Last chance to see

Went for a wander down to Burge Road and nailed St David's on the way back. It's at 120 Blackwall Road, a couple of blocks down from the railway station.


(Big version)

My hist list says it was built in 1908 and 1920. The NSW Heritage Office has its building date as "1908-" and its style as "good example of a timber framed church of the early twentieth century ... Federation". The design may not be a Carpenter Gothic (circa 1840 - circa 1890). My book (A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and Terms from 1788 to the Present, Apperly Irving & Reynolds, Angus & Robertson, 1994) lists pointed arch windows as one of the key points of the style. There's only a pointed arch on the door, which is one the side of the portico.

The Heritage Office also says "Moved to new subdivision in 1920. Only known building to have been physically moved when the Village of Woy Woy moved closer to railway station." Doesn't say where it was moved from but I remember overhearing some Dear Old Thing say it wasn't moved more than a few kilometres.

St David's I caught on the way back. I'd gone to get the old house below before it was demolished.


(Big version)

This place and the one next door have a fence around them now and a sign on the fence saying "building site". Looks like they're coming down and another whatsit of units going up.

Last time I saw this place the lawn was waist high. It was night. An ambulance was parked in the driveway and its lights were flashing silently. The front door of the house was open but it was dark inside. The ambos must've been stumbling about in there with their torches, looking for the Dear Old Thing who lived there. A couple of people on the bus said they didn't know she was still alive, they'd seen no-one there for months. Looks like she didn't survive, poor thing.


(Big version)


(Big version)

Got the corner this time.


(Big version)

This is the one next door and it's going too by the look of it.

I'll go back in a few months and see what they built in the place of these two nice old houses.

In the paper

I did a day's washing & sorting on an archaeological dig in Cumberland Street in The Rocks a couple of weeks back. It was hot grotty work but fun and interesting. It's in the paper today. Here's an excerpt from it:

The site, at the heart of Sydney's original convict settlement in The Rocks, lies between Cumberland and Gloucester streets. It was first excavated in 1994, when more than 750,000 artefacts, including sandstone, brick features and the foundations of about 30 buildings, some dating back to the 1790s, were found. ... "Thanks to its past use as a bus and car park covered in concrete, the site has survived remarkably intact since Sydney's first days as a convict settlement, and offers a rare glimpse at our past," Mr Sartor [Minister for Planning] said.

The article says the dig is happening now but unless its been re-opened it closed on the 3rd of March and is now in the sorting-and-pondering stage in a uni somewhere.

It'll be great to go back for a gander when the site's been turned into a museum. By then they'll have a lot more info on who lived there. Apart from Cribbs the lacenous butcher obviously, They know about him already. I want to see the images they put together of what it would been like in those narrow lanes and tiny terrace houses. The museum will be right across the road from the living museum thingy that is the Susannah Place corner shop.

Halfwits' lament

(Woy Woy Walk #84)

Nice blue sky this morning. Makes much better photos. Popped down to Ettalong and took some photos from the beach then got in a few lanes.


(Big version)

The Ettalong ferry wharf and Hardys Bay from Memorial Avenue. The ferry goes down to Palm Beach behind Barrenjoey Head. From there you can leap on a bus down the Northern Beaches to Sydney.


(Big version, resolution's not great but you can see the lighthouse better)

Fron left to right: Wagstaffe, Barrenjoey Head, sundry bits of northern Sydney within Pittwater, Lion Island in front of Commodore Heights (part of the Ku-ring-gai National Park in Sydney) and the sandbar (where the waves are breaking) at the corner where Ettalong Beach stops and Ocean Beach starts.


(Big version)

The building we love to hate. It's a club-cum-casino-cum-hotel-cum-resort on Memorial Avenue at Ettalong Beach. Locals know it variously as The Excrescence, That Stupid Bloody Great Building and That Hideous Lump.

As a building it's bearable. But it's way too big for its surroundings. As you can see in this photo it's the tallest and widest building for miles. It's the tallest and widest on the Peninsula, including the multi-storey carpark at Deepwater Plaza (near Woy Woy station).


(Big version)

Just left of centre is a fifties house at Pretty Beach, the only one I saw today. Taken from the wharf at Ferry Road, Ettalong and as close as I can get with my 4x zoom. The hill is Wagstaffe.

It was a pretty warm walk but there was a decent breeze. Yesterday was stinking hot, black clouds pressing down over the Peninsula all afternoon and a couple of rumbles of thunder but no bloody relief. Today's clear and bright and not too hot.

On the bus back we were entertained, in a can't-look-away sorta way, by a couple of drongoes up the back. They were whinging (whining) at the top of their voices about how their mate had to cut back on beer and smokes to pay his solicitor off at the rate of a hundred bucks a week. It wasn't fair, they decided. After all, the video from the riots didn't actually show him braining that guy with his tyre iron, he was just carrying it for protection and he only went down to the riots to get a closer look. Bloody hell.

Interactive

Bunged the rest of my view photos and old house photos on the interactive map. Photos from St Huberts Island, Kincumber and Koolewong, Tascott, Point Clare & West Gosford, up the left hand side of Brisbane Water.

Click on the map to go to the interactive copy. Can't make the interactive copy show here.

Flying trams & giant fish

Flotilla of boats spurting fireworks floating down the Yarra, a thong (flip flop) doing aerial manoeuvres over the stadium, hordes of athletes through the airport cattle gates, wee being collected in jars in the village, lycra hoodies being climbed into, all that sorta thing.

Yep, the Commonwealth Games opened last night in Melbourne.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a Games news page or you can read about it in The Age, Melbourne's broadsheet.

Bloody mozzies

Coupla rumbles of thunder this morning and a steady rain. But I thought Fuck it and went walkies anyways. Didn't think I'd get much in the way of fifties photos but I'd forgotten what a rich mine of fifties houses Barrenjoey Road is. It was pretty dark but I got a few good ones for my collection.


(Big version)

Sixties windows on this one I think. The change from small windows to big seems to have come in the sixties, from what I've seen. Mind, I couldn't give a stuff about sixties domestic architecture so I won't be looking that up.


(Big version

Love the colour of this one. Lovely blue on a rainy walk.


(Big version)

This one would look much better with a couple of frangipannis or a big nobbly cactus but it looked like a rental so that won't be happening.


(Big version)

Not great colours for a fifties house but all the rage in the seventies when they did the reno.


(Big version)

Nice frangipanni fitting in with the era of the house.


(Big version)

One of my favourite houses on the Peninsula. Not just because it's still fibro. I like the blockiness and the colours.


(Big version)

Very modern colurs but the original shape of the house is still there and the awnings help the retain the fifties look.

Got pretty mozzie (skeeter) bitten. Little bastards were sheltering from the rain under the trees and got in under my brolly. It's been so hot and muggy they're still bloody breeding.

I'm about halfway through the lanes of the Peninsula now. If the temperature doesn't go back up over 27 (80.6 F) I'll be able to knock the bastards off by the end of May. It's back to West Gosford after that.

Clumps

Didn't see many fifties houses today. I walked on the south side of Ocean Beach Road and it's mostly forties and seventies there, with clumps of new units along the main road.


(Big version)

Got it at last. This one's been on my hit list for a while. I see it every time I go down Ocean Beach Road. The combination of fifties and iron lace is quite startling in the flesh. These people really would be happier in a nice old cottage.

The facade has come off worse in the deal too. That window above the door probably makes a huge difference to the light inside but it just looks weird. The purple thing on the right window appeared to be painted wood or metal blocking the window completely rather than an awning.


(Big version)

This place had me puzzled for a while and I'm still not sure about the veranda. The front part of the veranda, with the lower roof, is clearly an eighties or nineties add-on. What's got me stumped is the higher part of the veranda.

Was the brick frontage inserted into the existing roofline of a fifties house or was the higher part of the veranda added after the brick using fifties materials? I'm calling the main part of the house fifties rather than seventies due to the fifties depth of the eaves and the age of the garage (below).


(Big version

Blasted tree. Very inconveniently placed for my photo. Anyways. The pitch on the roof of that garage suggests that this house is not seventies as its front (above) suggests but fifties with a careful seventies reno. What say you?


(Big version)

It's rare to get a clear view of a cabin. This one was worth the inclusion of the fence. I like for its colour. I remember that colour from somewhere in my Nana's house.

It was a quiet walk today. Hardly a dog to be found. Normally when I'm walking streets or lanes the local dogs go berserk behind their fences. They're bored stupid and like to make the most of a stranger in their midst. Today there was one barker and one silent mutt that poked its tiny head through the fence hopefully and that was it.

To make up for it there was a rich odour of dog shit rising from one backyard. Either they've got a dozen dogs, they never pick it up or they're buying it by the kilo to use as fertiliser.

A block along there was a faint scent of orange jessamine. They're almost finished now, more's the pity. The frangipanni are still going strong all over the Peninsula and the flowering gums as well. There's still a fair amount of roses and grevillea or whatever they're called but not much else. The next big flowering will be the Magnolia denudata in late winter.

Walked further than I expected. It was hot but there was a bit of shade in the lanes. Didn't stop much either so I got into that nice rhythmic stride you get in a decent walk.

Interactive

Made a new interactive map at Flickr. Go there and click on the links on the map to see the views.

In the afternoon

The cool change came through while I was eating lunch. Gobbled it down, snatched up my camera and shot out into it. Good strong breeze and cool with it. The sun was pretty hot still but I got a decent walk in, a few more lanes behind Whatsit Street.


(Big version)

Nice effort on the noughties reno but the windows need to be the same level as the doors or each other and those bushes or trees or whatever are going to look weird and bunched up when they get big.


(Big version)

This was the clearest view available of this house. There were a lot of fifties houses where I walked today but half of them were even more obscured than this one.

Check out the frangipannis. Beautiful and as old as the house. Can't guess the age of the tea tree at the front.


(Big version)

Fifties house, sixties (?) windows, seventies brick-over, noughties paintjob. And is that thing under the tree an old copper boiler of the kind my great-grandmother used for washing clothes? Anyone?


(Big version)

Not sure what looks weirder, a fifities house with a bullnose veranda or one with a brick over. Other than the weirdness it was well-kept and pleasant.


(Big version)

I think the front bit is a seventies addition with new awnings imitating the fifties look but don't quote me on that, the guttering on the front corner might be older than the seventies.


(Big version)

Argh. I'm hating the tacky brick-over and the flyscreens don't improve it but the shape of the house is not bad.


(Big version)

Working on the assumption that the brick veranda and the addition happened at the same time, I'd put the two-storey addition in the sevenites. Those two big windows have a seventies look too, with that wide band across the middle.


(Big version)

I like this one, cladding aside. Nice fifties colours and original veranda posts by the look of it. It was also a clear shot after several really obscured houses.

This documenting the fifties houses is fun. There's a lot more of them that I noticed when I was walking the streets of the Peninsula last year but not nearly as many as the forties and seventies houses.

It's got overcast again since I got home and with any luck it'll rain and bring the temperature down properly.

Flowers for Gran

These proteas are flowering on the Peninsula now. Gran would have loved them. Saw them in the florist so I got some.


(Big version)


(Big version)


(Big version)


(Big version)


(Big version)

I'm waiting for a cool change that's due at lunchtime. Too hot to walk this morning. I ain't sticking my nose outdooors until it's cool.

Fat Man Walking

Steve, the guy who's walking across America, is now in Ohio and is looking for people to walk with him for a bit.

Don't know that I'd have the staying power to walk from one side of America to the other, or Australia for that matter. He has my utmost admiration. When he started he weighed 410 lbs (185.97 kilos) and he now weighs 296 lbs (134.26 kilos). The average bloke weighs 80 - 90 kilos I'm told so he's lost more than half a bloke in weight. Quite an achievement on its own.

Keep going, Steve. You'll make it.

Cabin fever

Christ, it was good to get out of the house this morning. I've been holed up in here for a week fighting off the flu and the heat. Clear as a bell yesterday but the rainclouds came rolling in this morning. Pretty warm today and the last few days. Summer's not giving up without a fight.



I started at the beach. Lion Island looked very close in the morning sun and the lighthouse on Barrenjoey Head was visible (large version). There were the usual dog-walkers and tourists lazing in the sun and a chubby bloke in a tight tee shirt gazing out to sea and scratching his balls in a meditative manner.


(Big version)

The streets behind Whatsit Street (West Street) are rich in fifties houses. Not all of them are terribly exciting or in original nick but there you go. This one had a comforting sort of blockiness. Also note the fridge lurking against the right corner of the house.


(Big version)

This one I like, not least because it's closer to the original condition. When fifties places've been clad it takes a lot of their charm away. The charmless seventies windows are not as obtrusive as on other places. They'd look better with some of those metal awnings Writer is after but at least they're in the original spots.


(Big version)

Couldn't get a clear view of this one but it wasn't bad. It had that angled wall thing happening at each end of the veranda.


(Big version)

This one was barely visible. Nearly walked past it. A pretty ordinary example.


(Big version)

This one was in fairly good nick and I quite like the shape. Can't see much of it here. No idea if pink is an original fifties colour.


(Big version

Crying shame there was no clear view of this one head on but it's still a nice-shaped place. Pity about the shadecloth but there's a welcome absence of cladding. The paint looked a few decades old but I don't know that it was original.

Afters

Some excellent Mardi Gras photos up at Flickr, Al-Fatiha, a Canberra support group for Muslim queers and scroll down here for the Salaam/Queer Muslims email.

Fighting fit

Or not.

There I was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, raring to go after a week of laying about with the flu. Gobbled some breakfast down, strapped on the camera and stepped out the front door. And wobbled. Seems I wasn't as fine as I felt.

So I tottered carefully off to the supermarket for supplies then straight back home. Little lie-down after lunch and maybe I'll be okay for walkies tomorrow morning. Stupid flu.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Can't hardly believe the Parade's here already. And here am I with the fucking flu again. Admittedly it's on the wane but thrusting my way through the parade crush and getting coughed and slobbered on by all and sundry would hardly be the road to full and complete recovery. I'll thrust next year.

The Parade started in 1978. The marchers had a permit to march but the police didn't like it and some bashing went on. 28 years later and we're still marching and the police march with us. I marched in 2003 and it was fucking brilliant. It's not on the telly tonight, more's the pity, but HMV and Sanity will have the DVD and the dance CD when they come out.

Linkage
RTA - road closures around the parade route
131500 - bus, train & ferry info
Parade FAQ

Parade history
Interview with 78ers

Australian Bisexual Network
Dayenu - Sydney Jewish Gay & Lesbian Support
TenTwenty - GLBT youth
PFLAG - Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Gays
Sydney Asian Lesbians - PO Box 817 Newtown 2042
Sydney Asian Gays - try Fridae.com
Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby
ACON - community, health & action

Star Observer - more poof & dyke community & support listings
LOTL - more dyke community & support listings

Cool and wet

Had a couple of last weekend or Monday. Don't remember. The second one was better and lasted about an hour. Bit of wind and some decent rain too.



Looks almost daylight here. The storm was about five minutes away. Saw a couple of really great clear strikes when it was close but those ones always happen when you're fiddling with the camera rather than operating it.

Captured by the video function on my camera. This is as good as the resolution gets.



I love how menacing the sky looks in this one. The storm was moving away when this one was taken.

Captured by the video function on my camera sitting on the windowsill. That's its recording light reflected in the window.

Been in bed with the flu the last two days. Hopefully it's over. Don't want to go through another six week bout like last year. At least this year no-one's in danger of dropping off the twig.

Cribbs Lane

Spent a few hours on an archaeological dig in The Rocks last Friday. Between Cumberland and Gloucester Streets, across the road from the wee museum at Susannah Place and not far from the Coathanger (the Harbour Bridge).


(Bigger, close up of the site below)

They were looking for volunteers for washing and sorting of the stuff they were digging up. There was no way I was going to pass up the chance to get onto an active dig site in The Rocks.

I noticed the site last time I was up that way. It’s nothing spectacular to look at. Bit of empty ground between two streets, mesh fence round it, pub at one end, nice old terrace houses at the other.

But right now it's an active archaeological dig and you can see the old cobbled lane up the middle the old drain emptying onto Gloucester Street, the well and the foundations of several tiny old houses. Cool!


The lane at the bottom is Long Lane which runs from Gloucester Street (right) up to Cumberland Street. The short lane in the shaded area is Cribbs Lane. The lane between Cribbs and Long is Carahers Lane. The wider curved road is the Bradfield Hwy/Cahill Expressway.

Scrunched up in the top corner of the site against the pub was a small shipping container for the tools. Stretched between it and the fence was a tarp for the sorters and washers. It was a hot day when I went, another storm building up. We washers and sorters crowded under the shade of the tarp, diligently scrubbing away at the shards and bits with our toothbrushes, entertained by the students' tales of nutty lecturers and finds on previous digs. We gently brushed grot off shards of bone and bits of metal. Bits of china and glass and shell we dipped in the buckets and scrubbed carefully.

Plenty of big pieces of bone like the cow's hip socket and ball had been coming up from the slaughteryard level in one of the holes. Other than that, most of the stuff was broken pieces of bone, old pins and bits of wire, broken pipe-stems and so on. The sort of stuff that drops between rough floorboards and into the foundations below. There’d also been a tiny bottle discovered and a few years ago (if I remember right) one of the wells was dug up and whole unbroken plates and stuff were found in it.


(Big version) Carahers Lane

You could get onto the site through the gate near the pub (Australian Hotel) on Cumberland Street or you could come up through the lanes from George Street, up the old steps beside Susannah Place, along Gloucester Street a few yards, up Long Lane, right into Carahers Lane and in through the gate halfway along Carahers. Then you walked to where Carahers met Cribbs Lane and up Cribbs to the sorting area.


(Big version) Long Lane from the Gloucester Street end

Coming in the lanes way gave a better feel for the layout of the place. It must've been pretty claustrophobic. The lanes were only about six feet wide and houses were crammed together back then, with bugger all consideration for health and safety. Must've whiffed something cruel too, all those outdoor loos and no sewerage.


(Big version) Gloucester Street end of Long Lane, the lane is on the right

There were houses on the site in the 1790s. In 1809 Cripps arrived from England, having been convicted of cattle rustling, set up a house and slaughteryard on the site and proceeded to ply the trade of butcher and get into more trouble with the law. After the slaughterhouse was gone, there were more houses.


(Big version) Gloucester Street end of Long Lane, Long Lane on the left, the fence round the dig then more Gloucester Street terraces on the right


(Big version) Susannah Place is directly across the road. It's an old row of terrace houses with a shop at the end. The shop has been turned into a shop museum and is cool.


(Big version) Back of Susannah Place

It was a fun day. Doing the whole dig might get a bit tedious but a few hours washing the dirt off old pipe stems and buttons and bits of cups was interesting. There was a strong connection to past lives from handling mundane everyday stuff they used. I sat there hunched over the broken pieces of their stuff, imagining them in their tiny houses, a button coming off someone's shirt as they got dressed for work and them swearing as it disappeared between two floorboards. And maybe when they got home from work they sat out on the back step having a smoke and listening to the playing in the cobbled lane.

Potted histories, photos, that sorta thing:

Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority - A history of the dig site, its future, an aerial photo & a photo of the dug out bits

NSW Heritage Office - Long and Carahers Lane

Archaeological Excavation, 1994-1996 - download a case study of a previous dig at the site


(Big version) Sydney Harbour Bridge from outside the dig in Cumberland Street

One year

It's the 1st of March today. One year since I started my every-street walkies.

When I started I was so fucking unfit I made it round the block once. So I decided to walk every single street of the Peninsula.

I need powerful motivation to exercise regularly. Fitness itself is not enough for me. Martial arts had me exercising regularly and happily but I'd been too sick for that for two years or more. Came across Caleb Smith's New York Walk site and decided that was for me and I've been walking the streets ever since.

Caleb got to know Manhattan well by walking every single street and I've got to know the Woy Woy Peninsula well doing the same. Seeing every nook and cranny of it has really kept me going.

I've gone from once round the block and a four hour nap after (no exaggeration) to the Long March four months later and longer walks since. I had a month off between my 1st and 2nd walks due to six weeks of the flu and a few walks have been missed and the worst of summer has buggered me about but I've walked three times a week on average for a year.

I've walked all of the Peninsula and halfway round Brisbane Water. The heat's slowed me down a lot in the last couple of months but it looks like I'll get right the way round Brisbane Water by this time next year.

What will I do then? Keep going. This place is beautiful and there's a thousand more photos to take. I know it better than half the people who've lived here all their lives and I want to know more. I want to know every creek and bay and view, every street and lane and beautiful old house, every park and beat, every library and pub, every hill and ridge and brush turkey.

Autumn starts today and over the next few weeks the temperature will drop and the cold crisp mornings will be back. Great walking weather. I can power ahead again in the cold weather and get back to training for walking the Woy Woy to Gosford fun run in June.



Orange outlines = intended walkies area
Orange blocked in = walked areas (blanks on the Peninsula are the golf course & Blackwall Mountain)
Green lines = hills & ridges
Blue lines = water features

Clockwise from bottom left:
Patonga, Pearl Beach, Woy Woy Peninsula (1st March - 29th September 2005)
The Bays (14th November - 19th December 2005)
Parks Bay (3rd October 2005)
Koolewong (22nd - 27th October 2005)
Tascott (1st - 11th November 2005
Point Clare (2nd - 16th December 2005)
West Gosford (21st - 29th December 2005)
Gosford & Point Frederick - top
Green Point
Yattalung, Saratoga & Davistown - double-headed peninsula
Kincumber (10th - 20th November 2005, 14th February 2006, unfinished)
Kincumber south
Bensville
Empire Bay
St Huberts Island (the only inhabited island on this map, 18th October 2005)
Daleys Point & Fishermans Bay
Hardys Bay
Killcare & Pretty Beach
Wagstaffe

19th century Sydney

Been trying to start this one for a while. Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. But I'm determined to start it this winter.

My 19th century will start in 1788 (arrival of the First Fleet) and end in 1932 (completion of Sydney Harbour Bridge).

I'm going to begin at the place where you can see the Tank Stream. The Tank Stream was the only source of fresh water in the first few years of the colony and is an ideal spot to start. When I find it I'll start.

In the meantime, there's plenty of walkies in and around Woy Woy to be going on with. Bring on the cold mornings!