History Channel visits Kariong

This is the portion of the latest Tony Robinson doco entitled " Digging up Australia " that was shown on the History Channel on pay TV a couple of weeks back.
As they investigate early arrivals to Australia before Captain Cook , they have a look at the possibility that Egyptian sailors may have made it here and of course that would lead them to the infamous Kariong Glyphs.
As paying for TV is an utterly ridiculous idea to me , I waited for it to be uploaded to YouTube.
I was originally approached by the producers to supply some background info on the site and possibly offer them a sacrificial lamb to be interviewed , they wanted a " believer " and not a sceptic like myself , alas I will have to get my 15 minutes of fame from somewhere else.
As Rex Gilroy and other assorted fruit loops would not appear on camera , I suggested they might like Jake Cassar who subscribes to the Egyptian theory and that they did.
Poor old Tony is seen to be biting his tongue , rolling his eyes and in the end says " the whole idea is very , very daft "
Kinda glad it wasn't me now hehe

No Ship !

As final preparations are being made to sink the HMAS Adelaide off the coast here , a group of Avoca locals have rallied at the last moment to stop the sinking.
The HMAS Adelaide ferried Australian troops to the first Gulf War in 1991, to peacekeeping operations in East Timor and back to the Gulf in 2001.
The Adelaide was to be sunk off Terrigal for recreational divers to visit , as there was no environmental impact statement undertaken the public was kept in the dark on the project for some years.
Two weeks ago a large yellow buoy was placed in the water marking the spot where the ship is to be scuttled , the location was no where near Terrigal , but instead it is to be sunk 1.7 km's off the centre of Avoca Beach.
The whole time the public was told it was to be sunk " a couple of kilometres out to sea " but when you see the yellow buoy you suddenly realise that this is alarmingly close to shore , the locals are worried about possible leaching of toxic chemicals from the ship , the effect on sand movements on the beach , increase of sharks closer to the beach and the effect on the world class surf break itself.
With the 140 metre long vessel due to be sunk on the 27 th of March , the No Ship action group has little time on their hands but the ball is rolling , 600 concerned residents met on the beach on Saturday to formulate a plan of attack.
Drag it another couple of k 's out to sea and no one will give a shit , personally I think there are enough real wrecks along the coast to dive on , this is a bit of a worry

Visit the No Ship at Avoca site
Article in the Sydney Morning Herald
Article in the Central Coast Express Advocate

Tanks mate

Coupla more tanks for the collection up to 22 now

Leopard I A2


StuG. III Ausf. G (Germany 1944)


Rest of the collection here

Your tin roof ..............dusty !

Whoa mother of all dust storm hit us at dawn yesterday , sand blown all the way from inland smothered the eastern seaboard for most of the day , a hellish red dawn awaited us as we woke.



I was working at The Entrance and got these pics before we packed up and called it a day , I was going to get some local ones on the Peninsula but decided I didn't need the asthama attack and headed indoors.
Evidently some smart arse bought a box of paper dusts mask and was selling them for a nice profit at Woy Woy Station



The local car wash and house washing businesses shall do a roaring trade no doubt in the coming weeks

Best pies on the Peninsula

Been meaning to do this for a while now , I like a good pie and have tested all that are offered in the area several times over the years.
These ratings are based on the standard meat pie / and any other accruments available

2/5 Colonial Bakery - Woy Woy - Not a bad pie , the meat tastes a bit too gravyish to me , pastry to thin for my liking , they also make pisser jam donuts and are nice blokes to boot.

3/5 Umina Mall Bakery - Umina - Nice pies , consistant quality , mincey but not too much gravy , sometimes a bit salty, nice pastry. I find the cakes they sell are usually a few days old and getting a bit chewy

4/5 Umina Bakehouse - opp OB Hotel Umina - Good pies , nice chunks of meat and good flaky pastry. Nice selection of fresh cakes as well

4/5 Bremmens Patisserie - Umina - Big pies , lots of filling , nice pastry , but I find the fillings a tad bland and the filling to pastry ratio is outta whack. Award winning pastries but sometimes not up to scratch , especially my fave choccy donuts :|

5/5 Ettalong Pie Shop - Ettalong - The pie eaters nirvana , people travel from all over the coast to sample the wares , street crediblity is there as most pie lovers know exactly which shop we mean, the pies are tasty and big , pastry perfect and the ham and cheese puffs are the shitzbah
Ain't had a jam and real cream scones like these since grandmas , I could eat the whole shop
Service is great !

Found a new local site which is promoting an upcoming town event at Umina which includes some sort of pie eating comp , looks interesting hmmm go to www.uminabeachvillage.com.au

Flight of Fancy revealed ........

A while back when I first downloaded Google Earth I discovered a shot of a jet flying what appeared to be very low along Mooney Creek , I posted my find on the Google Earth community forum and it was identified as a cargo plane belonging to a courier mob ( DHL I think ) and I forget what type it is
anyway ....... to me it looked like it was damn low considering it's size compared to a nearby oyster barge it even looks like you can see its reflection in the water but after the forum post I was informed its some kind of digital imaging glitch , so I kept a copy knowing that one day the whole map will get updated and that scene will be gone , and it has a few months back.


* Note size of plane in relation to the oyster barge which could be at most 30 - 40 feet in length

While working one day at smoko break , I was talking to a carpenter who had been working on a house at Mooney recently , he mentioned one day at smoko time he looked up and spotted a jet flying at about 100 feet above the water ( if that ! it was level with the house they were working on the point there ) by the time hed had alerted his work mates it was long gone , it was then I told him about the pics , we were both relieved as both of our stories are now validated


* Plane located between Cheerio Point and Snake Island , Mooney Mooney Creek , Pacific Highway in lower left hand corner

Some bugger in a jet flying cargo into Sydney is flying low level ala Star Wars Death Star run style up Mooney Creek regularly ! and it's been going on for years it seems

Onya ya buddy thats one way to beat those working blues !

Unlikely Heroes

As the death toll from the Victorian bush fires last weekend rises to near 200 , this amazing video emerged of a firefighter helping a disoriented koala , Sam the Koala and Mr.Tree his saviour are now international celebrities



For more detailed information on the fires check out This isn't Sydney

Another local history article for the Peninsula News has been submitted for the next edition , be sure to grab a copy

Smoke on the water

This weekend will be remembered for a long time , record temperatures in the southern parts of the country have resulted in devastating bushfires in Victoria , over 25 people have been killed so far and the count is set to rise.
The coast has not been spared and a large fire started in the Peats Ridge area on Friday afternoon , a wind change brought the smoke down from the hills and onto the coastal strip , so thick was the smoke that a game was delayed at Bluetongue Stadium on Friday night.
I took a drive towards Gosford to get this photo at Koolewong at about 6 pm

It's baaaaaack !

Just when you thought it was safe to enter the water.....
Last night I woke up about 11pm and needed a drink of water so I stumble out to the kitchen tap , in the dark I noticed the water pressure was down and turned on the light .......
Lucky I did because I was just about to drink this shit



I seem to have missed the public service annoucement about the quality of our drinking water being crap again ( have I ? )
I thought they fixed it all up ages ago ........ hmm wtf

Timing ...........?

My second article has appeared in the latest edition of the Peninsula News ( Nov 24th ) , this one tells the story of the Kariong Heiroglyphs and funnily enough the Express also ran a similar story a couple of days before , mine was more imformative and factual of course ( har har )
Thanks again to the PN team for publishing my stuff



A picture of the glyphs in question , as a bonus I also captured what appears to be the Woy Woy Tiger just out of shot to the right .............

Falling rocks

Work has just been completed on the road widening at corner of Memorial Drive and Maitland Bay Drive , the road has been moved away a bit from the crumbling hillside , there are some big rocks up there about to come tumbling down one day......
The section of the mountain here was not always like that , in fact you may have noticed a few areas where man has taken chunks out of the hill side along Memorial Drive.
Ever since the Peninsula was settled people have quarried sandstone and fill materials from the sides of the hill , the area being made up of old sand dunes needed a solid base before you could build on it , some of the older houses in the area sit on stumps made from solid chunks of sandstone quarried from Blackwall Mountains edges.
The old Woy Woy Shire Council used it as a quarry for years , most of the mountain lays in landfills at Woy Woy Oval at the waterfront when the lagoon was reclaimed .
The section in question today actually has been recorded as being the area where the sandstone was quarried for the construction of Ettalong Hall for Mrs Cox way back in the 1800's , a gang of workers camped at the base of the hill for the duration of its construction.
Another feature nearby is the Railway Workers Cave just up the hill a bit round the corner , during the construction of Woy Woy Tunnel , workers travelling to and from the main wharf at Blackwall and the tunnel site would stay overnight in the shelter of this large natural cave.

Grab a copy of

the Peninsula News this week and you can read my first article for them about the old WW2 airfield on Trafalgar Avenue .
The paper is free and is placed at various strategic points around town , always a good read
and thanks to Clare and co for the small blurb about me and the site within the article
veh cool !

Calamity Street Terrigal and poo by the sea

There must be one or perhaps two unlucky buggers living in Campbell Crescent , Terrigal.
A couple of weeks back a large truck mounted crane toppled over and cut power to Terrigal for some hours , and today a cement mixer has capsized and while on it's side the cement inside it set causing a major dilemma , at every attempt to right the beast , the set concrete in the tumbler caused the truck to tip back over.
Evidently some poor bastard had to climb inside and jackhammer it all out , that would have been fun today in the 30 degrees temperature we had , bet the neighbours loved the sound of that jackhammer clanging away all day
Pity they couldn't re create that Mythbusters episode where they faced the same dilemma , except these guys just put some gelignite inside and bam! - problem solved
I wonder if both these vechiles were working on the same job , I'll ask my tradey contacts around Terrigal.

Latest News from NBN 3 - Ettalong Beach has been declared unsafe for swimming by the EPA for having a higher than normal feceal coliform content ( shit ) This has been caused by runoff from stormwater drains that deposit right in the middle of the beach ( handy)
I suggest that Gosford Council extend the foreshore upgrade and piss that old stormwater drain off for once and all ...........

Peninsula News

Last week I got an email from Clare at the Peninsula News asking if I was interested in submitting some stories to them , sure why not I thought , anything that may help lead me away from my poisonous pastime of being a painter and decorator gotta be worth a shot.
First article has been sent for the next deadline , hopefully I'll be able to bash out a fair few more over the next while or so
So pick up a copy next time you see one at various points around the Peninsula

Hi to Jenny from www.impressionablekids.com.au who has been recntly added to the links page at Woy-Woy.com, they make those lil plaster casts of kiddies feet and hands , pretty cool.

Fascinating Aboriginal art discovered

You may have seen the latest discovery of Aboriginal rock art in the news lately, researchers have uncovered thousands of drawings depicting all manner of European objects including ships , guns and aircraft , as well as older Maccasan trading vessels.
You can read up on the full story here , and view a slideshow of the drawings here.
The diagrams are being documented as there seems to be mining companies lurking into the area to continue the great tradition of destroying Aboriginal history
The Woy Woy area is also rich in Aboriginal rock art and paintings , sadly most of these are ageing and vandalised by the successive local councils and flannelette wearing bogans , large portions of the Bulgandry site were closed off to the public in the late 70's to preserve it and all reference to other carving and painting sites were slowly removed from new maps of the area.



The destruction caused by sandstone quarries , road building and general development to Aboriginal sites on the coast is kept hush hush , as the sites aren't well known anymore then no one will know.........
Take the Bora ground at Patonga for example , firstly it had a road blasted through it in the 30's for the new road to Patonga , and now the NPWS and any other local government department use part of it as access to a fire trail , I cannot contain my disgust at seeing large tractor tyre marks scarring the rock surface of this site less than 20 metres from a carving.



Because of the road edges being washed off during rain the whole area is being silted up and large parts are now unnaturally vegetated , covering carvings and the unique tessellations.



I think Gosford Council and the NPWS should wake up and fix this up immediately.

Woy Woy Road Open

Yes it's open finally and acually quicker than most had thought , widely reported on the web on many local bogs that seem to be popping up , here's some I regularly visit and some new blogs as well ( pinched some off Spikes site lol )
This isn't Sydney - A long running popular blog owned by Spike , lot's of local pics of buildings , waterways and wildlife
Family Art Stories - A site owned by local artist Mike Rubbo looking at his family art history
Life Begins at 80 - A site owned by Mike's mate , Eric Shackle a local resident and blogger
and some new ones
Blinovs Blog
A photo a day
Ettalong Beach Reporter
The Gosford Times