By the seaside

A superb looking day with board riders at Flat Rock and Whale watching activities.  Visibility was A1 and the hilly peakes at Port Stephens were particularly clear not that this photo reveals much of that.

Unusual boat seen leaving the port.

Hoegh Autolines - company from Norway, RoRo type, carrying for example cars, buses, trains, machinery. Bon voyage!

City Hall

City Hall is renewed. After several years work the exterior stone looks terrific and better than new. 

Officials presided at a reopening along with music some of which was presented by Broadmeadow school of Performing Arts.

Overall the event was very conventional even dull. Blame the pandemic.

 

Growth

A building boom is in city centre. A bonanza for estate agents. And stamp duty revenue.  

Nothing at all for battlers or the homeless in the midst of this well being. 

The virus is busy in Sydney. Here, we need abundance of caution. 

Best avoid getting emeshed with the situation and possible loss of freedoms. Visits to Sydney ruled out.

 

Social distancing, hand washing, testing of any sniffles, even mask wearing, QR use and all the rest. 

Testing is done in Callagen at the university and other sites that are not obvious. 

Commercial buildings, incidentally, have decks large enough to cover several families. .

Colourful

Will they won't they?  University of Newcastle in the city centre. The appointment of Chancellor has been reannounced and a problem has settled down. 

Restructuring of the university is underway and ex-workers commiserate about the old days. Again.

No doubt courses continue bigger and better and all that study can be found to be addictive when the brain functions a little better than usual.  

The new building is a bright addition even if a little intimidating. 

Live

Is the signage pre or post virus?  Is The Cambridge more alive by night? The lineup is Grinspoon, Regurgitator, Ratcat, Frenzae Rhomb, Cog, Killing Heidi, Custard, Caligula. Just the usual!

Wintery

Shades of grey sans shipping.

Certain wind and rain is a good change.

Virus thrives in winter, thrives no matter what.  A handful of infections have Sydney city in a scramble. Prevention is better than cure. Total relaxation is out.

 

Begin Again

Seeing eternity.  It is possible to wallow in a repeat of the melodramatic Death In Venice where Mahler takes you to see beauty and emotions and then even an epidemic. SBS library may have the film over free to air.

Or 

Begin Again by the artist Measure    

Wake up to sun   'cause morning does come,  if all you can rely on is the feel of your feet on the wood floor and if all you can depend on is all movement gives you some direction, then begin again.

You're no calendar   You're no concrete plan   Begin again don't waste your time waiting for someone to tell you when   Begin again. 

Wake up to sun ...........and begin again 'cause walking out doors only works when you shut them     Begin again and quit looking backwards  You know where you have been   You're no calendar....You're no concrete plan.....Begin again.....

                                                                                         

 

 

May flights of angels....

Memorial for a child.

In Braye street Mayfield.

Is theatre really alive?

Anita's Theatre Thirroul. An unusual space, there's a lot to it, partly a brave reproduction and done with some care. Between shows.

How will the pandemic be towards the end of the year? Should one take what could be the last and only chance for an unlikely interstate event? First world problem.. mortality

..risk.. indulgence..

Bluey

 Cattle dog or Blue heeler relative. Tut-tut the dog is not on a leash. It is the origin of the character Bluey on ABC TV.  

The dog that currently sits on the Tuckerbox five miles from Gundagai looks rather like a Blue heeler.

A Kelpie sheep dog just sold for a maxium 35k. It was trained and proved effective worker.

There has been 3 dog nights just lstely. 

Was Goofy a dog?

Dogs are a must-have accessory and of course the Rescue dog is right up there. A regular bitzer or mongrel dog is not so popular.

 My parents had an older dog a bit cranky and black all over and with a name that has become absolutely banned and rightly so. As well there was a sporty bitzer. This setting was  out of town. Hunting out rabbits with the dogs was a sometime childhood game.

Telstra

phone booths are near extinction

Mooney Mooney

Under Mooney Mooney Creek Bridge or the Big Dipper on the M1.  Concrete makes everything possible. Believe concrete impressed me in the study of really early Rome...

Some homes line the valley where the background noise from traffic is constant. 

Chev

Chevy Camero Z28 circa 1973. Muscle car T bar roof, a new old import. Vintage Ford Mustangs of circa 60s are up there and the driver heroes Geoghegan, Moffat, Bond etc along with totally different Mini Cooper S. 

Honda

  Honda CBX 1978 - 82, six cylinders in line 1047ccs

His torical round 40 years old and  looking new and glossy.

An aficionado described these Hondas. 

Ampol fuel has reappeared and  somehow Caltex fades away to get 

 another identity.

Free show

Kiama blowhole!

Some choice of subject on the coldest day since last winter.

One good turn...

Sick battery. Kick start. It seems a wide range of ways and means is employed to get the jab done in other places.

 We are too precious, who needs privacy and a jab operator with post graduate training? We enjoy abundance of caution but it puts the brakes on mass vaccinations. And we have no transparency about the available quantity of the sacred injectable.

 Even a fee for service applies! My Medicare site lists my doctor's fee, bulk billed by doctor, a 5 seconds jab given to each in a roomful of people over multiple sessions. Of course it can't be done free of charge but maybe an overall rate is suitable.

The Feds need to primarily finance the states and simply stop undertaking work they are not equipped to do nor should do, they often fail, they seriously complicate and fragment services, they try to justify their existence and double up on costs for everything they dabble with - education, health, social housing, gender wars and so on while totally ignoring leadership on indigenous matters and climate change.Their so called worth is all out of proportion.

 Johnson and Biden bring it on at G7 - we need a dressing down.

 

Obligatory photo

passive move  ..if that's possible.

Although in the grip of new strains,  contact tracing is busy in the south with 69 virus infections recorded.

We all know the rules about prevention. 

"Danger Moving trains" We know what they mean!

 

Towards winter

Fearless

Hear Beethoven Emperor concerto from Australian Chamber Orchestra and soloist for an up-tempo fearless  adventure, ABC Classic Radio offering.

Post-pandemic

Take care, vaccinate or else

Endtimes

Back to the coast where a tsunami was approaching. Be afraid. Or was it a cloud bank?

The virus has got a small toehold in the south.  Forty cases recorded yesterday. 

Adventures

..I love the smell of exhaust in the mornings...looks like a bracing ride in  the Southern highlands is taking off.  Local roads, villages and a nineteen thirties pub, autumn leaves, cold weather and mountain climbs could be what counts most.

follow the clues

These bikes include Honda Goldwing original 4 cylinder 1000cc 1976 flat engine water cooled, in the day unlike all previous Hondas, for touring, aimed at USA market who loved them, innovative package in 1976. ...What was cruise control for... - so you could adjust the radio!...

Carbon overload

Wisdom line arrives in the coal exporter port. 

What election 'battle' is on today in upper Hunter? Battle? There is no true battle until an unlikely movement emerges against the coal mines. Pigs might fly.

Today the G7 proclaimed agreement against investment in coal. 

And a backward step as a NEW gas powered electricity plant is planned for the Hunter valley. Said to be used  to keep alumunium smelter secure during peak loads, tho smelter uses off peak.

Off shore the next bulk carrier waits its turn to get to the coal loader.

Wisdom line is Taiwanese company with 148 vessels which work for places like Japan and Europe.

Detour

The street needs a zipper for ease of opening.  The Water mains often break up and it means a small trickle of water up to a strong current a metre wide that once occured in the middle of night. 

From Merewether to the north

Imagine the north coast seaside centres and visiting before they change, caravans parks near the shore and daggy little weekenders priced out of existence so as to become uniform.

Crescent beach front must be under threat, it simply couldnt last.

 It is difficult to find a parking spot just right to hang out for a day anywhere on the miles and miles of coast line.  

Hat head area might be an exception. The coastal walk in the national park is memorable and free.

Merewether Beach

I must go down to the seas again to the lonely sea and the sky

And all I want is a tall ship and a star to steer her by....

Yesterdays

Close of Mothers Day

Port of Newcastle.  Kingfish Resto does seafoods hot and cold all shapes and sizes, almost chaotic, nice staff, one wait staff works all weekend till late and studies medicine the rest of the time and happened to remark how this has influenced her with a little regret against alcohol and its damage and against fast food. Hope it lasts. 

Ten things to do before I die.

#10. Make marmalade.

Crop of Lemonade fruit. Perhaps they could be riper. Jam or lemon meringue pie seem possible.