Sunshine Coast Daily Photo

Thursday, 31 March 2011

Sunday Drivers

It's early, but the highway is already starting to fill out with Sunday commuters. Soon the clouds will have burnt off and the beaches will be full of day trippers.

Nostalgia

Not an old town at all, a nostalgic recreation in the name of tourism.

Aussie World

To the "Big Smoke".

If you follow those tracks far enough, you'll end up in Brisbane.

We must be an impatient lot, almost every town has a pedestrian bridge over the railway line as insurance against the few minutes one would have to wait for the train to pass.

It has been more than half a century since the last steam engine ran on this line, so a large percentage of the population have never seen one in action. Why then, does a steam locomotive in this, the space age, communicate danger?

Mooloola

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Going Down

Heading down from Maleny, well clearly this is an uphill bit but the direction is definitely "down"!

Look up

Next time you are sitting under a picnic shelter, look up and see what you can see.

Maleny

Hilly Bits

I like the Maleny townscape, it has actual topography unlike the billiard table surface that is most of the "Coast".

Maleny
© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

They won't notice

Just behind the facade, there's a line where the painting stopped. "They'll never notice."

I did, but I'm half a century too late to save the building!

Maleny

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Sorry No Fuel

But if sir would care for a lovely yin-yang tile in black and white pebble to carry home while pushing the empty vehicle......

Maleny

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Lace

No need to wonder what the bugs have been eating.

©
Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Old

One of the reason our architecture has not stood for more than a hundred years or so is that generally it is constructed of very small pieces of timber, and is therefore very susceptible to decay.

One of the other reasons is that, well, as a country we haven't had this sort of construction for that long either!

Maleny

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Canvassy Whirly Thing

There's a disturbing trend among those who use the English language to create adjectives by adding a "y" and in the event that no adequate noun can be found to describe and object, to refer to it as a thing.

Hence this spiral fabric spinning flag is otherwise described as a canvassy whirly thing. We all know what I mean.

Maleny

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Had enough

Looks like this turtle has had enough, and is off home for a bite of lunch.

Street Art

Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Just in Case

The IRB waits ever vigilant.

Coolum
© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Watchtower

The vantage point for the Coolum Life Savers.

Nice.

Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Tie a yellow ribbon

"Interesting" In a "looks like the fence at the end of the rubbish dump" kind of way. (I'm just kidding - I rather like it, and look forward to watching it weather over the years.)

Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Fence Art

I don't know the history of the fence project, but a thousand little flags have been tied to the dune fencing, and depending on your point of view, it either looks untidy, or "interesting".

Tomorrow I shall provide my opinion, (at no extra cost!)

Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Bike Rack

OK, despite all the improvements to cycle facilities, there is no rack, but no one cares.

Coolum
© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Kids

Kids on the beach

Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Saturday

Saturday afternoon, looking north from Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Two Generations

Having fun near the shore.

Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

On the beach below.

View of the beach through the boardwalk rail.

Coolum

Boardwalk

So this is a boardwalk eh?

Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Just a building

But perhaps there is something deliberate in the line of the facade that is reminiscent of the line of a wave washing along the beach.

Or perhaps I'm kidding myself and it just follows the street below.

Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Conveyance

No need for a "woodie" when you've got the trusty treadly loaded with the gear.

Coolum

Nice thing

I'm a sucker for street art, like this sculptural piece in Coolum.

I have no idea what it is called or what it means. Well it means that I smile as I walk by, and that's good enough for me!

Coolum

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Shadowland

Another nice thing about strong sunlight, is that it produces strong shadow, and there is much to be said for designers who can make use of the ever changing nature of the shade. A few simple battens and on a clear day we can enjoy new geometric patterns.

Coolum Surf Club

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Holidaying above the clouds

It's hard to believe that there are those who would have higher buildings banned.

I wonder why they can't see the power lines suspended across their lines of sight, perhaps they can't see the forest for the trees!

At least the view from the building is not obscured.

Coolum
© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Beach Roofs

With each new architectural fad, comes a new interpretation of what a "beachy" roof form should be. Once they were flat, a contrast to the tiles in suburbia, but lately someone has decided that they should reflect the patterns of the waves I suspect.

Coolum

Are we there yet?

There's something very special about coming over the hill and seeing the ocean for the first time.

Every time it happens it is as though it has never happened before.

Coolum

Papa's Beach

Today's City Daily Photo Blogs theme is "Your favourite part of town", and in a very self indulgent mood, I have to say those steps in the background have been my favourite spot on and off for quite a long time.

"Papa's Beach" is what Mr Four calls our place, and although his cousin Miss Lily can't yet talk, she probably calls it that as well. The river runs clear, the beach sandy and clean and we think it is paradise.

The stairs are where I've sat over the past decade and watched a thousand sunsets, half as many sunrises, consumed three times that many cups of coffee, photographed all manner of birds and animals coming to visit. Often the water's ever changing moods were a foil to my own, and we'd sit and stare at each other, the river and I.

This month it comes to an end. The house in which all three of our daughters were married, the one that gave birth to at least a dozen boats and has overseen the arrival of a quarter as many grandchildren will pass into the hands of others in a few short weeks. It was bought you see, in a rash of Government impetuosity, a year ago when a faceless bureaucrat thought it would make a lovely place for a freeway, and although shortly after they thought it wouldn't, our new journey had already begun..

Their decision was irrevocable, our life had changed, we made plans for a future in a different place, and in a few short weeks from now we will be gone.

For those who have followed my daily blog, this story will be familiar. Shortly, Papa's Beach will be little more than another Fading Memory but one never the less, for which we will always be grateful.