Gotcha

Many things in life are not what they appear to be at first blush.

Shooting Through : A fond remembrance

Pitt Street (Christmas 1935) taken from 'Shooting Through' published by the Historic Houses Trust of NSW (2009) pp 76-77

Come for a meander with me down memory lane, as we remember that day fifty years ago today, when the last tram of the massive Sydney tramways system trundled from Hunter Street out to La Perouse. Clocks can not be turned back, society moves on. Arguments for or against are futile.

Raise your glass: 'Sydney trams'.

2) Cable trams in King Street, 1890s 3) A queue of trams waiting for punters to exit from Randwick Racecourse, 1922 4) Official tram initiating the crossing of the bridge, 1932 5) Trams servicing Circular Quay (looking east), 1930s 6) Major tramways intersection at Railway Square, 1910s 7) Tram cresting the rise along Glebe Point Road, late 1950s 8) Along Eddy Avenue, in front of Central Station, late 1950s 9) Queens Square, Macquarie Street, 1960 10) Looking south along Elizabeth Street, 25 February 1961

For the last 18 months or so, I have participated in an email ring that has shared images of Sydney trams. I have hundreds of the blighters. There are two categories of image that bring me pain: the burning of the carriages, which occured within weeks of the final journey; and, the graffiti covered carriages out at Rozelle.

Grande dames of the seas

This first photograph taken and processed by Kirsten

A day of two halves - firstly grey sleeting rain, but eventually a blue patchwork - saw me and my gals out on the harbour farewelling Cunard's 'Queen Elizabeth' (2010 incarnation).

There were four cruise liners in the harbour come midday: Queen Mary 2 docked at Garden Island; Queen Elizabeth docked in Sydney Cove; Fred Olsen's 'Balmoral' heaved to in Athol Bight; and, Regent's 'Seven Seas Voyager' docked on the western side of the Bridge, at Barangaroo.


We sat off Kirribilli Point in the tiny Rossmore Ferry, 'Proclaim', having already choofed up the Parramatta River to survey the woeful passenger processing facility for cruise passengers (but then maybe the shipping companies should contribute more), then down to Garden Island to get up-close-and-personal with the QM.

These two liners are BIG boats, as I hope this post illustrates. After a special day of remembrance tomorrow, I will continue with the cruise ships over the weekend.

This final photograph taken and processed by Kirsten

Queens paint the town

Spare a moment to think of our friends in New Zealand combatting all that nature can throw at them.


Stretched to the limit: F5.6, ISO=800, 250mm, and <1/50 and without a tripod. All these were taken between 5:30am and 6:30am yesterday morning as the two liners rendez-vous(d) outside the heads, then entered in royal procession.

The Queen Mary 2 is by far the bigger of the two liners, with the Queen Elizabeth being sleeker and more elegant. Even half-way down the meandering harbour, they dwarf the poor old coat-hanger.


Taken from either Gap Park on South Head, or hanging over a railing at the intersection of Hopetoun Ave and Salisbury Street, Watsons Bay. The early start was exhilarating but the crowds nothing like the original sashay of the queens early in 2008.

During Wednesday me and my gals will be aboard a Maritime Museum ferry farwelling QE as she embarks on her round-the-world tour. More tomorrow.

Head in the clouds

As I approached, a figure broke from in front the plinth and crunched up the pathway toward the thicket of pines on the ridge, leaving a whiff of ck-One on the breeze. Her (for that is what I surmised from the gait) vest flapped in the draught, and her shoulders weighed her down. A sense of muttering accompanied her.

It was morning; I was alone, save for the heat of the day making its presence felt early. I turned to survey the returned statue, a stranger in a foreign land. That was when I saw the offering, wilting, as flesh and blood is want to do in the presence of cold, hard marble.


Dickens never came to this county. His is not a style that resonates down here. The linked article tells the story of the statue.

The sweaty pack

Coming up to 8:30 on a Sunday morning in late summer, with the mercury already edging its way up to to the forecast 31C. The morning after a breathless, heavy night.

One pack rounds Busby's Lake, keeping beneath the shade cast by the she-oaks. The pounding of the other pack is felt as it breasts the rise up Snake Bank, lined with palms. Lean bodies trickle sweat.

I slink back into the shadow of the melaleuca, stretching my cotton top to cover flab, puffing from the sheer exertion of breathing, waiting for youth to pass.

The ochre wall

Twice a week, with my back-pak in place, and trundling my trolley, I pick my way gingerly over to Double Bay for a spot of 'ma-care'. Down past the 'home' where my father awaits that final journey, through the children's play-ground, and out onto Stephen Street. Using a stick to direct my wobbles, I pause, and look up. I think myself in Giverny, once more. The wall is well hidden behind a screen of rampant bamboo, so I make like M. Monet, and frame 'til my heart is content.

Five Ways (5) - the hub

To complete the pattern, to come full circle, show all the spokes on the wheel, by rights, today's post should have concentrated on Goodhope Road. Neah! Bit boring: just houses, no perspective. So, let's look at the hub around which this part of Paddo revolves.

It is quite a piddlng little round-a-bout, but sooo much nicer than a set of lights. Ad the streets around here are so narrow and so windy that there is not a lot of hoonery (put that in your vocab-pipe!).


See the harbour glimpse in the shot immediatly above here. If the day were sunny, and the sky blue and the water shimmering .. ah ... bliss. But we have the grey end of the Cyclone Yasi tail.

I told you the buses were not designed for this intersection. All buses travelling east take this trajectory. The ones travelling west seem not to have the same issues.

So, to the right of the pub is Broughton ST, next to Gustos is Heeley Street, In front of the four gaudy terraces is Glenmore Road. Between the chicken shop and the angular chemist shop is Goodhope Road, and in front of 'A fish called Paddo' is Glenmore Road (east). We have come full circle.

Five Ways (4) - Glenmore Road (West)

Standing outside the chicken shop looking up the escarpment.

Glenmore Road is the spine that runs through the heart of Five Ways. Now they don't teach THAT in medschool! It accounts for two of the five ways.

Standing outside the Royal Hotel looking west along Glenmore

Mostly FW is eateries: chicken, pizza, fish, waygu, pub, Thai, French, 4 cafes. Plus supermarket, two grog-shops, two hair-dressers, a chemist, dry-cleaners, newsagent, and two art galleries. And for some reason, a bridal shop.

It is thriving.

Standing 100m back along Glenmore and looking east to the hotel

Five Ways (3) - Heeley Street

Looking down Heeey Street to the FW intersection

Dominated by its topography, Paddington snakes sinuously across and down the escarpment, carved by pristine watercourses from the antiquity of Gondwanaland - watercourses now forced underground.

There are a number of small (expensive) shops on Heeley, viz cellar, hair salon and niche cafes as well as a KU preschool

To say it is not a pooor area is probably an insulting understatement. The terraces are old on the outside due to heritage restrictions, but internally they are worth millions. Land, however, is at a premium and people 'live on the street'; hence, the cafe culture, and the plethora of playground equipment and handkerchief parks, which once were single terraces.

People are still wedded to the motor car, even this close to the city, although my guess is that it is evenly divided between private car, bus and foot. Even using my stick, I can be in Hyde Park within 30 minutes.

Looking from the FW intersection up Heeley Street

Five Ways (2) - Broughton Street

Just before entering FW proper which is ringed with pedestrian crossings

As I intimated yesterday, Five Ways is the tiniest of little round-abouts. Glenmore Road runs into it from the west and out from the east, accounting for two of the ways. Broughton Street runs across and down the ridge from the south-east heading toward the city. Here the Royal Hotel built in 1880 is on the right.

Looking back up Broughton Street

This last shot gives a good idea of the steep narrow streets that comprise Paddington and which run down the escarpment to the harbour. The escarpment provides excellent views of the waters of the harbour in between wrought iron terraces and the feathery leaves of jacaranda trees. It is a contining thrill to hear the deep horn of the visiting cruise ships as they traverse the harbour to dock at the OPT.

A longer view down Broughton Street with the red letter box small in the distance

Five Ways (1): A fish called Paddo

He slouched on the pine'n'chrome bench, threw the scalding coffee down his throat, and watched the latte-set scurry by. He'd go into the pub by-and-by, as soon as the buzzing in his head eased. He only went in there, you realise, for the nutritional value of the counter-lunch.


In his squalid forty years on this planet he had seen mighty changes come over this mangled intersection, where the 389 bus had not a chance in hell of manoeuvring the round-a-bout and just ploughed over the top regardless. As a kid he'd lived in a run-down terrace up off Olive Lane. That was before all the arty types invaded the neighbourhood and make it sought-after. This was the time when Five Ways consisted of a pub (The Royal), a church (St George's), a chemist, a milk bar, and even an old cinema which has given way to a fruit & veg market.

He had to go. The smell of the fresh baked sour-dough and the sizzling white-bait was doing his head in.

Left field

Dawdling back from buying a swag of tickets to the French Film Festival at the Verona on Oxford Street (8th -27th March), I espied this little treasure.

I admire how people can think laterally and come up with ingenious solutions like this. I think the flower is called 'pig face' ...

I want ... I want ... I want ...

Show don't tell

At the beginning of last year, I joined the NSW Writers' Centre which is located on the site of the old Callan Park psychiatric hospital. I have done three courses with them now: one about a technique called 'show don't tell'; another on writing picture books for children; and today's course.


Today was not actually a course. It was the first in a monthly workshop group which critiques draft manuscripts. It was sooo worthwhile. It is astounding the different thoughts other people have about a story that the writer knows backwards, yet doesn't really know at all.