Exquisitely our harbour

McElhone Park in front of Elizabeth Bay house

Using a printed Google map, we weaved our way via lanes and walking paths from Rushcutters Bay to Beare Park and McElhone park in Elizabeth Bay. This entire area is to die for. And talk about secluded ... on the final weekend of winter there were people sunbathing in swimming costumes!

Elizabeth Bay house is the georgian style building with the dome in the centre of this photo taken from a ferry in the harbour

The view back across Elizabeth Bay as I made my way between the apartments up toward McElhone Park

Elizabeth Bay lies between Rushcutters Bay and Wooloomooloo Bay all of which are accessible via walking paths. In the suburb named after the wife of Governor Lachlan Macquarie, Elizabeth Bay house was built in 1837 for Alexander Macleay who was the Surveyor-General of the colony. Is is managed by the Historic Houses Trust and is open to the general public. I did not have enough time to do it justice, so will return next week.

And from the top, looking back over the park to the harbour beyond. Clark Island lies straight ahead

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MYM - Daffodil Day

Unfazed by the chilly wind blowing up the concourse, the students of Sydney Girls’ High and Sydney Boys’ High bustled around their stall at Central Station on Friday last. Their enthusiasm and happiness were infectious as they did a roaring trade extracting donations from the floods of commuters.

Based on a similar day in Canada, and established as an Australia-wide event in 1992, Daffodil Day raises around $8,000,000 to assist in the fight against cancer.


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Stairway to somewhere

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In days of old when knights were bold

In April, I attended my very first historical reenactment festival. 'Iron Fest' was held in Lithgow a small town west of Sydney. The enthusiasm of the participants was infectious.

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A paean to the much maligned Ibis

Prehistoric remnant Migrating for survival Sacred Ibis.

In Ancient Egypt, the god Thoth who helped the sun journey across the sky, was often depicted as an Ibis whose crescent shaped beak was reminiscent of the moon.

Garbage rummager Scavenging for survival Straw-necked Ibis.

Although the Ibis has all but disappeared in modern Egypt, archaeologists have found the mummified remains of over a million Ibises in the Serapeum at Saqqara near Memphis.

Urban asylum-seeker Pilloried victim Australian White Ibis.

Increasingly over the last twenty five years, the White Ibis has migrated to urban areas depleting former breeding grounds like the Macquarie Marshes in northern NSW.

Vulnerable species Ancient symbol Ibis.

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Equally red

In urban myth, red hair is linked with freckles and pale skin, with determination and a fiery temper. Red-heads are teased with nick-names like ‘carrot top’ and ‘blue’. The vogue nick-name is ‘ranga’. This could be influenced by ‘South Park’, but it could also be derived from ‘orangutang’, an animal with a fiery coat.


Last Saturday, Australia had a federal election. The two major parties are tied on 71 seats, needing 76 to obtain a majority and form a government with the ‘confidence’ of the House. One seat has still not been determined. Seven seats have been won by independent candidates who belong to neither of the major parties. Our politicians are currently all out the back of the weather-shed having a fisticuff to see who wins the trough to stick their snout into!

The ranga is our care-taker Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. She has committed a few blues during her term and is luring the independents with carrots.



A member of the Theme Thursday community. A post in response to this visual prompt.

F is for Free

He didn’t start with that name.

He was one of three ‘Heinz‘ dogs that adopted my brother many years ago, too long ago for him to remember. They appeared out of the blue, jumped on the back of the ute, and hitched a ride to where-ever. He had only gone into town for tins of soup and sliced peaches and powdered milk from the Co-op.

They answered to the call ‘dogs’. ‘Car’n dogs! Let’s go.’

A few months later, the two larger dogs, in an explosion of high spirits, jumped off the Jackaroo tray, high-tailed it across the paddock, under the fence, and into the bush. That was the last Baz saw of them, probably got lost looking for another soft-touch to hitch a ride with.

Baz turned to go inside, when he stumbled over the kelpie. ‘Car’n Free. Let’s eat.’

They have been inseparable ever since, Baz and Free.


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Suburban dreams of young lasses

The rutted track meandered along the rear of expensive suburban villas and opened onto a cleared plateau in the midst of Sydney bush. The north shore of Sydney is riddled with landscape like this. Along the track snuck gas-guzzling 4WDs like visions from a consumerist past, each towing a horse-float fit for two!


A Sunday post-election gymkhana for the 'haves'. Walking the course, obtaining the judging rules, sipping over-roasted coffee, wisps of steam gleaming in the early morning sun. Mummies and daddies and teenage girls busy themselves with grooming and braiding, tufts of hay and huddled tactics.

Familiarity breeds contempt of the natural beauty around them - the bush turkeys scratching their way out of the gullies, the magnolia unfolding in the pre-spring warmth.


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The good ole days

Pumpkin is a very popular vegetable in Australia and is a favourite when roasted with potatoes and onions around a leg of lamb for the main family meal on a Sunday. It is also used to mash together with potatoes, butter and pepper and salt. Pumpkin soup is popular as are Pumpkin scones. Pumpkin Pie is not particularly popular in Australia.

These photos of 'Queensland Blue' pumpkins were taken on Saturday as I wandered around the new 'farmer's market' at Taylor Square in Darlinghurst. Although sunny and 18C the wind was bitter and chilly. Similar to the bitter winds that blew through our political establishment that very same day. Over the next 14 days, we await the result of a 'hung' parliament.


When my father was demobbed from the AIF (Australian Imperial Forces) in November 1945, he determined never to go back and work for a boss! Instead, he bought an old Bedford truck, constructed a frame for the rear tray, covered it with canvas, attached a large set of scales, and set up 'shop' as a door to door 'fruit'n'veg' man on the north shore of Sydney.

He would travel down to Paddy's Markets in the city twice a week, and spend the rest of the week selling to house-wives in Turramurra, Wahroonga, Waitara, Hornsby, Asquith and Normanhurst. He did this until the middle of 1956 when he decided to move to the country and chance his arm as a farmer. To this day, he can tell the difference between pumpkins. He can tell a Butternut from a Kent, a Golden Nugget from a Queensland Blue.


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Thank you to Elaine for contacting me about my incorrect definition of AIF (I said Infantry instead of Imperial). Thanks for the heads-up, Elaine.

Pinged!

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Caught red handed

Frollicking on the harbour in 'Radar' a Balmain Heritage ferry, I befriended this old codger and his wife who both had a great sense of humour.


So would I, if I had a hip-flask in my back pocket!


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The Wedding Cakes

Green Eastern Channel Light

Today the harbour was buffetted by fresh to strong north-westerly winds. However, the temperature reached 25C even though we are still in winter. I joined about 80 afficionados from the Maritime Museum for a 3 hour tour by heritage ferry around some of the lighthouses located in the outer harbour.


There are two channel light houses in the outer part of Sydney Harbour which are known as the Wedding Cakes, for fairly obvious reasons. The lighthouse with the green light is in the Eastern Channel (built in 1908) and the lighthouse with the red light is in the Western Channel (built in 1924).

There are about 30 lighthouses of various types dotted around Sydney Harbour indicating the deepest channels and warning of submerged reefs and other dangers. Over the years, upwards of 90 collisions have resulted in a vessel sinking. They are not all still on the harbour floor.

Red Western Channel Light

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'Brush up your Shakespeare ...

... start quoting him now' penned the swellegent Mr Cole Porter in 'Kiss me Kate', his riff upon 'The Taming of the Shrew' which took Broadway by storm in 1948.

Thinking along parallel lines, permit me to take a Shakespearian brush to these photographs taken in Castlereagh Street in the City, opposite Tattersalls.

Here we have our modern-day Hamlet, hanging out on the battlements of down-town Sydney, wondering whether he has the gumption to 'off' his mummy's new fella or whether he should just nip into the 'Elephant & Castle' on the corner for another coldie.

To be or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

'A midi of Tooheys Old, please mate' ...

A member of the Theme Thursday community. This post is in response to the prompt 'brush'.

E is for end of the road

Like ageing vertebrae, wheel rims slice through the perished tyres, leaving the skeleton of the once proud Kombi languishing within its earthen tomb. The duco peels, enticing rust to penetrate further. Rainwater trickles unimpeded between windscreen wipers to the very heart of the beast which lies silent and bereft within the decaying frame. A door stands absentmindedly ajar, a beacon for a slither of snake and a web of spider, a belfry of bat and a crunch of cockroach.

It rests, past its use-by-date, alone and unattended in the paddock. Within reach of the shed stacked high with spare parts, with oil guns, with wheel jacks, with tyres saved from neighbouring heaps. Inexorably sinking into the squelch of the primordial slime, the van is reclaimed by the jungle, abandoned and exhausted.

A forlorn sight, engulfed by the glowing grasses, consumed by earth, wind, and water, it endures its inevitable fate.


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Lux aeternam, requiem aeternam

Reginald Gordon Garlick, beloved husband of Nellie Accidentally killed at Maroubra Speedway 8th January 1927 Aged 39 years.

A most popular, highly skilled devotee of automobile speedway racing, whose career was tragically ended, whilst about to achieve another of his triumphs. Erected by his many respecting and sorrowing friends.


Perched high on the southern cliff that protects Sydney Harbour, lies the South Head General Cemetery. Covering a mere 4 acres and with just 6,000 grave sites this cemetery received it first interment in 1869. It is small when compared with the Waverley Cemetery down in Bronte (40 acres and 50,000) or the massive Rookwood Cemetery out in Lidcombe with its interments in excess of a million over 700 acres.

As I wandered the pathways, I met William Deakin who died in 1941 aged 35, whose wife Sarah lived on until 1988 when she was 82. I acknowledged Daisy Elisabeth Williams who died in 1932 aged 13. I chatted away to Beatrice Wynne Carter, simply known as ‘Little Betty’. I sat with Walter Cooper Brown who died in 1946 aged 48, buried together with his son, Richard Lockwood Brown, who died in 1929 aged 2.

I watched as the morning sun reflected off a skink, sunning itself on their headstone.


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A golden oldie

Thursday evening at the very beginning of the homeward 'rush', commuters stride up the rise to Paddington Town Hall, built in the 1880s, the foundation stone bearing the proud name, Sir Henry Parkes. The clock tower was added in 1905. Within this building is my local library, and a cinema, Chauvel, which screens independent and foreign language films. The last film I saw there was 'Me and Orson Welles. We are looking east.


Looking west in 1960, back the way we just came,we see trams coming and going. Our current Paddington Reservoir Gardens was a delapidated service station. The creamy yellow is a much better shade for the Town Hall, don't you think?


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