Bustling Downtown Hardys Bay

(Hardys Bay walkies #3)


(Embiggen)

A view from Araluen Drive to Hardys Bay Parade. Very restful spot with the sound of water slapping on boats and the seagulls all gone to Woy Woy for fish & chips.



Can't resist the combination of a twisty tree and wee boat. Low tide at Araluen Drive.



Early 20th century building with brand new houses on either side. Pretty typical of many Brisbane Water towns and particularly of Hardys Bay. It is not a town in which real estate is hard to sell.



Fifites house and the remains of its former companion. On the other side is an active building site. All of Araluen Drive is prime land, it's all waterfront.


(Embiggen)

Bustling Downtown Hardys Bay has everything one needs in a town:
waterfront cafes (far right & hidden behind loo)
public loo in which to find companionship (green, end of wharf)
real estate agent for those impulse buys (far right, part of cafe)
bottle shop (behind green & white boat)
street sloping down hill to provide picturesque-ness
glob of brand new units smack dab on waterfront (left of wharf)
quiet old houses to retain charm (left of glob)
public wharf to attract the tourists ("Killcare Street Public Wharf" says the sign)
public boat ramp (left of glob) for the use of locals unwilling to wade through tourists.

And, last but not least, it is but a short row across to the Ettalong pub.


Gotta love you and leave you. Plumber's bringing his plunger over in a sec. Hot it's the cute one this time.

Grey sky

(Today's photos)

It's raining again now. I stood at the window and watched it come across the rooftops towards me. First the cockies shot up into the sky between showers, screeching loud with their rusty voices, wheeling in flocks of white against the black clouds. Then they disappeared and the ridge misted over with rain and it came across the rooftops like a steady train coming towards me.

I laid in bed this morning until half past eight. It was not much lighter than before dawn and the bed was warm and soft and I could hear a soft shower on the tin roof of next door's garage. Bliss.

This rain got to the farmers. Poor bastards have been gasping for it for yonks and finally it's come. The state is only about 70% in drought now and those who know such things reckon it's going to be a wet winter. El Nino is pissing off and La Nina is coming.


(Embiggen)

There's plenty of flowers still out at this time of year. Banksia seed cones are falling like rain but there's still plenty of flowering cones.


(Embiggen)



(Embiggen)




There's a lot of non-native plants in Australian gardens. No idea what this one is but I like the red of the berries.


Fog

Sydney's been fogged out twice this week. There was an excellent picture on the telly last night of the top of the fog with just the Sydney Tower and the tops of a couple of other buildings sticking up through it.

We get a bit of Sydney's fogs here. It lays down along the top of the ridges and silences the birds. Wisps of it can still be seen mid-morning, caught in the folds and valleys. Quite beautiful.

Ettalong

Overcast this morning, completely overcast. Won't need the camera, says I, I'll just be going walkies without it. And I don't need it because it's overcast all through my walkies. Then the minute I step back inside the bloody sky clears! It's a conspiracy I tell you, a bleeding conspiracy! What that's, nurse? Time for my medicine?

So anyways, these are from a completely sunny day a while back. Enjoy, while I have a soothing snack of Valium.


(Embiggen)

Taken from Ettalong Beach near the Vietnam memorial.

That's Wagstaffe on the left and you can just see Half Tide Rocks off the right of it if you know what you're looking for (flat shelf of rock at water level).

Over on the left hand margin is the corner where Ettalong Beach ends and Ocean Beach starts. Those are flats and holiday rentals there on the very edge of the picture. The white line extending out to the left from that corner is the big sandbar, the last one the Palm Beach ferry has to avoid on its way back to Palm Beach.

In the distance you can see Barrenjoey Head, down into Pittwater, then Lion Island sticking up and Commodore Heights behind it.


(Embiggen)

Showing Lobster Beach and Little Box Head with Wagstaffe out of frame to the left. In the right foreground there's a couple of banksias providing some shade for the seagulls when they get tired of pulling tiny crabs out of the sand.

You can't see Lion Island in this one, it's behind the trees. Behind the 2nd boat from the right you can see Barrenjoey Head.



I like these. I like fifties retro. They look well made as well. None of yer slapped up crap. And those wee huts at either side of the gate must hide the bins and stuff. Very neat.

That's Blackwall Mountain behind (hur hur). As mountains go it's more of yer small hill.

Mireen Avenue

(Davistown walkies #5)

Fog this morning, laying thick over the ridges and hills. Inversion fog I think because we got cloud later.

Went back to Davistown. Got the Saratoga from Woy Woy across to Lintern Street Wharf and wandered East from there and into Mireen Avenue.



An old creek or relatively new storm drain. (Sometimes they're both.) Full from the recent rain and providing a lovely calm vista at the T junction of Emora Avenue and Mireen Avenue.

Mireen Avenue is one of the old streets of the old Yow Yow Estate, flogged in 1908 by Henry F Halloran who was a native Sydneysider and mover and shaker in coastal real estate.

His great-granddad was transported for being a fake priest, amongst other things, and was mates with Simeon Lord and John Macarthur.

Lord was an ex-convict who owned one of the largest houses in the colony of Port Jackson (Sydney). Lieutenant Macarthur of the New South Wales Corps (marines-cum-prison wardens who accompanied the First Fleet convicts in 1788) started sword-fights, started Australia's lucrative wool industry, established Elizabeth Farm, went off his nut and died in 1834.



'Inala' Mireen Avenue. A Bungalow front on an earlier house, probably 1900s. Icecream colour scheme, old rose bush, deep shaded backyard. A comforting house to look at.

There's another 'Inala' at Pearl Beach, one of those holiday houses. Pearl Beach fascinates me. Half the houses are holiday cottages and the place is like a fucking ghost town outside school holidays.



Natty fifties house. Well looked after and painted not that long ago.

The pot plants and what might be native lillies in the garden aren't yer classic fifties plants but they look smart against the white and blue of the house.



Ducks. Found out the breed then clean forgot it. Mallards? Something like that. Anyways, they're the common-or-garden variety for southern Australia.

The males have the most beautiful shades of purple and blue and green under their wings and on their necks. The colours change with the light as they move.

This lot were poking about for snails in the shady bits of someone's front garden. Wish they'd come round my place. Planted a geranium last week and it's been eaten down to a stalk.

It's another warm autumn afternoon here in Woy Woy and a couple of mynahs are sitting on my balcony railing peering in at me as I type. They're inquisitive birds and like to know what you're up to. They often sit and watch me put sunblock on then nod at each other and fly off.

Lady Kendall saved

(Random walkies)

Went off along Brisbane Water Drive today. There was a crane at Koolewong. There was a skip beside the crane, loaded with bits of old wood. I thought the Lady Kendall was off to the knacker's yard. But someone said no, she's off to Sydney to be restored and the bits in the skip were just garbage that came up with her.


(Embiggen)

Her bow all hooked up ready and waiting for the other crane to arrive. She looks like a fish skeleton, all ribs and head and tail.


(Embiggen)

Cleaning her up before her trip. She was full of seaweed and empty beer cans last week.


(Embiggen)

Cranes, skips, bits, blokes, the Lady herself, the barges and gawkers.


(Embiggen)

Lifting her onto the rocks. After that they cleaned up the barges and the cranes went home.


(Embiggen)

On the rocks. Where presumably she'll rest until carted off to be restored.


(Embiggen)

Her bow and midships. Note the red and white paint and the touch of blue amidships.


(Embiggen)

Her stern and propeller.


(Embiggen)

Drainage hole (?) and pump wheel. Amidships.

There was a cameraperson there from NBN (Northern Beaches Telly) so there should be some more about her on the telly tonight. 6PM their news is on. Sydneysiders, twiddle yer dial, you might be able to get it down to Dee Why.

Stingrays

(Embiggen)

See the stingray? Light patch in the middle, with its tail to the left. The stuff floating on the surface is dry plant bits blown into the water. The stuff under the water in the upper half of the photo is seaweed, that sort like strings of beads.

Thanks to Ami for these stingray photos. They were not moving, she said, just laying there on the bottom waving their tails occasionally.

This is in a few feet of water between Brisbane Water Drive and Pelican Island. From the photo below, it looks like it's no more than a hundred yards from Woy Woy.


(Embiggen)

The second one, again just laying there on the bottom in the shallow water. See it? Down the bottom there, that light patch.

Got an idea they're waiting for the wee fish to clean them. Like sharks get cleaned by pilot fish or whatever. It was on some doco the other night.

Either that or they're waiting for an Irwin.

"[N]ot aggressive" says the Australian Museum but raises "its tail which is capable of inflicting severe or potentially fatal wounds... above its back like a scorpion", as Steve Irwin found out.

Not sure what type of ray these two are but they fit the stats for the Smooth Stingray (Dasyatis brevicaudata): "a bottom-dwelling species which is recorded from temperate waters of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

In Australia it occurs from southern Queensland, around the south of the country and north to the central coast of Western Australia. It lives in coastal waters and estuaries from shallow water down to about 170 m."

Brisbane Water is an estuary and a very shallow one in places and it's in southern Australia.

I've seen rays a few times, mostly at ocean beaches where it's very shallow and calm. And the aquarium at Manly has a has a cool glass tunnel you walk through to look at the fish & rays & sharks. Stingrays don't so much swim as fly along like a very calm magic carpet. They're rather beautiful.

Smooth Stingray, includes video, Australian Museum.
Oceanworld Manly, the one with the tunnel.

Abandoned Austins

(Saratoga walkies #6)


(Embiggen)

Two abandoned Austins on Patrick Crescent Saratoga, opposite the path to Mimosa Avenue. The white one is an A40. The green one is an A35.

The A40 looks like it's a Farina Mark I. Farinas were made from 1959 to 1967. The Mark I has windows you have lower and lift by hand and the engine was 948 cc. I've seen a few of these in car rallies I'm sure. Them or Morries.


(Embiggen)


(Embiggen)

Interior of the A40. 45,571 miles on the clock.


(Embiggen)

The badge on the front says Austin. No other badges were visible. Umina Rampart on Flickr tells me it's an Austin A30/A35.

The A35 2-door 4-seat saloon was built from 1956 to 1959 with a 948cc engine. The A35 was superseded in 1959 by the A40.

Brockie's first racing car in 1967 was an A30, though his had a Holden engine.

An A30 van was Wallace's pest control vehicle in the Wallace and Gromit movie The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. My all-time favourite Wallace and Gromit.


(Embiggen)

Interior of the A35. That's another box of parts down there in the passenger side. The backseat was sprung and all the springs were showing. They were pretty rusty of course. There was a creeper starting to grow into the back.


(Embiggen)

No idea what's left under the bonnets. No way I was sticking my fingers into redback territory.

It's a crying shame to see two such fun old cars in this state. Maybe some Austin fancier will see this and rescue them. No idea who owns them but the local residents will probably be eager to get them sold and gone.

Turn off Avoca Drive at the Green Point roundabout and it's the fifth street on your right, Patrick Crescent, right up the back. Or walk through from Mimosa Avenue.

Wreck of the Lady Kendall

(Click photos for big versions)

Pop along and have a look at her. She's at the boat ramps on Brisbane Water Drive between Koolewong and Tascott stations.

She's currently sitting on a barge, having been raised recently. She sunk in January 2006. She's owned by Alan Draper, the guy who runs the Starship Cruises (lunch cruises) out of Gosford. She was once the ketch Lenna of Taswegian (Tasmanian).

There's another boat of the same name, the Lady Kendall II. She's a modern ferry currently doing lunch cruises on Brisbane Water. See her here.



The prow (front AKA pointy end) with anchor chain hole.

The article on her in today's hard copy of the Express Advocate has a picture of her as a ferry. Very smart she looks, all white with red trim.



She's crusty with barnacles and full of seaweed but you can still see her red paint shining through.



Amidships. That's the middle bit of the boat. I know that from a misspent youth spent watching old war movies.

She was built in Tasmania and launched there in 1903. She was a ketch called Lenna. 21 metres long and twin-masted. She carried logs to Hobart and later worked as a fishing boat in Bass Strait (between Tassie and the mainland).

She won in her class in the Hobart Regatta in 1940, '47, '50 and '54. In 1966 she was converted to a ferry in Melbourne, re-named the Lenna Bird and worked as a tourist ferry on the Gippsland Lakes in Victoria. In 1985 she came up here.



Looking towards the stern (back end) from amidships.

Before the railway came trading ketches took farm produce from Brisbane Water to Sydney. It's 18.2 nautical miles from Barrenjoey Lighthouse to the Sydney Heads. Dunno what that is in kilometres but it can't be more than a morning's sail.



The stern view. You can see the propeller there on the left.

She's off back to Tassie soon. The Tasmanian Wooden Boat Museum is going to restore her to her former glory.

January article
May article, drawing & podcast on her history


Fake doctor

Some guy wearing a stethescope tried to drag a woman out of Wyong Hospital on Sunday night. He got sprung but ran off. He's 40-45, got "dark hair and a bald spot", orders the nurses around and flashed an army badge as ID. Express Advocate article.

Bustling Downtown Pretty Beach

(Pretty Beach walkies #1)

To get to Pretty Beach, follow the signs on Wards Hill Road or get the Codock from Woy Woy Wharf. Get off at Hardys Bay and follow Araluen Drive to the track or get off at Wagstaffe, go left at the shop along Wagstaff Avenue and left into Pretty Beach Road and Bob's yer uncle. (Map)

Pretty Beach has eight streets. That's two more than Wagstaffe. On the other hand, Wagstaffe has a shop and Pretty Beach has none, not a one.



1950s house on Pretty Beach Road. The only thing missing from this place is a cactus in the front garden. Otherwise, it's got everything. Those great windows, the original colours (and probably the original paint) there on the eaves, the mismatching vents lending quirk, the deckchairs on the veranda, the old wooden doors on the garage, the classic painted tyres as verge markers.

Pretty Beach Road Pretty Beach.



This place is also genuine fifties I think. It's right next to the place above. The reno is hardly sympathetic but they've make good use of what was there and that nice big balcony makes the most of the view across the water to Ettalong.

Pretty Beach Road Pretty Beach.



The ubiquitous mangroves, dingies and a dunny.



You can never have too many photos of dingies.



Pretty Beach's throbbing town centre. Crowded, isn't it? It's got a boat ramp, a jetty, a resting place for indolent dingies, a beach, public baths (sea bath), a fish gutting table, a sign exhorting slowcoaches to get a wriggle on and a public loo. What more could one ask?

"BOAT RAMP MAY
BE SLIPPERY
PERSONS USING
RAMP DO SO AT
THEIR OWN RISK"

"5 MIN
MAXIMUM
ON BOAT
RAMP

BY ORDER OF GCC"

GCC is of course Gosford City Council, them what reigns over us here on Brisbane Water.



Going to rack and ruin but still a lovely old house. Good spot too, gazing dreamily across the sandbars to Ettalong.

Next to it a new house was being built and this one is not likely to last long. Pity, it lends its dreamy ambience to the whole of Pretty Beach's waterfront. Pop along and see it before it goes.

These photos are the whole of Pretty Beach's waterfront, by the way. It's maybe a hundred yards long.



Left to right: Booker Bay Road Ettalong, Mount Pleasant (Saratoga) in the background and Fishermans Bay/Daleys Point.

In the foreground is the start of the track through to Hardys Bay.



Track from Pretty Beach to Hardys Bay. Popular dog walking spot and the quickest way to Hardys. On the right is mangroves and the water, on the right, up that breakneck slope, is houses on Heath Road. Most of them have kayaks in their back garden. How'd you be just hopping over the back fence with yer kayak under yer arm, just off for an early morning paddle? Bliss.

Buggered

No proper walkies today. Stopped after a couple of hundred yards. I am absolutely buggered. This happens every now and then and is something I'm learning to live with. Thank yer for all the nice get-well-soons.



This is a banksia tree at Point Clare. Banksias are named after Joseph Banks. Who was the botanist on the Endeavour when Cook came to suss out Australia in 1770. That's 18 years before the first whitefellas came to stay in Australia.

Cook was of course the last captain to tour Australia successfully, as many a cricket fan will tell you.


(Big one)

Banksia cone off the same tree. The leaves had smooth edges and the flowering cones were bright yellow. Some were going to seed.


(Big one)

Cones gone (left) and going (right) to seed. Off a different tree (saw leaf banksia) but you get the idea. At the top and left of the left cone there's a few opened pods and in the middle a few still unopened.

The left one played the bad guy in Snugglepot & Cuddlepie.

Good banksia photos



This is today. There's a bit of breeze and rain coming up from Sydney but plenty of warm sun to potter about in. Good day for being out and about.

Left to right: Saratoga, Daleys Pt, Woy Woy & Koolewong from Brisbane Water Drive Tascott.


Update


(Click on them for big versions)

Lorraine AKA 144 Railway Street Woy Woy, has been painted. That's her before photo on the left and her after on the right. I like both versions but she's a damn sight easier to photograph in the new colours. She was built in about 1912 and had a refurbishment several years back.


Another look

How close to the houses was the 2006 New Year's Day fire at Umina? Bloody close as Mark Simpson's photos show.