Merritt's Wharf(Cockle Creek), Blackwall, Green Point, and New Brighton, or elsewhere as required; fares, 2s 6d single, 4s return.
The SS Erina also leaves Russell's Wharf, at the foot of Bathurst St, at 7.45am on Thursday, picking up passengers at Dawes' Point, if signalled, at 8am; fare 2s 6d return." (1909 tourist handbook)

The foot of Eskine Street is at Darling Harbour in Sydney, just round the corner from Circular Quay. Bathurst Street ends at Darling Harbour as well, right up in Cockle Bay. Dawes Point is at the southern foot of Sydney Harbour Bridge, the CBD side.

2s 6d should be two shillings and sixpence and 4s four shillings. That's Australian currency pre-1966.

The handbook twitters on a bit about the scenery:

"The matchless beauty of the landscape in this portion of the State, the charm of swelling hill and sylvan valley, of precipitous cliff and rocky gorge, of grassy upland and impenetrable masses of forest, is enhanced by the presence of picturesque creeks, romantic bays, and broad sheets of glittering water, the whole presenting a series of magnificent spectacles."

Dunno about "matchless", there's heaps of beautiful places in the world, but otherwise I'd agree with that. Bloody lovely place to live is Brisbane Water.

In 1915 the Gosford Times said "Card-sharpers continue to ply their nefarious calling on trains between Sydney and Gosford. One of their latest victims was relieved of 17 pounds in a very short space of time." Nowadays it's poker.com on yer mobile phone.




Sydney to Woy Woy map showing Hawkesbury River (left) and railway line completed in 1889 (middle) and the coast up which ferries came from Sydney Harbour.

The Sydney ferry dropped you off at Gosford usually but might go down to Woy Woy after or you could get a local ferry from Gosford.



When you got to Woy Woy it looked like this photo from Phegan's 1924 Great Northern Guide. That wharf's in the same spot as the current wharf.

"Goldenia" that building in the middle says. A quick Google suggests Goldenia was either a brand of tea or a race horse.

The closest building, the shed, is about where the commercial wharf is now. The foreground in the lower right of the photo is now Anderson Park, where the annual Fun Run starts. The creek is gone but until about 18 months ago there was a fountain over it.




Wagstaff Point sometime between 1900 and 1910. Manly House stands where the progress hall stands now and the wharf hasn't shifted.


"WOY WOY TO THE BAR
Two launches running, including the latest, largest, and fastest motor launch on the river - The Conqueror - seating accommodation for 150 passengers.
Passengers landed anywhere along the River.
Don't miss a trip to Ettalong Beach, Wagstaff Point, Pretty Beach, Broken Bay, Lion Island etc.. Lovely sandy beaches, surf bathing, good fishing. Hot and cold water free. Return fare 1s. Take the White Ferry. J Murphy, Proprietor." (Peninsula News history article)

What "the Bar" is I can't find out. At a guess I'd say it's the name of the wharf or pub in Sydney where the ferry left from.


Some of the ferries

S.S. Woy Woy was a 24 ton cargo and passenger ferry launched in 1901. In 1905 her fares from Circular Quay to Gosford were 2/6d and 4/- return (two shillings and sixpence, four shillings) Tuesdays and Fridays.

History of Woy Woy - scroll down for photo of the ferry and 1905 land sale in Woy Woy township.

SS Gosford did the Sydney run and also went up to Port Stephens up past Newcastle.

S.S. General Gordon operated a regular passenger and cargo run between Gosford and Sydney. It was a stern-wheel paddle-steamer of 164 tons and carried passengers across the Hawkesbury before the bridge was opened (top photo).

On a charity fund-raiser trip in 1926, says the book, "she was loaded with excited passengers bound for Wisemans Ferry ... The trip was not without incident. The ship broke down and rolled alarmingly in Broken Bay. Gosford band master Dick Wells struck up the tune, '... and he played his ukelele when the ship went down!'" Possibly not the best idea a band master ever had.

The ferry was fixed but then the male passengers spent some time in the pub at Wisemans steadying their nerves and the ferry finally got back to Gosford after 10PM that night, where the passengers' families were getting toe-y on the wharf.

S.S. Erina was damaged by fire in 1911 while she was moored down at Balmain wharf in Sydney. The ship's fireman (stoker) was asleep on board but managed to get off without being roasted alive and the fire brigade came. The ferry survived and was sold in 1934 to an R.W. Miller for use on Sydney Harbour. She was replaced by the Erina II, which was a 77 ton diesel powered vessel built at Empire Bay by Arthur Davis and sons.


Extra

Koolewong level crossing & trains - local trainspotting from Trent "Raichase" Nicholson

Victorious

The more I learn about Brisbane Water’s ferries the more there is to learn. There’s been dozens of the buggers over the years. The half dozen we’ve got now is nothing compared to what there used to be. I’d draw you a map with all the old ferry runs inked in but it’d just be spaghetti.



Thursday was market day in Gosford and they came from all round Brisbane Water. Gives you some idea how much use the ferries got back then.

This is 1924 and a wharf in Caroline Bay/East Gosford. That's Longnose (Point Frederick) lying low in the middle distance with Point Clare (left) and West Gosford behind it.

(With Thursday being pension day, Thursday still is market day for many of the Dear Old Things. Possibly why some of them think it's still 1924.)



Victorious. The largest of Jack Murphy's Brisbane water fleet at 60 feet in length.

She was designed to carry 125 passengers and launched in 1916 from Beattie's Brisbane Water shipyard. She was 13.5 feet in the beam (across), her draught was 4 feet (hull depth) and she was driven by a 3-cylinder 30 horsepower Frisco Standard engine.

300 people attended the launch, including over 100 kids from the orphanage at Kincumber South.

Murphy also owned the 'Waratah' boarding house (long gone) in Brick Wharf Road at Woy Woy and was a land developers' agent.

The Bill and Roy Riley and their brother-in-law Jack Owens were running ferries at the same time. Their fleet consisted of Mavis, Regent Bird and Bellbird. Later Murphy's ferry service joined up with the Rileys' as Amalgamated Ferries and the name of the Victorious was changed to Wagstaff. She did the ferry run on Brisbane Water until around 1966. By 1980 she was part of the Church Point Ferry Service down in Pittwater.


Kin-Gro & Grower

These two boats often get wrongly labelled and I've fallen into the trap myself. I've read conflicting reports on it from local historians and seen Dear Old Things nearly come to blows over it and now I've had email on the subject.

The ferry I showed you yesterday was the Grower not the Kin-Gro. The title of the post was right and the label on the drawing wrong.

Thank yer to Bets of Central Coast Ferries* for the link to all the beautiful photos of the Kin-Gro now Lithgow working on Sydney Harbour. She looks great in her green and white livery.


Bungalow on the market



One of my readers fancies a bungalow on the Peninsula.

This one's at 36 Davis Street Booker Bay. Original windows by the look of it, the decorative slats on the front, original chimney. The advert shows a biggish backyard with a garage and says "big rooms, high ceilings, picture rails". The agent is on 4343 1788.

They don't come on market too often so don't hang about, girl.



* Them what runs the Codock II and Saratoga.

The Grower Ferry

Before The Rip Bridge was bunged up in 1974, getting from one side of Brisbane Water to the other involved either rowing yerself across or rattling along for bloody miles in yer horse and cart, up round Gosford and down the other side. Clearly this was a Bad Thing and the obvious solution was ferries.



This is the old Kin-Gro ferry that used to run on Brisbane Water.

( "Kincumber Growers Ferry" it says across the top and on either side of the doorway: "Empire Bay" and "Davistown".)

In 1921 local farmers decided to get some ferries to get their produce up to the Gosford market and across to the trains. To do this they formed the Kincumber Growers’ Co-operative Company Ltd.

The Kincumber was their first ferry. She was built up at Cockle Creek and launched in 1921. They expanded their fleet over the next few years with the Avoca, the Grower and the Kin-Gro.

They did a run covering Davistown, Empire Bay, Woy Woy, Bensville, Kincumber South and Kincumber Creek. They finished up in 1944 after 23 years of service. Their ferries, especially the Grower and the Kin-Gro are fondly remembered by many Dear Old Things.



The pink dots are the some old ferry stops. I was going to put numbers on them instead but I forgot. I named them on the annotated version.

There's a good half dozen more old stops. Which'll be added when I've identified the bastards.

As yet unidentified stops:

Myler’s
Davidson’s
Moore’s
Pine Tree

(I know where Pine Avenue is, but not Pine Tree.)

If you know where these stops were, let me know in the comments below.

In the past the ferries have carried gossip, dead bodies to Gosford for burying, newspapers, the post (mail), people off to the trains and the Thursday market at Gosford, the stuff they were going to buy there and them coming back again with the stuff they bought.

Gossip and people are still carried, commuter services in the mornings and afternoons hook locals up to the Sydney trains at Woy Woy, lunchers are carried to the Davo and back, tourists ferried around to ooh and ahh at the beauty that is Brisbane Water.

We already looked at raising of the wreck of the Lady Kendall at Koolewong in May. She was a ketch built in Tassie (Tasmania) in 1903. She worked there carrying logs to Hobart then as a fishing boat in Bass Strait. She won in her class in the Hobart Regatta in the 1940s and '50s then went to Melbourne in 1966 to work as a ferry then came to Brisbane Water in 1985 to work for Starship Cruises at Gosford. (More)



The house is reputed to be that of the former Phegans Bay ferryman and the upturned hull in front of the house that of the old Phegans Bay ferry.

We glanced at the old Phegans Bay run and will come back to that some time.



Embiggen

Dotted lines are current ferry routes.

Blue line - Palm Beach Ferry (Palm Beach Ferries, Sydney)
Pink line - Codock II AKA Cockatoo Ferry (Central Coast Ferries, Empire Bay)
Red line - Saratoga Ferry (Central Coast Ferries)
Brown line - Lady Kendall II (Starship Cruises, Gosford)



The short orange line in the lower part of the map is The Rip Bridge. Before the bridge was bunged up in 1974, by boat was the only short way across Brisbane Water.

The cross is St Joseph's at Kincumber South. The Pioneer Ferry Service started from there in 1905, run by the penguins, taking visitors and patrons to the orphanage there. Those ferries included the San Jose (pronounced locally as San Joase), Southern Cross and the Stella Maris.

Brisbane Water's buzzed with ferries over the last 180-odd years and is still buzzing with them. And I wouldn't have it any other way.


Row row row your post

Before the ferries carried the post, it was carried by a bloke in a rowboat. For 26 years William Settree, known as Scotchie, met the Woy Woy mail train and rowed the post back to Davistown. He died in 1916 and his sons kept up the run until the ferries took it over in 1921. How's that for service?

Back on track

Thank you everyone for your sympathies. They are much appreciated.

Feeling a bit bewildered, as you might expect in the circumstances, but also rather relieved. Once someone's gone they're feeling no more pain and that applies to my Nana as well as my mother in different ways.

I've had some work to bury myself in this last couple of days and I'm looking forward to throwing off that stupid fucking lethargy and getting my walkies back on track.


P.S.

I'm in the ferry newsletter and there's some stuff in there as well about how the ferries came off in the big storms.

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.

The Cockatoo ferry

(Random walkies)



Here she is coming round ready to sidle up to the wharf.

That's Brisbane Water Drive and Parks Bay/Koolewong in the background and we're looking north-north-west.

The white boat is called Up & Down. Someone painted a pair of heterosexuals demonstrating this motion on the back but it got scrubbed off.



She's sidling up to the wharf here, ensign flying in the breeze. The best seats are up there on the aft deck on that bench you can see across the back.

That's Pelican Island in the background and we're looking north-north-east.



Licensed to carry 51 persons. That's what it says above the doorway. 49 passengers and 2 crew.



That's her flue going up the middle there. You can see it come out the top deck in the yellow paint.

She's a game old thing. She putts slowly along and her engine throbs like buggery crossing from the shelter of Pelican Island to Lintern Channel but she gets there and it's a nice ride.

She was built around 1945, at the end of World War Two, and worked for the defence forces in Sydney Harbour. She probably looked a lot like the Gladstone then. She is 40 feet long, her beam is 12 feet and her draft is 5 feet. Draft is how far below the water her lowest point is and beam is how wide she is from side to side. Her displacement is 16 tonnes.

There's more about her on the Hardys Bay site and a map below showing Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour.



Here she is cheek to cheek with her stablemate Saratoga at the Woy Woy wharf. They're both in the Central Coast Ferries fleet.



She's known as the Cockatoo ferry because she comes from Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour. That's Cockatoo Island in solid black.

The island now belongs to the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust and they only let it off the leash for the yearly Cockatoo Island Festival. They're still doing it up. It was made into a dockyard in the mid 19th century, using convict labour. Before that it was a grain store for a bit and before that it was part of HM Prisons. Captain Thunderbolt, one of our colonial bushrangers escaped it when his missus swam across to rescue him.

The Slightly Wobbly Print(TM) says "Sydney CDB" (Sydney Central Business District). That's where the Coathanger (Sydney Harbour Bridge) and the Opera House are and where the first white settlers settled in 1788. Back then it was referred to as Port Jackson and the harbour still bears that name.

The other islands are, from bottom left to mid right, Rodd, Spectacle, (Cockatoo), Goat, Pinchgut/Fort Denison and Clarke. Shark Island is out of frame to right of Clarke.

By the way

The Coathanger is 75 this March by the way. Be there or be square.


Beautiful cooling rain

Last night it rained and it's raining again now. I stood out on my balcony in it last night. It hadn't rained for a while so the scent of it was beautiful. My orange jessamine was flowering. The two scents mingled and I stood there for yonks just drinking them in, with the rain falling on my skin and tapping on the trees. It rained all night I think and today is gloriously cool.

They may not feel the same in Campbelltown, particularly not the poor bastard who got squished by a tree, and Queenslanders will probably be quite glad of a dry spell after the cyclone weather. Particularly those still drying out from Larry last year.

World Wide Weird

Don't do drugs, man. You might mistake a person for a rodent. It's probably not a good idea to bite random straight guys in nightclubs either.