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.

The Rip Bridge

Took me a lot of walkies to get all the angles I wanted on this landmark. Here they are all in one go.




The Rip Bridge from Guyra Street Booker Bay. My favourite view.

It's called The Rip Bridge because it goes over The Rip, which is a bit of fast-flowing water in the narrow bit between the Woy Woy peninsula and Daleys Point. When the ferries go through it their engines have to strain a bit and a kayaker can paddle as fast as they like on The Rip and get nowhere.




Where it is.

The Rip Bridge is a Brisbane Water landmark. You can see it from all the way up Brisbane Water Drive as far as Point Clare. It's one of the busiest bottlenecks on the Central Coast. And when the big fires in 2006 closed the F3 motorway, the fire trucks had to come down the eastern side of Brisbane Water and across the bridge to get to The Bays next to Woy Woy.




Daleys Point end of the bridge. The road that goes over it is called Maitland Bay Drive on the Woy Woy side and on the bridge itself, then it changes its name to Daley Avenue, then at the roundabout at the top of the St Huberts Island ramp, it changes its name again to Empire Bay Drive. This takes some explaining when giving directions to lost tourists.




Just behind the railing about the middle you can see a bit of The Rip. The ridges in the background are the western side of Brisbane Water. The two mangrove islets in the left middle are nameless. St Hubert's is the island on the right (houses) and behind that is the hill of Saratoga.




Fishermans Bay, where the moving speedboat is, and Rileys Bay. Looking east-north-east from the bridge.



Booker Bay from the Woy Woy end of the bridge. Money lives in Booker Bay. It didn't used to.




The Rip Bridge from Blackwall Mountain. Orange Grove Road in the foreground. The houses at the left end of the bridge are at Daleys Point.




Thar she blows. The Rip Bridge from Daley Avenue Daleys Point.


Bloody idiots

There's been a spate of bashings of foreign students of Australian universities. Bashing foreign uni students is a fucking stupid idea. Particularly in a recession. They bring a shitload of money into the country.

International students (what uni's call foreign citizen students) pay around three times the money an Australian citizen pays to go to uni. So if a B.A. costs a citizen 20,000 it costs an international student 60,000. If a medical degree costs 60,000 it costs an international student 180,000.

They pay higher fees which means the uni can afford to stay open to educate Australian citizens when the government is taking shitloads of funding from education to spend on wars. (Former Prime Miniature John Wanker Howard, this means you).

They pay for accommodation. This is money into the local housing market.

They eat. This is money into the local shops.

They phone home. This is money into the local telephone companies, the same phone companies you use.

They go places on buses and trains. This is money into the local bus-drivers' pay packets.

Think you're doing Australia a favour bashing international students? You're doing it an injury. Grow a brain, numb nuts.


Right! I'm off for the long weekend. Running a mere 24 hours late and with a premature case of title="Ducktionary">shagger's back. Argh.

Have a good one, Straylya.