Winter Floraland

(Random walkies in Woy Woy)

Two posts today. This walkies one and one about the Paperbark Forest.






Golden dildo in full bloom. Don't know if this is a Banksia or a Hakea. I think you said hakea last time, Erica.




....Erect and ready......in full blooming glory............all passion spent




These seem to be the flowers of the Casuarina tree. I've seen a few of them around the peninsula this winter. The trees look brown and like they're dying until you have a closer look. The needles are still green and there's this extra bit on the ends.




Cauarina tree in Veron Road Umina. The brown bits are it.




Pink kangaroo paws in someone's garden on Veron Road. Don't know if they naturally come pink or if they're one of the new cultivars.


Woy Woy Road still fucking closed



This is the road yesterday's sign was all about. That fenced bit at the top edge of the road is the collapse. Sandstone blocks on the right, presumably to re-build the bit of hillside under the road that fell away.

The road goes from the station in Bustling Downtown Woy Woy along the railway line, over it, along Correa Bay (Deadmans Bay as was), up over Bulls Hill and past The Bays and up to the F3 motorway, the intercity freeway connecting Sydney to Newcastle.

The collapse is playing havoc with local traffic and causing blood pressure to rise all through The Bays.


Random local photo

Lion Island by Gramarye

Snow & disgruntlement

"Woy Woy Road is still fucking closed" the sign reads. One for frustrated locals.

Sent in by Steve of woy-woy.com. Ta mate.


In other news

It snowed in Sydney. Well, sorta. There was "soft hail" on the North Shore.

Sydney 'snow' just hail: weather bureau

Flickr photo

Aaaand we're back

Right then. Catch-up post.


(Road collapse site at the bottom left just under Phegans Bay, detour from Woy Woy to Phegans & other bays is via Kariong, up the top left between Fagans Bay & Gosford. Bit of a hike.)

Nice big picture on the front page last week of a 50 metre crack in Woy Woy Road near Staples Lookout on the Kariong road. If it gets much wider everyone in The Bays will be cut off by road and have to stay home for 6 months or buy a sea-plane.

The same road collapsed further down a month ago and residents of The Bays have to go via Kariong to get home. From Woy Woy to The Bays used to be a 5 minute trip. Now it's 30 - 90 minutes, depending on the traffic, not to mention heaps more petrol. And petrol prices are about $1.77 a litre (85p a litre, $US1.68) at the moment and still going up.



(So close, so close and yet so far. Woy Woy on the left, the Bays on the right.)

The consultant bloke the council got in said they have to wait until the weather's been good and dry for a bit before they can patch it up. So, months then.

Now the F3 is looking shaky

'Urgent' repairs to fix crack


Iguana-gate
I am loving this Iguanagate business. It's hilarious. Pollies behaving badly caught on camera.

For overseas readers, Iguana-gate is named after Iguana Joe's, the Gosford waterfront nightclub in which two local politicians went feral (bananas) a few weeks ago. They are Belinda Neal, Federal Member for Robertson, and John Della Bosca, State Member for Education. (Roughly equivalent to a US senator and US state politician.) They live in a lovely old place in The Bays.

Della Bosca drove as they left Iguana's that night and he's been done for drink driving or cautioned or something. Neal went feral and abused staff and threatened to close the place down. Anger management issues apparently.

The other day Della Bosca hid in the loo (toilet) then they both finally agreed to be interviewed by the cops. The soap opera continues. This is way better than Big Bother.

Video-gate


The Bouddi needs you
This wee notice appeared in the SMH a couple of weeks ago:

"World War II Gosford Radar Station: Bouddi Peninsula History Project seeks
RAAF, WAAF and army personnel who served at Bombi Point Radar Station or
nearby. Hoping to reconstruct war years in the area from oral history, documents, field trips and photos. Contact David Dufty, duftys@ozemail.com.au or 4360 1650."

That makes three WWII installations I know about in the area. The old emergency airstrip under Trafalgar Avenue, the Nissen huts up at Ourimbah station, now used as factories and stuff, and the Bombi Point radar. And that's without my even trying to find WWII info on the area.


Run fox run
We got a lot of foreign beasties in Australia. When the Poms settled here in 1788 they started bringing over domesticated animals like cows and chooks (chickens) and stuff and rabbits then foxes to control the rabbits and so on.

These foreign beasties bugger up the local environment, eating too many of the native beasties or eating what they eat and so they starve and so on.

I still haven't seen a fox on my walkies, though not for want of trying. They are shy buggers. But there's always notices about fox baiting up in Rambalara Reserve and other parts of the bush.

Anyways, National Parks is doing baiting over on Pelican Island and Rileys Island now.

"The fox control program," says the Advocate, "aims to protect native animals including threatened species such as the bush-stone curlew, eastern pygmy possum and yellow-bellied gliders. [NPWS regional manager] Ms Farrell said foxes carried diseases which could be spread to domestic animals."


Um
Found out my family knows about this blog and is reading it. This makes me squirm frankly. I love my family but I am suddenly conscious of them looking over my shoulder at what I write, all the effing and blinding and whinging and (gulp) stuff about my sex life.

Sometimes when I whinge about things on here it's hard to get across in words only exactly how bad or not bad it is. Usually I'm just whinging to let off steam about it which is what blogging is for) and you end up thinking I'm worse than I am. Sometimes I say stuff about family that is not the whole story because bloggers rarely put the whole story about their family on the world-wide internet. So readers who are family end up getting a skewed picture.

That's not getting things across very well either but it's 6am and I have been up half the night talking to God on the big white phone. See? Now I have to email you and tell you I'm not at death's door and I haven't talked to God for yonks and I'm fine, seriously.

I'll do you a deal. You stop reading the blog and stick to looking at the photos on Flickr and I'll ring more often so you can hear how fine I am.


Onya Jase
Jason van Genderen got a gong. A third gong in fact, from the Shoot Out Film Festival for a film he made on his mobile (cell phone). He's a local bloke, lives up at Kincumber (see map above) and his fillum was about Gosford. Read the rest of the article at the Advocate.


Volunteer walkies
Gosford Walkers is "looking for more volunteers and walkers" to take vision-impaired peeps walkies "along the Gosford waterfront for about an hour. It usually ends up with a cup of coffee and a chat back at the club...Gosford Walkers meets every Saturday at 8.45am. Inquiries: 4325 3686."