Walkabout Driveabout: North Coast

Showing posts with label North Coast. Show all posts

Monday, December 11, 2006

On the Creek

I posted these pictures of my creek to remind myself to sit here daily when I get home.

Creeks are for lazily swimming in; or sitting or standing by; or fishing in. To think, or not, or to meditate by.

I don't go fishing to catch fish - I certainly couldn't feed myself on the catches I get. But non-fishers will never understand. Fishing is a wonderful way to be by a creek and look like you're doing something practical when you're actually practising a wonderful healing form of meditation.

Beaches Near Home

Not many words this time. I'm a water person. I just like beaches. Ours are rarely crowded, except at Christmas and Easter. These are some of my local ones.

Kingscliff:

Wooyung:
Black Rocks; it's hard to tell where Wooyung merges to be Black Rocks which merges to be South Pottsville:Towards Cape Byron:Coolangatta:

Cheers, Alan; and I don't know why you can't get bigger pix when you click on them:-(

Murwillumbah and Mt Warning

No matter where you go in Murwillumbah (pronounced m'will-um-bar), Mount Warning seems to be in the background.

James Cook named the mountain, which was visible from sea, on his discovery voyage up the coast - it warned him of Point Danger, which he also named.

It is the ancient core of a volcano and the Tweed Valley forms part of the ancient Caldera more than 60km across. The surrounding hills can be seen from the air to form the ancient shield walls; the aboriginal name for the mountain is Wollumbin - fighting chief of the mountains.

Murwillumbah is a town of about 9000 and was the original district centre for the early settlers. It is still the centre of local government but the coastal towns and villages are becoming the bigger population centres.

Cheers, Alan

To Market, To Market

Before I head off on the trip to the south tomorrow, I decided to upload a few pix of my home region to set the scene. This is the first of a themed group.

Market day in Pottsville occurs on the the first and third Sundays of every month.

When I first came to town I got involved in all of the local things, as new people usually do - Community Association, Neighbourhood Centre and so on. I've stepped back a little now because of other interests, like travel. A couple of years ago, while on the neighbourhood Centre committee I received a promotion to be garbage and refuse collector after the Markets - I did it for a couple of years but then had to quit when I wandered off around the world; some other lucky guy does the job now:-)

It's just a typical country town market - but the range of goods is amazing. There are even spots to park the kids, eat, get a massage, singers, puppets.

Small communities at work and play.

Cheers, Alan

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Sentimental Journey - a Lost Railway

Two years ago, they closed my local rail line. I wrote this before and after taking that train for the last time to Sydney.

Before.

I grew up in the '50s and '60s when air travel in Australia was expensive and rare for our family. I think my only flight was on a DC-something in 1955, before I joined the RAAF in '64 and discovered slightly faster aeroplanes.

We were a far-flung family so I spent many nights on the trains in New South Wales, on nearly all of the north and north-western lines. I loved those nights, watching the little stations flash past, or stopping at the "RRR" (Rail RefreshmentRooms) while the engine wheezed and the water and coal were replenished. I spent many christmasses at my Grandparents' house beside the shunting yards at Narrabri, watching fascinated as they re-arranged the wheat, coal and goods carriages.

Now the short-sighted state government has decided to close our local line. Local politics would mean little here, but I'm about as angry about that as I can be. But that's a battle I can't win.
So tonight I'm off to the Big Smoke for a week or so, for a nostalgic 14-hour ride ride on the Murwillumbah to Sydney line before they let the trestles decay and the sleepers rot.
See you all in a week or two.

After

Thanks to all those on the alt.support.diabetes group who asked about the little journey to nostalgia. Therefore, a brief trip report on a relaxed week away. Well, it started off brief, and then got Topsy-like.

Departed, an hour late, about 11 pm, so missed most of the scenery through the hills. I like watching the little stations flash past: Stoker's Siding, Burringbar, Bilinudgel, Byron Bay, Mullumbimby, Bangalow (where the palms come from, not BUngalow), Lismore and we've only gone two hours with eleven more to go. It's this section, Murwillumbah to Casino, that's closing.
Shared my twinette sleeper with an old Digger returning to Sydney who had gone to Brisbane to march with his mates on Anzac Day (25th April). 90 years old, spry and alert, and diagnosed Type 2 two years ago. Fascinated by my Accu-chek; he'd never seen a meter.

Broken sleep punctuated by lights flashing past and the doppler effects of passing sounds. Woke at 2:30 am while we slowly shunted back and forth on the bridge over the Clarence at Grafton as they changed engines and crews. Nothing more silent and still than a river in the half-moonlight.

I grew up swimming in that big river, rowing fours and butcher-boats, building rafts, catching bream and throwing back catfish, square-dancing at the Jacaranda Festival.

More broken sleep through Glenreagh, Nana Glen (Russell Crowe's farmlet), Coramba, Coffs Harbour, Urunga, Nambucca Heads, Macksville, Kempsey. Woke up properly at dawn as we passed through the misty lush green valley of the Manning River at Taree. Then the quiet farms and hamlets through Gloucester and Dungog, the wine and coal country of the Hunter Valley, Maitland, Newcastle. Spectacular scenery as we passed through the central coast districts and Wyong, Gosford, Broken Bay on the Hawkesbury.

Finally, into the urban sprawl of Sydney. Spent the next three days using my ex-soldiers pass to travel on buses, trains and ferries around the town like any tourist. Chinatown, Paddy's Market, Australia Square, off to Manly on the ferry watching all the tourists happily snapping the Opera House and the coat-hanger (then joining them :-). I'm a water person, so also on the ferries again - to Balmain, Hunter's Hill, Parramatta. It's a wonderful harbour. Saw a show at the Darlinghurst Theatre, ate in pubs (no chips please, just salad with the fish, and how rough is the house red ?) and Chinese and Indian (naan bread, no rice:-).

Then back by commuter train for two hours to Newcastle for the three-hour bus ride to Forster-Tuncurry on the lakes, to do all the little jobs Mum's been saving for me to do at her place. She wants them done before she heads off for her next odyssey in her motor-home (RV); She's leaving today (alone) for four months up the coast to the Daintree Rainforest in North Queensland. Hopefully she'll be back in time for her 80th birthday celebrations that I and my siblings are planning for November. Obviously, this travel bug is hereditary. Sat beside a lady in the train who, when she saw me test, chatted about her hubby who recently passed away eighteen years after diagnosis, with 'opathys for his final ten years (retin-, neur-, neph-). "But he ate exactly what they said he should..." Accu-chek as a conversation piece.

And, finally, departed Taree at 12:35 Tuesday for Murwillumbah and home. The final stages wonderfully bright in the full moon, watching roos bound along beside us at dusk, arriving at 9 pm. Amazed to find the car still sitting in the car-park, even more surprised when it started, then home to Pottsville through the cane-fields.

Well, it started out to be brief.....

Cheers, Alan

Monday, October 09, 2006

The Great Raft Race

Held every January, the major cultural and sporting event for the village. Well, not really - I'll upset some adults by saying that - but it sure is if you're under 12 (or over your limit:-)

Skies

I'm not a religious person. But, if I ever change my mind I'll probably do it while gazing at the sky. One of the magic things about my home is that I can see both the Eastern sky and the Western sky while lazing in my lounge chair sipping an evening glass of wine. The top view is east, the others are over the back shed.

Life is tough:-)

Water

Of course, although in Australia rain is usually desperately needed, sometimes you get too much of a good thing.

Home in Pottsville

I like my home. I should. I chose it very carefully. I first came to the Tweed Coast as an eight-year-old on a family fishing holiday when Hastings Point was a collection of shacks. Over the years I lived thousands of miles from here, but came back every few years, first with the family, later with Lorraine as the kids grew and flew. Finally I packed up the house in Melbourne and wandered all over the Eastern States, from the Yorke Peninsula to Gladstone on the coast, and inland to Lightning Ridge and Broken Hill for a little under a year.

I was searching for my future home and I ended up coming back to Pottsville on the Tweed coast. Since then, I've wandered the world - and I still haven't found a better place. But I'm just a little biased:-)
It's only a small house in a quiet village. the views are what I see out the window as I type this.

In the aerial view, we are beside the creek, just below the first canal. Unfortunately, the area at the top of the picture is now also housing.