While Not Working

We left Sydney in the bright morning and stopped off to admire the Seacliff Bridge just south of Coalcliff.   From the Coalcliff public toilet block, and we hadn't even got to Seacliff yet. I was excited: I'd wanted to see the bridge for quite a while.  Mind you, the bridge itself was constructed so that people like myself had to concentrate on their driving and couldn't get distracted by gawking at the views over the sides.  Then we parked and BD took one look at the walk down to the bridge itself and that was it for her.  "Are you walking all the way along it?"   Now 1.3km isn't far when you're the one walking with the sun sparkling on the sea, a cool breeze ruffling your hair, and a hundred tourists posing for photographs around you.  However, if you're the one sitting in the car waiting while your mother walks with the sun sparkling etc etc... yeah, that takes a while. "Nah," said I.  "I'll just go take some photos at the start....

Artarmon was a leafy inner suburb with narrow streets lined with Federation era houses in various stages of renovation.  Our house was a rental and as such lacked a little in the maintenance and upkeep departments. Wind leaked in around the doors and whistled through the ventilation openings near the ceiling.  Our pet owners left a huge basket of blankets in the corner of the lounge and in these we swaddled ourselves every evening in an attempt to ward off the winter chill. One morning I walked from Bondi to Coogee beaches, along the top of the cliffs and past a comfortable plethora of coffee shops and cafes.  The paths were busy with tourists and locals, all out enjoying the sunshine while a few hardy souls declared winter over and jumped into the ocean pools for a few brisk laps.   Better than nothing, I suppose. Shark bait. The modern face of surf lifesaving. We were in Sydney to visit the grand baby, and in Artarmon to care for Bertie, which translated to tw...

Sydney was noticeably warmer than Melbourne, and with more sunshine too. Mind you, it helped to have a working heater in our little cabin in Lane Cove National Park. We were marking time before moving into our August house sit. I undertook a terrifying drive in night time traffic to Macquarie Park to buy a cheap camping table so that I could grind out the requisite two days of work while BD, confined to the cabin by a gammy leg and inconvenient steps, ate chocolate and taught herself to touch-type. I took my evening walk in the Macquarie Park Cemetery which turned out to be much larger than I'd anticipated and held the usual fascinating glimpses into life and death in long ago Sydney. When not strolling cemeteries I went back to Lane Cove and wandered along the river. Pathways. Trees. Some trees were bleeding. Back at the cabin hopeful cockatoos congregated in the sun every morning, ready to descend on any breakfast left unguarded outside.  And scrub turkeys prowled for pickings on...

 I went for an early morning walk in Holbrook. The puddles in the motel driveway had frozen and frost melted slowly in early morning sunlight. An old man fidgeted in a patch of sunlight.  "It's a cold morning," I said as I went by.  He reacted with excessive shock.  "Morning? What time is it?  I thought it was evening!  Isn't the sun about to set?" Far be it from me to lecture a man about the relationship between East, West, the sun, and the beginning and end of the day.    I confirmed that it was indeed morning, and went on my way. Just down the road Gundagai called us with the promise of not one, but two Big Things.  The Big Koala turned out to be merely medium-sized, a small cousin to the big one that I myself had visited in Dadswell on the way to South Australia. Not as scary as the one in Dadswell, but it had the same evil eyes. Drink this and you will turn into a terrifying koala. The Dog on the Tucker Box was not big at all, surrounded...

 The consequence of one of us having frusemide for breakfast was making sure that the first couple of hours driving included adequate toilet stops.  Not any old toilet stops either, they had to be toilets of a suitable height for someone with a compromised right quad to get on and off.  Sadly, cafe toilets were of a height that the user could well be compelled to call someone to help stand up from the throne.  How do we know this?  Pure speculation, of course. I pored over the map for suitable dunnies, noting our proximity to Glenrowan.  "We're in Ned Kelly country," I told BD, who displayed a distressing lack of excitement at this news.  I inspected the map more closely.  "There's a Big Ned Kelly in Glenrown!"  Well that settled it: Glenrowan was on our must-stop list and the toilets would just have to measure up. We spent a happy half hour taking photos of Ned in all his glory, conveniently brushing aside all the inconvenient history of thu...