Spiders and birds

It’s a long walk up to North Head, so on this occasion, the three of us took the bus. Four years ago, this beauty spot was devastated by bush fires, and there are still signs of the destruction.

But the new growth is flourishing, although we were disappointed to not see big spiders’ webs like we did on our previous visit. Disappointed? Well, I was, but I think Liesel and Leslie were relieved.

The Pacific Ocean lay before us like the biggest blue table cloth you could imagine. There were a couple of boats, but other than that, its size just messed with your senses, and reminded me of John Wayne. While making a film, as a Roman soldier, he had to look up at the crucified body of Jesus and say, ‘Truly, this was the son of God’. The director said, ‘Give it some awe, John’. So he said, ‘Aw, truly this was the son of God’. I don’t know if that’s a true story or not, but the ocean, seen from our lookout, really did fill us with awe.

We took the shuttle bus down to Q Station, the old quarantine station, and had a look around the museum. It’s all fascinating stuff, but it must have been pretty grim having to wait here for several weeks with, or in case you caught, one of several nasty infectious diseases. A few people were having a good time on the beach. Four young teeny-weeny-bikini-clad girls, unencumbered with any kind of bag, came into the café, purchased, and walked away with soft drinks. Liesel posed the question: just where did they keep the credit card?

We’d thought about taking the ferry back, but the jetty is dangerous and out of bounds. Unless you’re a cormorant and you want to dry your wings out at the far end.

Back in Manly, we met Bambi and Gypsy for a coffee. But the coffee shops were closed and we ended up at the Steyne Hotel for a cocktail instead. Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere.

In the evening, Liesel and I joined Helen and Brent back at the Harbord Hotel for another night of Trivia. Just us four in the team, we did alright, but walked away without a prize. And tired Mom managed alright at home on her own for a couple of hours.

It was time for some self-care. Liesel and Leslie had pedicures. And the following day, we all had a massage. Graçias Helena, I don’t know how you do it, but to find the area of my back that occasionally causes discomfort, even when as today, it’s feeling pretty good, well that’s the sign of a great masseuse.

We walked through Manly and along to Shelly Beach. Many people were having a great time on the beach and in the water.

It was a crowded path today, and we arrived to be greeted by a large number of brush turkeys on Shelly Beach. Lunch time and we found a table inside. I watched a couple of turkeys have a chat outside. ‘Should we go in?’ ‘I was thinking about it.’ And a few seconds later, one of the turkeys did join us inside the Boathouse. And a few seconds after that, we heard and felt the first clap of thunder. After which, it started raining. Harder and harder. There was a magnificent flash of forked lightning in the clouds, after which, I spent ages trying to capture a lightning flash with the camera. The storm was right overhead, and we were glad to be inside. And of course, the place became more and more crowded as more and more damp people joined us. Not many more birds, though. In fact, there were more babies inside than the number of brush turkeys we’d seen outside.

Enjoyment of our lunch wasn’t affected, and we hung out longer that we would have normally, waiting for the rain to abate. I ordered a coffee which was very welcome. Then a second coffee was delivered to our table. That was unexpectedly welcome: I hope nobody missed out and that the staff just duplicated our order by mistake.  

We walked back to Manly and witnessed another thunderstorm. Again, we found shelter just in time, under the canopies outside the shops. From this particular vantage point, we could see the rain bounce off the road seemingly right back up where it came from. Again, we saw a couple of lightning bolts, but not when my camera was pointing in the right direction.

As we walked to the bus stop, we had to cross a road which was totally inundated. I wanted to take a picture of the puddle. And when I raised my phone, I noticed the cars splashing through the water slowed down a bit. Maybe the drivers thought I was taking a picture of their slightly antisocial behaviour.

Back at Helen’s, Liesel prepared a meal from an EveryPlate kit. Helen joined us after work and even though the meal kit was supposed to serve four people, we had leftovers. Of course we did! We opened a bottle of wine to have with our meal. This is unusual for us, but we don’t really want to lug 13 bottles of wine around with us.

We’ve been pretty busy so we thought we’d have a more relaxed day. Liesel took Mom on an errand so I took myself off to the library where I joined quite a few other people, ancient and modern, studying, writing or just reading the newspaper.

When it was time for a coffee, I wandered around the Mall for a bit. I’m used to shops at home not selling what their names would suggest, but I thought that was just a British phenomenon. You can’t buy footwear in Boots, for instance. The Body Shop never sold corpses. And, to my embarrassment, White Stuff doesn’t deal in cocaine.

So here I was in Warringah Mall and I remembered seeing school boys over the last few days taking their fishing equipment on buses. I thought maybe I should have a go at this angling malarkey, but I needed to buy some gear. I found just the shop.

Nope. There were no fishing rods here and the assistant was quite offended when I suggested I might take up shooting instead. No guns here either. Well, if I can’t hunt wildlife, maybe I can buy some.

That’s the place for me. Turns out they don’t sell playpuses nor any other kind of wild Australian animal. This was getting a bit frustrating. A stiff drink is in order, I said to myself. And just over the way, the ideal bar.

Again, disappointment greeted me inside. Yet another shop out to confuse shoppers. Not a drop of whisky to be seen here, although I suspect the manager has a secret stash in their filing cabinet. Not wanting to walk home nor catch the bus, I decided to purchase a vehicle.

You’re ahead of me, aren’t you? I couldn’t buy any kind of motorised transport here. Instead, they tried to palm me off with a pair of shoes. I’d already decided not to walk home, and I was happy with my current footwear, thank you very much.

The weather took a turn for the worse. After the thunderstorms, the weather had cleared up. Again reader, it rained. We walked over to the car rental place to collect our final car this trip. We stayed dry, but once the heavens opened, it didn’t really stop for the rest of the day. We drove over to Forestville to do some shopping. It made a pleasant change shopping at a branch of Coles other than in Warringah Mall. No, not really, they’re all pretty much the same.,

We found a great little Greek café for a coffee. I translated most the Greek signs, but had to resort to Google Translate in the end. The waiter was totally unimpressed by my ‘Ευχαριστώ πολύ!’ Well, I tried. Oh, and it was very nice coffee here at Forest Brunch  Bar, if you’re in the area.

We do like visitors, but imagine our surprise when we saw this one first thing in the morning.

It’s a bit bigger than the spiders we see at home. Leslie’s face told a horror story when she was introduced to it.

And, as if this specimen wasn’t enough, we found another one on its web, with one strong thread attached to the barbecue cover. That might cause a problem later in the day.

The rain had reluctantly eased off overnight, and Freshwater Beach called us over for a quick walk.

It was hilly. We walked round in a big loop, stopping for a coffee and buying bread at Mrs Jones the Baker.

Freshwater View Reserve sounds appealing. It’s up the hill, and would offer specatcular views of the ocean, right? Well, it’s a very small park. There are benches, but if you sit down, your view is obscured by big bushes. It might be someone’s idea of a joke: maybe a local councillor designed this place on his final day in office.

We admired the local flora. Here is the lovely Liesel, wearing blue, modelling someone’s overgrown cactus.

We felt the need to walk a little further, so we paid a return visit to Long Reef, the venue for one of our first wanders when we arrived, all those weeks ago.

At the bottom of the boat ramp, there was a flock of seagulls, not to be confused with the 1980s new wave band of that name. And in amongst these pesky chip-stealing birds, we spotted the pelican trying to look inconspicuous.

On the golf course, Liesel noticed someone’s golf cart running away with itself. Somehow, it knew where to stop. The player caught up, selected a club, and hit the ball again. Then sent the cart off on its own to the next rendezvous. I thought half the fun of playing golf was pulling your own cart around.

We walked up to the lookout point, looked out, oohed and ahhed, and walked back down the slope.

On the road home, we passed by several cars and vans, parked up and all for sale. I don’t know which kind of vehicle was on sale for $44.50, but I’m sure it was a bargain. Or a pricing error.

We arrived home a little later than planned, Helen was in already, and Leslie, whom we’d left behind (her choice, we didn’t just forget her like David Cameron did his daughter in the pub that time) was happy to have us all back.

Helen removed the barbecue cover without upsetting the spider, so that’s a relief. We were joined by Helen and Dan with their children Asher and Fern. I’d met them before, briefly, at Nat and Rob’s.

Young children are great, but not so good at remembering not to double-dip their food in the hummus! We enjoyed some bubbles and we opened another bottle of wine from one of the vineyards we’d visited in the Hunter Valley.

It was a most enjoyable afternoon, eating too much and drinking too much and yakking and playing with the very entertaining children. I think only three glasses of wine were spilled, but I may have lost count. Good job we were sitting outside. Again, we all commented on how quickly it gets dark when the Sun sets at about 6pm.