Australia Day 2016

Oh Mary! Australia all over.

Photo: By me Braidwood NSW

Cleaning Duties

I shall sit at home, and rock;

Rise, to heed a neighbour's knock;

Brew my tea, and snip my thread;

Bleach the linen for my bed.

 

 

From Penelope by Dorothy Parker

 

 

***

 

Aren't I glad I don't live in the olden days.  It is on record that I am all thumbs when it comes to sewing and the decorative home arts.  What did girls like me do while sitting around the fire?  A basket of embroidery for a companion would have been a gloomy prospect.  I've no musical talent either so I wouldn't have been practising  the harpsichord.

  

Ah, I can see plainly now that I would have been on cleaning duties. The penny's dropped. That's me polishing the brass and rinsing out the dusting clothes. That's me with housemaid's knee and calloused hands; hair and clothes in a shambles -- more Georgian middle class than nobility. 

My reference book then would have been The Book of Household Management, Mrs. Beeton, 1881 edition.  For a latter day online reference, I prefer Jane Austen's World, an incredibly comprehensive source which makes me grateful for my modern appliances and antiseptics.

Once prominent, the valet’s gone;

What’s that, you say — he’s not?
My god, you’re absolutely right;
He now works in the parking lot.

Photos: Cook's Cottage (actually his parent's, built in 1755), Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne, July 2012.

Eurobodalla Botanic Gardens

"The young leaves is shootin' on the trees,

The air is like a long, cool swig o' beer,

The bonzer smell of flow'rs is on the breeze,

An' 'ere's me, 'ere

Jist moochin' round like some pore, barmy coot,

Of 'ope and joy, an' forchin destichoot."

{C.J. DENNIS, A Spring Song}

***

One week of school holidays to go.  Charly is still at a sleep-over across the road with gorgeous neighbour C. 

{Sleep-overs across the road have to be the best thing ever! So convenient. Just in-and-out as they please from one house to the other. No driving.}

I think the food and bedding arrangements are far more salubrious over there than at our house. 

Meantime, Ro Ro is totally immersed in sets of Beastly Books variously titled Boy Versus Beast or Beast Quest or Beastly Business. He literally scooped his arm along the shelves at the Kingston Library and dumped an entire set into the canvas library tote.  He is now methodically working through them.  Wanna is busy dressing up dolls and manoeuvring Little Ponies in formation across the carpetted floor of her bedroom.  Sweet home-spun entertainment and not an electrical cord or device charger in sight.

Today is windy and wet in the national capital, so best we can do is reminisce about our sojourn on the south coast and our walk through the serene Eurobodalla Botanic Gardens, another of our unexpected finds.   We discovered this beautiful spot thanks to my obsessive brochure collecting and the services of the Bateman's Bay Tourist Bureau.  

The Eurobodalla Botanic Gardens are impeccably maintained (the uniformed gardeners and ride-on mowers were out in full force while we were there) with lots of new works in progress, including on a childrens' playground with musical equipment and a divine BBQ area. 

There's a great selection of bushwalks and ample open spaces to throw a frisbee (or a dart - "the new frisbee"). If we were local and it wasn't raining, this is where we would have outdoor birthday parties and end-of-year get-togethers. Don't tell anyone, but I like it more than the Australian National Botanic Gardens.
 

Mogo Zoo

 

 Daddy’s takin’ us to the zoo tomorrow,

Zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow

Daddy’s takin’ us to the zoo tomorrow

And we can stay all day!

Chorus:

We’re goin’ to the zoo, zoo, zoo

How about you, you, you?

You can come too, too, too

We’re goin’ to the zoo, zoo, zoo.

See the elephant with the long trunk swingin’

Great big ears and a long trunk swingin’

Snuffin’ up peanuts with a long trunk swingin’

And we can stay all day!

See all the monkeys they’re scritch-scritch scratchin’

Jumpin’ around and scritch-scritch scratchin’

Hangin’ by the long-tail (huff huff huff)

And we can stay all day!

There’s a big black bear he’s a huff-puff-a-puffin’

His coat’s too heavy he’s  a huff-puff-a-puffin’
Don’t get too near the huff-puff-a-puffin’
Or you won’t stay all day!

Well the seals in the pool all honk-honk-honkin’ Catchin’ the fish and honk-honk-honkin’ Little tiny seals all honk-honk-honkin’ And we can stay all day! Well we stayed all day and I’m gettin’ sleepy Sittin’ in the car gettin’ sleep sleep sleepy Home already gettin’ sleep sleep sleepy ’cause we have stayed all day. We been to the zoo zoo zoo So have you you you You came too too too We been to the zoo zoo zoo. (Lyrics: Peter, Paul and Mary) *** What an unexpected surprise. Mogo Zoo on the south coast of New South Wales is quite a little gem. I reluctantly agreed to visit as one stop on our motoring itinerary mid-way along the Eurobodalla coast. I succumbed to the incessant and enthusiastic requests. Can we, can we, can we?   How could you not? It is larger than expected with an interesting and atypical selection of animals - the white lion, the cotton-top tamarin, the pygmy marmoset, the green iguana and the red panda to name a few.   All healthy, albeit slightly bored-looking, specimens. Perhaps wild animals also look somnolent in their native habitats, only we don't see the yawns, listless gazes and lolling about prone. Animals always look perkier in the wildlife programs on the telly. Mogo Zoo is pleasantly laid out with ample picnic places for the self-caterer (which we weren't on this occasion more's the pity). The grounds are well landscaped and beautifully maintained. They grow much of their own food in a sweet garden you can peer into from one of the walks at the rear of the grounds. The glass enclosures are spotless so you can see the animals without squinting through grime and cobwebs, or wishing you had a microfibre cloth in your pocket to give it a quick once-over, as I do. (Sad, but true.  I should be in tourism or hospitality.)      It took us two hours to meander through. We could have spent longer. Indeed, we could have left three members of the touring party there!

If you need a break from sun, surf and fishing while holidaying at Bateman's Bay, I would throughly recommend a half-day excursion to Mogo Zoo.  But take a picnic basket and stay for lunch.

Beach Interlude

The Beginning

~ Mark O'Connor

God himself
having that day planted a garden
walked through it at evening and knew
that Eden was not nearly complex enough.
And he said:
"Let species swarm like solutes in a colloid.
Let there be ten thousand species of plankton
and to eat them a thousand zooplankton.
Let there be ten phyla of siphoning animals,
one phylum of finned vertebrates, from
white-tipped reef shark to long-beaked coralfish,
and to each his proper niche,
and — no Raphael, I'm not quite finished yet —
you can add seals and sea-turtles & cone-shells & penguins
(if they care) and all the good seabirds your team can devise —
oh yes, and I nearly forgot it, I want a special place
for the crabs! And now for parasites to keep
the whole system in balance, let . . ."

". . . In conclusion, I want," he said
"ten thousand mixed chains of predation —
none of your simple rabbit and coyote stuff!
This ocean shall have many mouths, many palates,
many means of ingestion. I want
a hundred ways of death, three thousand regenerations —
all in technicolor naturally. And oh yes, I nearly forgot,
we can use Eden again for the small coral cay in the center.

"So now Raphael, if you please,
just draw out and marshall these species,
and we'll plant them all out in a twelve-hectare patch."

So for five and a half days God labored
and on the seventh he donned mask and snorkel
and a pair of bright yellow flippers.

And, later, the host all peered wistfully down
through the high safety fence around Heaven
and saw God with his favorites finning slowly over the coral
in the eternal shape of a grey nurse shark,
and they saw that it was very good indeed.

***

We're back from an idyllic five days at Malua Bay on the south coast of New South Wales.  It was my birthday treat in lieu of a party (there was French champagne and a celebratory atmosphere nevertheless). I desperately needed to breathe sea air and squelch my feet in sand.  It was all a bit last minute involving a spontaneous application for leave from work and a late night, frantic search on Stayz, my favourite online accommodation finder.  It was a tough ask to find a place to stay not far from Bateman's Bay as most properties were already booked for the holiday season.  But we found a three-bedroom, two-storey townhouse in a secluded part of Malua Bay, made the reservation hastily and bolted down after work.

I'm always pleasantly surprised how close Canberra is to Bateman's Bay compared to Jervis Bay/ Shoalhaven where we normally go for family get-togethers.  Under two hours, with potential stops at the charming little towns of Bungendore and Braidwood, and only one gut-clenching, twisting, mountainous descent. 

We drove down the Clyde Mountain in the dark.  Unfortunately, as we were to discover the next day when we could appreciate where we were, our accommodation wasn't on the beach side. Still, it was near a tall eucalypt forest with relaxing views and the sound of parrots and kookaburras and an easy stroll to the beach.  There was a beachfront playground at the end of the street which always makes a good first impression.

 

There's nothing like an early morning stroll to greet the sea and the rising sun. I spent a lot of time gazing at rock pools and staring at the horizon, squinting. Wading along the shoreline, tripping over the frills of waves, avoiding clots of sea weed, getting the cuffs of my duds wet, listening to the rhythmic repetition of the breakers further out. 

Blissful sigh.

I made mental note to get in early to book another seaside getaway -- perhaps one every few months -- so we can become familiar with all the beaches down that way, Rosedale, Lilli Pilli, Mossy Point, Guerilla Bay, and find a favourite retreat.

We did think that, serendipitously, we made a good choice of Malua Bay for a first-time visit.  Our favourite beach for swimming was the next one around from ours called McKenzies Beach.  Thoroughly recommend it, especially for children.

I'll tell you more about our fishing expeditions, touring and bushwalks later.  Right now we have Australia Day festivities to attend at Commonwealth Park.

Advance Australia Fair.

Escape to the South Coast: Summer 2012

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18)

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Well, what have we been up to since Christmas Day?  So long ago it seems.  I need to think.

Ah yes.  The spontaneous trip to the Shoalhaven coast to pop in on relatives on Boxing Day. 

We simply upped and orffed.  Packed the kids, clothes and inflatable beach toys and box of turkey sandwiches for the inevitable roadtrip.  After calling on some old school friends of the Strong Silent One's in lovely Cambewarra, we de-camped to the in-laws empty house. 

Next day we headed off to join the rest of the gang at the tiny beachside village of Currarong.  The children played with their cousins in the rockpools searching for sea creatures and weeds to create an aquatic version of Masterchef in between games of backyard cricket and failed fishing expeditions.  All a bit same-same for me, so I'm looking forward to the possibility of escaping to a different part of the coast by ourselves later in the month.

  
When we did manage to escape on our own expeditions, we set off to previously unexplored locations such as the Illawara Fly - a hair-raising tree-top walk which includes a scarifying, spiral tower precariously balanced on the concrete and steel platform and a gut-clenching cantilevered contraption which sways in the breeze especially with the holiday crowds tramping and bouncing over it.  I found it more alarming than the Tahune Airwalk in Tasmania, but the single bush walk for accessing the site was quite disappointing by comparison.  (Tahune has a far more extensive web of walks to add on to the airwalk.) 

The Illawarra Fly

On the way home we had a brief detour to the Carrington Falls where the Kangaroo River plunges over the escarpment.  A picnic lunch in the rest area followed by a short bushwalk is my idea of holiday heaven.  Not so for the Strong Silent One, who I suspect may have preferred to have stayed with the rest of the extended family to watch the cricket on telly.  But being the trooper he is, he indulged us.   It was a very pretty site with well marked paths and lookouts over the falls.

  

Carrington Falls

Flushed with success, we headed down the mountain via the Big Potato at Robertson in the South Highlands, a pretty historic agricultural town was the setting for the film, "Babe".  In keeping with Australia's fascination for kitch, roadside 'Big Things', this improbable, rusty ediface is a must-see ... along with the local pie shop and my favourite kooky Winter retreat, Fountaindale Manor. 

The Big Potato, Robertson, New South Wales.

Our final pit stop was the typical Aussie seaside town of Kiama for ice creams (and coffee!) and a stroll along the esplanade to the famous Blowhole - an impressive water spout which occurs when large waves enter the mouth of the hole and compresses the air within the inner cavity. 

After oggling the site along with the teeming hoards of international visitors and holiday-makers like us, we headed back to the car for the journey home...

and pizza for tea.