Eventide, Port of Newcastle
Runner does a balancing act!

 

Archaeology on High. Last remaining sign of Galtons store, High Street, Maitland, which had distinctive brass work around the extensive display windows. Super Dollar and a phoney makeover have taken its place along with a trying-to-look-establishment-in-granite savings bank - all par for the course.

High Street, Maitland has seen a least one disasterous flood and this shop, believed to be original rather than reproduction, has survived those days.
Certain shop fronts and shop fittings stand the test of time and have significance. They are often altered and modernised and lose all significance. 
Folks in Maitland want the original shopping mall to be successful and patronised and a measure of old character and charm might possibly help the cause although, really, what can be done, so they may as well be left with some points of significance and preserve some aspects.     

Newcastle Ocean Baths. Heat wave conditions.

'our land is girt by sea'
Australia Day today.

Inland seas lately (floods). Sweet troubles. Sugar supplies were low yesterday. Sugar crops and sugar mills  have problems following the floods. Does that mean the clanking grinding sugar mill at Bundaberg is in trouble?

Clutter and storm clouds at Newcastle Ocean baths.
Imagine journing home in the evening after swmming at the end of a scorching summer's day. Whisps of cool breeze mixed with heavy warm air along with a restfulness or weariness.    

Outside the art gallery, Newcastle.
Perhaps goods and services use the front entrance too.
The gallery building will be extensively enlarged soon which will be good. Funding for that is a big ask, evenso, the new building will duplicate existing services that are available close by because galleries take on more than their core activities and they seek complications and provide space for education as entertainment, a social venure and last but not least a chaotic coffee shop. It is a model that celebrates diverse activities.

Hey, Small is beautiful.  In so many ways we slavishly follow the bench mark established by XYZ gallery, overseas in providing this and that. Why?  Just to become another commodified clone? All look the same. The patrons and staff back from world centres need reassurance that way. Does travel really broaden the mind! Or education for that matter.
The Wetlands is into empire building as well.
Possible alternative auditorium space. City Hall, near the gallery, appears to have oodles of venues available for use and in Darby street, coffee shops abound. Perhaps two fine church buildings in the same street could double as cultural centres - but there I go copying others, for example,  they say that Saint John the evangelist (I believe) in New York city, (an exraordinary Gothic ediface) stages any amount of cultural events.
The daring possibilities are endless. Update: Cathedral of Saint John the Divine is what is intended.

A Creamery, a road side collection point.
In past times, believe cream was produced by those who were a long way out of town and outside the official dairy system. The volume of cream was a manageable quantity as compared to milk. Doh. The farmer seperated milk into cream and low fat milk. The milk was use to raise calves and pigs and the cream was sold, most likely, for butter making. 
Nation wide network for fast internet?  In your dreams!  No distance out of town by own standards and even mobile phone coverage ceases to exist. Cow-cockeys must have much better phones that work well in the countryside. It doesn't worry me but it shows up the weaknesses in the system.
We are not very inventive. There would be certain aerials that a local could build as an active point of contact by the community of mobile phones. I guess there is money to be made in keeping non-mobile landlines in use.

Take a pleasant drive on a country road. It follows the river where rushing water formed mini rock escarpments long ago,
special remnants of roadside vegetation,
a rustic wooden bridge - strong yet totally dilapidated,
original safety fences made of wire,
signs of a preceeding twisting even narrower track,
idle gatherings of Friesians 
and small roadside creamery in weatherboard (from a dairy of the ?fifties).
Countryside of vivid green folded hills and river valleys.
Cute for the day tripper.
Perhaps a different matter for busy people or the milk truck - refigerated B Double - doing the rounds of the dairies day after day after day....or so.

Suspension and balance and a private bridge allows access to a farm.

While the film, The Kings Speech, got my approval and it was rather slow and only about a couple of staid blokes, even so, how is it possible that Black Swan could earn similar approval?
Right, the disturbed delusional serious young woman who starred gave us a few scares and surprises in a contrived string of events but these were often difficult to take seriously.
The core was about ballet. How could a seriously immature ballerina take a leading role in a ballet she was unable to intreprete? Devoid of finer points.
We note the drama of the grand master who aims to tutor a young vunerable - good in theory but all in the week or so before opening night! Unconvincing. And I know very little about ballet. A second rate dancer. Anti-women. Ballet performance of any significance failed to emerged in the movie at all.
Keep trying!
PS The 'dark side' is the important theme but the aforementioned ballet problems are too difficult to overlook.  

Benign stream. Unremarkable yet like another Eden and a source of almost guilty pleasure in the current 'climate' beset with floods and hardship. Paterson river.

Surface scattered with big bang theories
when fish leap from primordial depths

Back to difficult terrain, in vast areas of eastern and southern Australia, thousands of people are losing all their belongings in the floods and will seek new furniture and more, how will this demand be met in the immediate future?  Out they go, but certain items recycled, and cleaned up could be better than nothing in the short term. An empty shell of a house is challenging, only gathered from my experiences on moving house.

Away they go. Enough warning was given to possibly remove gang planks and boats and fresh food from the markets before the floods reached Brisbane as seen on media.

Dance origins in the Subcontinent.  Influenced by Rap!

Dance comes in many forms from regional Indonesia.  This group remained 'seated' during their curious and expressive Indonesian style presentation. Shame about the undignified backdrop.

What a change to see a tropical-like tree. Tropical monsoon and massive rainfall have struck northern areas. Our weather and El Nino Southern Oscillation go together.
When the Pacific Ocean in the far distant tropics around central America is warm - that is El Nino - it is associated with dry weather and years of drought around  Australia. This situation alternates with La Nina which brings clouds and rainfall to eastern Australia when the conditions reverse.
Ocean currents, trade winds and the Walker Circulation are part of this vast system over the Pacific from one sideof the ocean to the other and include, I think, the Indian Ocean.
When do extreme weather events change from variations and become so far out of ordinary to become climate change?

Peace. A classic 1980s pop-top van. The message still stands. Always known as a VWKombi hereabouts. 

Secret photo of Civic Theatre ceiling. Seeing thru the cloud.  My blogging days are numbered and have been so for some time now. Incidentally, the mega IT company extracts a small fee from this blog, something to do with ads and storage but the service is good.
On googling I see that my relative has a hand in internet ads, must ask about this.
One wonders about a company that bothers with a non-conformist blog like mine. I am not a comment whore nor chase internet traffic, no Facebook and no Twitter, iphone and android illiterate!
My extended family members are frightfully busy, pressured, bristling with endeavour. Well, I am very happy to have a couple of pairs of decent sox after years of second rate examples. (Have never ever found a pair of short-short sox that stay up in place)
Thanks goodness for new year and the absence of very-very hot weather. Christmas was hard going and healthy lifestyle was shot to pieces.

Tall lilies and tall where with all (or wear with all?).

Queen Victoria gazes at her tiresome colony.  In trouble with the England cricketers yet a colonist had a win when a king was in therapy.
Australian, Geoffrey Rush plays an Australian speech therapist for George V1 in the film The King's Speech. Another Aussie, Guy Pearce plays a minor role as Edward V111.  All very nicely done. Chock-a-block with nostalgia.
Thank goodness for UK film makers....and the Australian film industry....

What fell in the water?  Nelson Bay

Classic and Muscle cars Chevrolet Pontiac Buick Cadillac Oldsmobile. Lincoln, Mercury, Ford.  How many are out of production?
Yank-tanks have their followers who import used cars. The bigger the better. Strangly, this is more than a hoot, the cars are serious toys. Mustangs are really 'big' but they are a bit special.
Mainfreight transport and shipping ex-USA, customs brokers, left to right hand drive conversion specialists, parts, panels, rims, engines - the lot - all in the game.
 
Department store retailers and the big names are 'up in arms' about unfair on-line shopping - they want a 'level playing field',  they want off-shore retailers to charge shoppers the taxes we all pay here.
Said Mr Big Name retailer, in interview - down to his last quid - his wife was shopping in the big apple where a dress was heavily discounted for her.
Can't she frock-up in Australian clothes?  Her example is unAustralian like all the other shoppers!

Its a man's world...man's world...man's world...man's world...man's world...man's world...man's world...

Thundaraft, 'see what 400HP in a rubber boat feels like...adrenalin and excitement plus.....come wave jumping with us!' brace and hang-on tight when it becomes air-born at the entrance to Port Stephens. Shake up those city-slicker day trippers from the south.

Or June to August go extreme whale watching on the fastest whale watching boat on the Bay. From Nelson Bay, Port Stephens, just north of Newcastle.

Art Gallery NSW,  Sydney.

Zang Xiaogang takes us to the Middle Kingdom.

 

Wilting garden

fan forced air

persistent sun stays up late

Ducks Crossing, for dining and green surroundings, here on a mild day. 

Interest in Annie Leibovitz was strong in Sydney. I preferred something easier to do that day.