Robot Claw – Page 552 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Glenrock Lagoon

January 10, 2012

Yesterday, Sue and I did the Glenrock Lagoon bushwalk. This is a 2 km stroll down through a heavily wooded valley alongside a creek that eventually becomes a lagoon and connects to the ocean at Dudley Beach.

At the top end (near the carpark), the walk is level and shaded and easy and looks like this:

Wonderful! Imagine the sounds of bellbirds and whipbirds as you walk these paths.Soon enough you encounter the creek, which is now not exactly rushing with water:

And then about a third of the way down to the beach there is a waterfall as the creek flows over a rocky edge:

Somewhere shortly after this point we met a shy friend:

He was pretty big. We tried to sneak up to get a better look, but some joggers ran past and scared him away 🙂

A lookout is at the halfway point, showing how beautiful the valley is and how much farther one must continue walking to reach the lagoon outlet:

The white buildings on the right side in this photo belong to a permanent scout camp. The walk alongside the lagoon goes along the left side in the above photo. There was some sort of meeting going on at the camp, and music was loudly blaring as we walked down toward the beach. Here’s what it looks like down there:

To get back the walk must be repeated in reverse. This meant the casual downhill stride switched to a taxing uphill battle. Sue took the camera for the return trip, and took many lovely shots of the expatriot looking tired 🙂

Here’s me at the top of that waterfall, shot from a distant lookout:

From my vantage point I could look down the impressive drop onto a large flat rock on which several water dragons were basking. They ranged in size from about 15 to 60 cm, and ran and skittered nervously when they heard me yelling at Sue. Since she had the camera, I was unable to take photographs.

After Glenrock we were knackered, and a quick lunch of kebabs led to a bit of this:

And even this:

At this point, the technorati amongst you will be saying “What what what??!?!?”

The answer is simple: today I borrowed Bernard’s fully waterproof camera, and all of the photos in this entry were taken with it. They look good, don’t they?

Dad Playing QWOP

January 9, 2012

Ever played this game?

Here’s a video of dad playing:

Two Days In The Sun

January 8, 2012

I lifted a TV the other day and broke myself. I’ve been recuperating on a (sheepskin!) heating pad in the evenings, but I’m not 100% better yet.

Yesterday I went for a drive around ‘the lake’ (Macquarie) with SMC. It was fun and nostalgic, but I didn’t take many photos. However we did have a go on this at Speers Point Park:

Not bad for a free slide (the design, by the way, is based on an old piece of coal mine machinery), but it would have been more fun had it been a waterslide.

Oh yes! I had a McOz for lunch! Note the beetroot:

In the afternoon Bernard and I walked to Merewether beach, along a nostalgic route that went past where he used to live. The sun was out and it was warm, but an ocean breeze kept us from spontaneous death.

The beach, as always, was scintillating:

It was a tiring walk home, since the wind was gone and it had seemed to get hotter. Here’s what we looked like collapsed on the couch when we got back.

The photo above is why the comments section was invented 🙂

This was dinner last night:

And then today, mum and dad took it easy while we headed north. First stop was the Stockton breakwater (one of the two walls designed to protect the entrance of Newcastle Harbour). Here’s the view looking out along the breakwater to the open ocean:

Here’s a shot of me at the end of the breakwater, looking across the harbour toward Nobby’s and the southern breakwater:

And here’s a panorama of Newcastle taken from the breakwater:

In the last century, many ships have sunk near the entrance to Newcastle. There are markers along the breakwater showing where they once rested, and one of them (the Alphonse) is still half-way along the breakwater; a ruined wreck. In addition to the ship markers, it seems to be a tradition to paint memoriums of the dead onto the stones of the breakwater. There are dozens of them, dating back 20 years or so. They are strangely moving to read…

After Stockton we drove up to Anna Bay, where Bernard had lunch (a re-run of the night before, mostly) before we headed down to the beach to have a looksee.

That’s an olympic village made in the sand, complete with pyramids, a castle and a football field. Here’s me climbing up a big rock in the surf:

The tide was low in this picture, and when it is high I expect much of this barnacle-encrusted rock is under water. Here’s what the surface looked like in close-up:

And here’s another rock down at the water’s edge:

If there’s one mistake I made on our little trip today it is to ignore this important piece of advice:

Yep, I got a bit burned 😮