Civilization came to visit

It's hard to believe we've been here almost a year. Once the shock of it all set in, I started to miss some things. But that isn't what this post is about...

It's about a little slice of civilization paying a visit. Yes, Mr. Joe Crow himself...

Cuervo is one thing. However, the mixer here is another. But then again, if you've never had a real Margarita this stuff would be the shizzle. The Aussies we made drinks for thought they'd found Nirvana - we didn't have the heart to tell them they were drinking Cuervo and green syrup.

The marketing of this product cracks me up. Take a closer look at the labels. El Rebozo? Is he the clown we all know and love from 1960's TV?

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Anyway, it was a nice slice of home - on ice. Nothing like La Cabana in Venice, but enough to remind me of what is North of the border.

Back in May, Mitch and I took a stroll....

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I use the above photo as wall paper on my laptop. This is where the trail starts, in East Linfield. The combination of rocks, gum trees and blue sky captures the beauty of the area.

The area in the above picture is a small feed that comes from the hills and dumps into the river by the Roseville bridge. We're probably 10-12 miles from mouth of Sydney harbor and you can see how it's low tide. When the tide comes in, the lower rock formation on the left gets covered and the trees on the right turn into a swamp.

This sandstone eye looked really freaky when you got up close. The eye itself is probably about a foot long with the whole formation being about 4-5 feet wide. There is was, just in the side of the cliff by the trail, watching us walk by... watching... watching....


Mitch and I had reached our destination... which wasn't really any sort of landmark. We just got tired and took a break before turning back. In the background is a very large park which is called the Roseville Bridge Picnic Area. It's a really nice park with lots of built in BBQ's, tables, small boat ramps, etc. There was no way for us to get to it from here, unless we of coarse we did the backstroke. No thanks!


Just one of the many cool rock formations that are along the trail.
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Mitch, Kevin and I

Just thought I'd post a recent photo of my me, Mitch and Kevin. This was taken at the Artillery Museum up on the North Head of Sydney Harbor. Kevin was here for the month of July and since Mitch's school was on Winter Break at the same time, I took some time off from work. We spent everyday doing something different and kept ourselves very busy. It went by far too quickly. Even though it's posed, I like this photo.

The Q-Station

Last month, my oldest son Kevin came to visit from Florida. He and I share a lot of interests... Historical stuff as well as ghosts, the supernatural, etc.

I'd heard of the Q-Station (The Quarantine Station) and wanted to visit - after all, its a historical site and supposed to be haunted. The Station was set up in 1835 to quarantine incoming ships and passengers for a minimum of 40 days. This was to prevent infectious diseases from being passed to the local population. What's interesting about the Station is that it was set up by class definition around 1873. First class passengers had really nice accommodations, facilities, food, recreation facilities and freedoms, whereas not much is said about second or third class. Guess they didn't have the "freedoms" money could buy.

It's also blatantly obvious the buildings were built by class. The first class buildings are now used as a hotel of sorts. You can rent them out for a few days if you want. On the other hand, the third class accommodations were open dormitory type buildings that had common eating areas. Surprisingly, these are not rented out as they could probably make a killing with the backpackers, etc. The shower blocks reminded me of my Jr. High School gym showers too. Sucks to be in steerage.

The buildings are spread out but separated by class as well. The first class buildings are closer to the dock and have nice views of the harbor, whereas the third class buildings are on the far end and require more walking. I'm sure the classes didn't mix while at the Station either, and I'll bet any boundaries or fences have long since been removed.

Here is one of the first class buildings...

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This is just a hallway near the hospital building. We took lots of photos of odds things - windows, doorways, etc, trying to capture ghosts. With our focus on ghosts and where they might be lurking, we failed to get any really decent pictures of the buildings and architecture.


Here is a view from the hospital building looking toward Sydney. Off to the far right (out of sight) would be Manly and on the left (out of sight as well) is the harbor opening.

We really wanted to check out the cemetery because hey, lets face it, we wanted to see ghosts. But the cemetery is off limits and the only way you can gain access to it is by taking a paid guided tour with a group. Since we just sort of showed up that day and hadn't booked any sort of reservation, we just wandered around by ourselves. Nobody paid any attention to us - sucks to be treated like third class steerage.

Speaking of ghosts, what do you see in this photo? Look in the lower left pane of the window. Is that a face looking out toward the right? We think it is... This was taken at the post office building. I've shown this to several people and they've gotten creeped out by it. What do you think?

One of the coolest sights at the Q-Station (in my opinion) are the rock carvings. I'm not talking about ancient indigenous rock carvings - I'm talking about these:

Ships:
Forest Monarch - built in 1851. Click to see the passenger manifest - note the "35 Child Male Passenger Immigrants" & "46 Child Females Passenger Immigrants".
Annie Wilson -
Nineveh - If you look at this link, it has the complete passenger listing. Complete families are listed. I can't help but imagine what it must of been like for them traveling so long and far.

We all know what happened to this ship - In May of 1915, ten years later, it was sunk by a German U-Boat.
Carvings like this are all over the dock area...
Peerless - On this manifest, it notes "132 Single Males & 131 Single Females". Maybe this was the very first "Love Boat"? No mention of the quantity of rum consumed....

Overall, a very cool place to visit if you are ever here in Sydney. They have ghost tours late at night, so if you're into that stuff it'd be a great place to check out. Maybe I'll take a tour soon and let you know.

A lunch time stroll

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It was such a nice day today, I decided to take my lunch out in the bush. Granted it's easier when you work from home and the bush is only 10 minutes away. On a whim at about 11:45, I hoped in the car and drove to a place I've seen off the side of Wakehurst Parkway. Wakehusrt Parkway heads toward Manly if you are driving south. Along Wakehurst Parkway is a very nice stretch of bush called Warringah National Park.

I just stopped the car at a known trial head and started walking...


After about 100 yards on to the trail, this is the view back. Total isolation...


I didn't plan to stay long - just get outside and enjoy the sun, air and the distinctive Australian countryside. There were no other people around (being Monday) and it was really quite and serene. Kookaburra's were laughing here and there and overall, it was just really cool.


This is the awesome blue Australian sky. I can look at it all day long...


What a great way to spend your lunch... Note how this Red Gum tree has grown right over the rock. I have no idea how old the tree is, but the trunk is over twice my girth.


Some very small flowers that grow in the bush.



A view toward the city - which is probably 20-25 miles.

Kayaking Middle Harbor

This first post took me a while to get up and running. It's one of those things, "Ya, I'll start a blog in a few days..." I've been meaning to do it and we'll see how often I get around to posting things - I guess the main reason isn't so much to bore you with my ramblings of thought, but to post photos.

Sure, I could post them on Photo Bucket or some hosting service but I also wanted the freedom to add a few details to the pictures. What good is uploading a shot of some trees if you don't know the story behind it? Or why I went where I went? You get the idea.

I've always wanted to Kayak. After we'd moved to Washington, one of my hobbies was going to take up Kayaking. I took a class on Bainbridge and enjoyed it. However, the temperature of the water became a significant issue as well as the overall weather pattern. The water in Seattle was typically in the low 50's and kayaking involves splashing. Cold water and Don don't mix too well. Couple that with rain and fog and the outside air temp hovering at 60, it was just too much to ask for a beginner. Granted, the hard corps Kayakers thrive in that weather and love it. I'm not hard corps. To make a long story short, I put the whole kayaking thing on hold.

Now that we are in a warmer climate, those nagging kayaking thoughts came back to me. Two weekends ago I decided to go by myself an see what it'd be like in Sydney Harbor. The water here is calm (except near the heads) and fairly warm. If I tipped over and made a fool of myself, at least I wouldn't freeze in a matter of minutes. So off I went to rent a kayak....

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I found a rental place near the Spit Bridge and paddled up Middle Harbor. $22.00 an hour which included everything - Kayak, paddle & life vest. It's odd because the rental place didn't ask for any sort of "sign your life away" type of document. I gave them an emergency phone number and paid. That was it... no instruction either. I climbed into the thing and the dude in shorts above just pushed me off the sand. "Have fun mate!" Thankfully there was nobody else around because I struggled with it for a few minutes. If you tense up, the boat wobbles and capsizing is real. But if you chill and relax, all is good - and you glide through the water. So, I ponied up two hours worth and was off....


I passed under the Spit Bridge and headed up to Willoughby Bay. I paddled up through moored boats all the way just enjoying the moment. It was quite, warm out, and very peaceful.

Paddling around exploring the sand stone rock formations was really fun.


This guy was a long way from home!


I paddled into a small cove where the water was only about two feet deep... and I came upon this wreck. I hadn't read about it on any websites so it was a real mystery to me. I circled around it a few times taking different photos. There were two very large geese that made it their home and when they saw me, went to the highest point and started squawking. They flapped their wings to tell me to get lost, which I did in a hurry. The last thing I wanted to become was some short clip on a funniest video show. I can see it now.... "novice kayaker gets attacked by geese, tips over in shallow water, slices shoes and feet on sharp oyster shells and swims into channel to escape".
When I got home, I did a quick internet search and found out there are actually two ships located in the same area - Salt Pan Creek (which is directly across from Willoughby Bay). I found out this one is called the Itata. It was built in 1883 in Liverpool England and was destroyed by fire in Newcastle in 1906. It was towed to this location and abandoned where it's been sitting ever since.

With the the wreck being the highlight of my paddling day, I decided to head back as it was starting to close in on an hour and half. That left me with 30 minutes but I managed to take the leisurely way back and enjoy more of the sights.



I enjoyed this trip so much, I did it again this last weekend. But I'll post more later.