Pirates and cows and ducks

(Bensville walkies #3)



It was another bright winter's day. Technically spring because spring technically started on the 1st of August but it still felt like winter.

It was quiet, as it generally is in the sleepy streets of suburbia. But it was quiet like the countryside too. Brisbane Water is pretty densely populated compared to further up the Central Coast, but even Brisbane Water has its semi rural bits.

So I was not very surprised to find a field of cows at the end of one of Bensville's suburban streets.

Cows are calming. You lean on the fence and look at them and they stand there slowly eating and look at you. When you've had a good long look at each other, you go away nice and soothed and they keep slowly eating.




A pirate flag is not par for the course in the suburbs. Footy flags abound but not pirates. Perhaps someone is addicted to the Pirates of the Carribean.

This is three streets away from the cows.




Downhill from the pirate flag, there was a still pond between the houses on Starboard Avenue and the swampy bush on the water's edge.

A couple of ducks quacked and hid themselves in the scrub at the edge of the water. A dog in a backyard barked then another dog barked then they all decided it was too much effort when they could be laying on their backs with their legs in the air sunbathing instead.




As promised last week. Bensville is a wee knot of 20 streets between water and cows and bush and marsh. I knocked it off in three lazy walks.

Bustling Downtown Bensville by Bobesh (2 of the 4 shops that make up BDB.)

Map of where Bensville is in relation to Woy Woy and Gosford.

Salty bits

(Bensville walkies #3)



Down a quiet suburban street to the saltmarsh. So many streets lead down to the water and to wee wild places around Brisbane Water and here in Woy Woy. You'd be daft to leave.

This is North Street. It's one of twenty streets that made up Bensville. (Street map next week. Map of where Bensville is.)




The low red plant might be samphire. Even though it's red it's not ruby saltbush and it's not austral seablite. The trees are casuarina. They like it by the water.




The low red plant and the spiky reed. Both of these are also at Woy Woy, on the waterfront at Brick Wharf Road.




Peaceful and quiet in the warm winter sun.




I disturbed some dozing ducks. They paddled away slowly. That's those reeds or rushes or something again there in the foreground. You don't want to go wandering through them. Sharp as buggery.

That hill in the background is Davistown or Saratoga. Hard to tell from that angle but they're both on the same peninsula anyways.


Local linkage

Deepwater Plaza mural finished at last. The bastard is bloody tricky to photograph. Bad spot re light and as soon as you get the camera out every bus on the fucking peninsula comes thundering past. Oh the humanity!

Nice Umina Beach & wildflower photos - Umina resident on Flickr


Taking the piss

Jensen Ackles lip-synching to Eye of the Tiger (full clip)

Ackles gives good giggle. On yer, mate. Oh and can I lick yer boyfriend? Please?


Warm winter sun

Glorious walkies weather on Thursday and Friday. I was trapped inside doing evil work stuff but it's the same weather today and I'll soon be out under the sun with my shirt off and a steak sanger for my lunch so it's all good.

North Street

(Bensville walkies #2)



Down the bottom of North Street, near Hastings Wharf, there's a wider bit of park perfect for chucking a stick for yer dog. It's right beside the water so there's the usual puppy pile of slumbering dinghies*, a stand of casuarinas and a couple of magpies strutting about pecking at things.




Warm winter days are my favourite for walkies and photos. The sun is soft and warm and sky's as blue as fuck.

Ron wants to know "why is blue so much blue-er down under?"

Something to do with latitudes and light apparently. Some colours look different here. Snowy white walls in your house that look great in England f'rinstance, look harsh and crap here and visiting artists twitter on about how different the light outdoors is. This thingo and this one might help. Could also have something to do with ozone.




Between Kallaroo Road and North Street in Bensville the park is just a narrow strip and a path past the scout hall.

There's rocks with graffitti cut into them by bored-yet-industrious scouts, mangroves, washed up sea grass, wet dogs who want to sniff yer bum, the gentle slap of water on seaweed and tree and an abandoned office chair.

Perfect spot to just stop and stare at how bloody gorgeous this place is.


Everyone thinks I got a big one

It's very flattering when people comment and email about the size of my camera. Everyone wants to know how big it is. Thing is, with cameras, it ain't the meat it's the motion. Can't seem to convince anybody of that though.

(Just so we're clear, my dick, however, is as much meat as it is motion!)



* Spelt dinghy right for a change! Must be all that bacon I'm not eating now. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Hastings Wharf

(Bensville walkies #1)



Winter in Woy Woy.

Actually up the road a bit in at Hastings Wharf in Bensville but I couldn't resist the alliteration.

This is looking west towards Woy Woy. What you can see is the end of Shelly Beach Road in Empire Bay (left), Cockle Channel between Empire Bay and Davistown, and a bit of Davistown on the right where the mangroves are. That's Kyoga Avenue, Romford and Alkoomie Close in Davistown. Not that you can see the houses. Away in the distance there you've got yer hills and ridges behind The Bays on the other side of Woy Woy.




Bensville is the orange dot near the right hand edge of the map, bit under halfway up.

Bensville is a wee town in a quiet bay on the eastern shore of Brisbane Water. It has just under 3,000 peeps, four shops, a park, a scout hall and the wharf.

In March 1788, just after landing at Botany Bay, Governor Phillip, the boss of Straylya's first colony, came up from Sydney and had a sticky. He looked round near Bensville and other parts of Brisbane Water and went back to Botany Bay. (More on that.)




This is Davistown seen from Bensville.

Bensville is named after Ben Davis, of the local ship-building clan. He built 15 ships there in the 1870s. Davistown is named after another of the Davises. Bensville was called Sunnyside before it was changed to Bensville. Very apt. (More on that.)




Bensville scout hall nestled in amongst the mangroves and casuarinas and gum trees.




Mangrove tree. Just for pretty.




Cloud sandwich. There was one cloud. This was it.

Nice moody snap of the wharf itself

Fabulous Bensville photos by Bobesh


Moon or Mars?

Whatcher reckon? Do we go back to the moon and learn more stuff about it and probably about us or do we aim for a colony on Mars?

Peak of Eternal Light (coolest name ever for a lunar colony)

What's in it for us? (SETI Home board on what would spur Mars colonisation)

Mars Society Australia (Cool photos & mock-ups)