Soldiers Point

The next stop around the port was Soldiers point. Probably my favourite stop on this trip. The point is set up mainly for fishermen to drop thier boats into the port some of which are huge. We spent a while here talking photos and looking around the picnic area. Soph quickly found that the lack of shoes and a large population of pointy plants in the grass were not a good combination. The pelicans here were not at all bothered by us as they clearly were used to human activity and allwed us to get only a few meters away for some of our photos.

Corlette

Looking back through these past few posts I have realised that not a great deal happened on the trip to port Stephens, granted it was a holiday and not a mission run so to speak but except for some photos of beautiful places there is very little to tell. I can assure you the trip I am about to embark on to the center of the country will have far more story to it and maybe just as beautiful imagery. Stick with it there are a few more locations from the central coast run to come however I will not be posting for the next ten days as there is no internet access where I’m going, no TV reception and no mobile phone coverage. So a few more posts on the Central coast will come when I return followed by a heap of Australia outback stuff. This picture is taken from Corlette beach Port Stephens on the Third day of our trip. The rain finally left us with a beautiful day and some great photos of locations around the port.

A pirate to remember

Whilst in Shoal bay this shop sign caught my eye. Unfortunately the Shop had gone out of business prior to my arrival yet obviously the sign remained. The sign caught my eye due to my love of Movies and in particular my love of the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

Shoal Bay

It was during our stop at Shoal Bay that we managed to catch up with a small amount of history on location we were visiting and treaking around. Port Stephens is larger than Sydney harbour and has a narrow entrance between two striking hills of volcanic origin. The harbour is mostly shallow and sandy but contains sufficient deep water to accommodate large vessels, the Queen Mary docked there during World war 2.

Port Stephens were named by Captain Cook, when he passed on 11 May 1770, honouring Sir Phillip Stephens who was Secretary of the Admiralty and a personal friend of Cook. It seems Cook's initial choice had actually been Point Kepple and Kepple Bay, but instead he used Kepple later.

The area surrounding Port Stephens has mostly rather poor soil, and had limited agricultural potential. For this reason, no large towns developed there historically and it was never developed as a significant port.

This is why it remains unspoilt to this day by industry.

The major city and port of Newcastle developed at the mouth of the Hunter River , about 50 kilometers south of Port Stephens. A number of small towns developed around the port as fishing, holiday and retirement communities. Since the 1970s, with improved road access from Sydney, and the increasing popularity of coastal retirement lifestyles, there has been major expansion of these towns.

Tomaree Head

Whilst the rain remained we visited a few more locations along the eastern end of the bay. At the furthest eastern point on the Sothern side of the bay is Tomaree Head. There is a timber walkway to guide you from a muddy pothole riddled car park through the native bush land and down onto the white sandy beach. At each end of this relatively short beach stand some impressively sized mountains as if guarding the beach, they block vision to anything beyond the beach you are standing on.You can however see the small Islands off the eastern coast that are used by local sightseeing businesses along with fishermen, whale watchers and diving expeditions. Our visit to the beach saw only two other people, this I would put down to the poor weather rather than the beach itself.

Fingal Bay

As previously stated the rain made the first few days of this trip a little average. We did still pop out and check a few of the nearby sights out. At the point of Port Stephens is a beach and a lookout known as Fingal Bay. Fingal bay, whilst quite small has a few beautiful sights. at the point of the headland stands a Whale watching perch with a few rocky islands in front of it. We did not stand in the pelting rain for too long as the numbing sensation that was coming over our skin due to the rain coming in at sixty degree angles prevailed over the desire to wait in the vain hope that maybe we would see some form of aquatic life. Even through mud, rain and what felt like hail i still found the location somewhat amazing. It may be worth my while to return when the weather and marine life behave a little more favorably.

Four day Get Away

Another trip just competed with no official cause or need, I received a four night stay in a resort located in Nelsons bay on the banks of Port Stephens as a Birthday gift and ducked up mid week to take full advantage of it. Throughout the duration of this trip we traveled to several locations around port Stephens however for the first half of the trip the weather was mildly miserable yet we still made the effort to get out see the places and get some great photos.
I will add a heap of images and some details about where we went and what we saw over the next few days.

Wicked

Today I depart for Nelsons bay and had thought I would be Blogging about the up coming trip but I find myself distracted. Several weeks back I committed to buying a ticked to the Broadway musical known as Wicked.

The last time I sat in a live Musical performance that was not held by my high school was over twenty years ago. I distinctly remember as a small child not knowing what was happening, simply displaying behavior similiar to a small kitten, clapping and cheering and loud noises, gleeful songs and bright lights. As a result I had this misconception in my mind that I struggle to keep up with the story line of musicals. In hindsight this is mildly ridicules as keeping up with a Gilbert and Sullivan performance is hard at the best of times but when your five years old its dam near impossible.

I was pleasantly surprised as I sipped on a twelve dollar cocktail and ate my six dollar packet of M&M's that I not only was able to keep up with the story line of the Musical but that I really did enjoy it.

I enjoyed this for two reasons. The first was the number of people attending. My sister had organised this event through the church and had over forty people attend. A combined event with people from all aspects of the church community came together, People from Cube, Neon, Musical School and the church congregation. This was fantastic to see.

Secondly was the musical itself,without spoiling the plot or the sheer awesomeness of the show I will try and do it some small form of justice here on my blog.

Any form of entertainment is successful when you as the viewer are sucked in, your subconscious believes for a small period of time that you as the viewer are there experiencing what the characters are experiencing. I'm no professional in the arts but I feel this is done by by playing on your emotions and senses.
I believe that a musical is even harder then a film to get the audiance to that point of believing they are there experiencing it but this musical does it. You walk out of the theater and you find yourself shocked that people aren't breaking out in song or leaping around the room like idiots.

An amazing set that would have taken hundreds of man hours, costumes, hair and makeup that would cost a fortune, visual effects, life size dragons and surround sound all made this performance amazing, coupled with an amazing story line, brilliance comes in many forms but to think up a story line that surrounds a childhood classic as solid in history as the Wizard of Oz yet does not damage the classic story in any way is pure genius and I would highly recomend it to any one, even if your not a musical person, its well worth it.

A past trip recalled

Several Months back I travelled south with many members of my Church Community, I touched on this trip briefly with a few posts a while back but did not give the trip too much air time on the Blog. The trip was only a few short days but was fantastic for getting some of the tuff questions out and the nitty gritty for some of the cube members when it came to getting past the sugar coated side to Christian Faith and really got down to what its all about. In two short days I’m off on another trip and am hoping for more of the same in depth questions. Here is a shot you tube clip of the trip to Shoal Haven put together by my father.

Manly Food and Wine Festival

A hazy Friday night with Vish resulted in the consumption of a large amount of beer and a two am Taxi ride to MacDonald s. The night was planned as a catch up with a mate I met on road trip and turned into a bit of a bender. The night ended up watching a variety of stand up comedians and lying around at home feeling overly bloated and significantly pissed.
The following day was planed to duck into Manly for an all day breakfast at about one in the afternoon. Upon arrival we realised not only that manly Councils parking rates were obscene but that we had chosen the most populated place on the North Shore that day.

Our event clashed with the Manly Food and Wine Festival. The overcast weather did not keep the punters at home, three weeks of monsoonal weather, followed by the first hint of a partially dry day seemed to attract everyone to Manly. Rather then lodge a formal complaint that this event had distorted our planned hangover remedy of scrambled eggs in the early afternoon, we just got into the atmosphere and drunk up. All sorts of Wine samples from across the state were on sample for a small fee along with some fantastic cuisine from local business. Adopting the theory that the longest lines were for the better products we managed to get ourselves a feed of Thai and some somewhat impressive deserts and the long waits were well worth it.
The Festival attracts people from all across the state and the local area of Manly was absolutely packed with people, a brilliant event for the local businesses and as fate would have it we both stumbled across it by accident. I did have a 21st to attend latter that day, It was a very long weekend.