Come on kids!

Come on kids, it's time to get home and have a bite to eat, then we can watch the fireworks.

Admittedly, we have quite a few hours till the sun goes down, but after then......

Happy New Year!

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Hearts and Kisses

The last market of the year brought hearts and kisses to all!

Caloundra

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Rust

I was taken by the accidental mix of modern, eclectic coastal colours, and then I saw the modern eclectic air conditioning unit and my picture was complete.

Caloundra

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Nature's Way

I am fascinated by the colourful floral facades of the buildings, and more so by the fact that here nature seems to be wanting a piece of the action.

Not too far above the facade, ferns grow from the brickwork.

Life really does imitate art!

Caloundra

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Lifesavers

Thanks to the incredible work of a dedicated band of volunteers, the new generation of Surf Lifesavers will be there to ensure the safety of holiday crowds in years to come.

Hats off to the lifesavers and the work they do not just in holiday times!

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Boxing Day

On Boxing Day, the influx of holiday makers begins.  Everyone is on their way to the beach today, and they'll stay there too, until most of the way through January, when schools commence their new year.

Many of us who are fortunate enough to live here will spend the next month, finishing off odd jobs around the house, and looking for excuses to avoid the summer crowds!


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Merry Christmas

Each year I set out in search of our City's response to the Holiday Season.

The best I could find this year was on the door of our local Member of Parliament - a hastily scribbled greeting in "Post GFC Economy" style, a sad but descriptive indictment of the amount of money our public bodies spend on Celebration.

The sentiments are genuine though, as indeed are mine!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

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On the list...

There was a time when all I wanted from Santa was a Kombi Van, and perhaps an endless summer of surf and travel.

I never did get the Kombi, but the endless summer arrived none the less.

Thanks Santa!

Memory Lane 

Caloundra

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Meanwhile on the opposite wall.

In the seventies, "Home" to many was the Panel Van a particularly Australian evolution.  A vehicle designed to carry tools and equipment, which had a covered shelter almost exactly the size of a double mattress.

The interiors of these things often smelt of a strange concoction of working tools, surfboard wax, stale hamburger and perhaps some sort of vegetable matter.    Armed with a panel van and a quiver of surfboards, one could simply move house to wherever the surf was breaking best at any particular time.

Caloundra.

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Christmas

And then there were the holidays.  "Christmas" meant piling into the caravan, often to the same position booked year after year, to rejoin ones "Coast Family".

The Mini Moke, a wildly impractical vehicle for almost any purpose became synonymous with "beach" for reasons which are quite inexplicable.   "Proper" surfers didn't need them of course, but for a time it was every tourists dream to live at the beach and drive a Moke.

Caloundra


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Ma and Pa Bendall Lookout

Just above  Moffat Beach there is a lookout which honours the memory of Ma and Pa Bendall.   Right above the point that was "theirs".

Here is the view from that spot.  Perhaps it's not as good as being in the surf, but I suspect that if they were alive today, as centenerians, they'd sit here and approve!

Moffat Headland

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Ma and Pa Bendall

Ma and Pa were an extraordinary couple, travelling the world surfing in a time when travelling the world, let alone surfing was not a daily occurence.    As mentors of the surfing community in the sixties, the memorial surfing contest in their honour has been held annually since 1974.

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Memory Lane

It's hard to imagine a time when one needed to find a coat and tie to wander down to the beach, but horrifyingly, that time existed in my lifetime.  (Just!(

Caloundra

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Memory Lane

Memory Lane was an art installation undertaken one weekend in May.   It was a lovely thing, a mural incorporating photos of years gone by radiating from the light of the Caloundra Light House.

It's a shame it wasn't either thought of as permanent, or quietly disposed of rather than left to become a piece of litter.  

But the memories were nice.

Caloundra
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Smile!

Are those flames I spy on the letterbox?

As I sit mid struggle finding elements that will magically transform our eighties "brick box" into a a magical beach house, every now and then I come across something that reminds me that it's best if I don't take it all so seriously!

Moffat Beach



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Too good not to repeat

Well it was just sitting there, so I had to take another shot.

The car, for those interested is a 1960 "FB" Holden, and it just seems to suit the surrounds!

Moffat Beach
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Nostalgia

Sixties landscaping goes with sixties cars, although while the colour suits the composition, it wasn't on the original options list!

Moffat Beach

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The Beach!

Nothing says "the beach" more than a row of desert suculents.

Apparently!   At least in nostalgic terms.

Moffat Beach

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Planting Fashions

 About the same time the breeze block was coming in to prominence, coastal landscaping was taking its influence from a far away land.   For reasons that have never quite been explained, but perhaps it had to do with television, and programs like 77 Sunset Strip, our subtropical indigenous planting was replaced with plants more at home in the desert.

Timewarp gardens still remain dotted through the suburb.

Moffat Beach

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Breeze Blocks

There was a time, somewhere in the 1960's when, someone discovered that concrete block walls were quite good at keeping out wind and rain, but they lacked somewhat in the ventilations stakes.

After what was no doubt a good deal of research and effort, the "breeze block" was invented.  Cleverly designed in patterns that would make M.C.Escher proud (or not perhaps) no barbecue area or carport was complete without a breezeblock panel or two.

Moffat Beach
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Dappled Shade

The shadows cast by the morning sun provide all the texture the old "fibro" wall needs.

Beach House
Moffat Beach


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Ringside Seat

The sticks in the sand mark the edge of the area in which the junior lifesavers will soon be competing.  It looks to me as though someone has set up their viewing position early.

Kings Beach

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Sunday

 A Sunday walk involves too many decisions.

For instance, should we join them in the water, sit and watch for a bit, move on to the next bay where it might be nicer........

Decisions decisions....

Caloundra

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Foliage

Coastal Banksia contrasts strongly against the soft Casuarina canopy beyond.

Noosa

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The long and winding road

I still have a way to go and the shade is starting to get deeper.  I'll have to hurry or I won't find my way out in the dark!

Noosa National Park

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Sunset Monochrome

Walking back through the Noosa National Park at dusk, the colour washes out of the world.  It's as if someone is Photoshopping the planet!

Noosa
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Back in Noosa

Just a glimpse of the sunset on the beach.

Noosa Heads.

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Heatwave

It's interesting that with the temperature hovering just a tiny bit below forty degrees, people hang around in the sun "to stay cool".

Sure the water is quite cool, (relatively speaking) and the wind chills down wet skin quite quickly, but the sun just sits there roasting away.

Tomorrow, normal transmission will resume with temperatures in the very low thirties, another one day heatwave!

Moffat Beach

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Do Drop In Sometime

The beach at the end of our street is a popular landing spot for skydivers.   They just seem to appear out of nowhere, a screaming bundle of arms and legs as the tandem jumpers land among what must seem like a crowd.

The pilots give the impression that they have done this once or twice before though, landing invariably into the waiting arms of a "catcher".

Moffat Beach

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Lazy Sunday Afternoon

The water isn't dirty, it's perfectly clear but stained with a little tanin from the ti-trees that line the creek.

Don't lie in the sun for too long though - fifteen minutes is enough to cause burns at the moment - UV index; 14 (Dangerous!)



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My Street

There's a stop sign at the end of my street......

It's to remind drivers that there is also an Ocean.

DickyBeach



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Caught Short

 

We went to Noosa this evening to watch the Christmas Tree being lit at Hastings Street, and since we live at exactly the other end of the town, which is pretty close to 60 km from where we were when I realised I'd left my camera at home, there was little chance of retrieving it in time.

So the trusty phone came out and at least recorded some of the colour of the night.

Hastings Street

Noosa

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Red Chair

Red Chair in the sunset.

Beach House
Dicky Beach
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Fishing into the evening.

Catching dinner.

Or not.

Tooway Creek
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Let's leave Nambour!

One man and his dog heading into the sunset on a paddleboard.

Surely there's a song in that.

Caloundra
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Erk indeed

It takes an extremely talented and brave anti-artist to carry out a project this vast!   I am at two minds though whether this tile-lined structure is a bigger blot on the main street than the tags which it contains.

Perhaps someone can explain its purpose in the grand scheme of things?   It doesn't have enough drains or disinfectant for the purpose it is currently used.

Nambour

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Wings

The public carpark obviously had some thought lavished on it in the design stages, with its overlapping curves and carefully detailed concrete work, but then someone left it outside in the rain, and forgot about it, added a few less than discreet plastic pipes and generally left it to rot.

It just needs a clean!

Nambour
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Tell someone who cares!

It's things like this I don't get about Nambour.  On the one hand the community is clearly quite strong and proud of their town and its history, on the other, no one cares about stuff that appears to be only visible to strangers.

In another place I live, someone would have "adopted" this traffic island, taking care of the garden on a voluntary basis, but here it must fend for itself!

Nambour

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Another Fire

Fire was once synonymous with cane.   Before each harvest the sugar cane would be burnt to clear out the vermin, and get rid of all but the precious stalks of cane, allowing the cutters to get in and get a clear if not clean run at their job.

It was filthy, hot, hard work, and the cane cutters were a tough lot.   Nambour was once a sugar town, and it's roots are never far from view.

Nambour

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Another Bright Spot

Another bright spot, but would it really have been too hard to put the identification sticker up on the flat green bit instead of slapped in the middle of the painting?

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Bright Spots

All is not lost, Nambour is full of electrical boxes decorated with artist Mandy Shackleton's unmistakable hand.

But the bright spots don't always take one's eye away from the derision they mask.

Nambour.

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Council Offices

Decades on, and the main stair entrance to Council's offices is still blocked off by a Stainless steel handrail.   Presumably the stair doesn't comply with current regulations if it is left full width, so why not turn it into something useful, like a garden, or a skateboard ramp?

Nambour

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Downtown

Nambour at first glance is a lovely, leafy town, even at second glance it's quite pleasant to drive through, or even stop and wander for a bit.

Nambour

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Lovin' Nambour again.

Back in Nambour and I'll try to be nice, but really, how long did it take for these trees to grow in front of the the floodlights that once used to light Council offices by night?  No one seems to have noticed.

Sure, there's an argument that says night lighting is unnecessary and a terrible waste of carbon to boot, in which case I'd have to ask why Council leaves its rubbish bolted to a pole!

Nambour

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Theme Park

It would almost be worth paying an admission fee to get to wander round the ruin, but I suppose there are rules about that sort of thing.

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Waste

There is a fortune in recyclable materials if only it was possible to recover them without paying the cost of labour. So many of the world's disused buildings could be dismantled and parts used constructively if only there was a source of free help. Perhaps it's time to start a building demolition version of WWOOFing to find mutually beneficial reuse of the materials!

Nambour

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Macadamia World

I don't remember if it was started as an adjunct to the Big Pineapple, or in opposition to it, but whatever the case Macadamia World became infused, although it has not handled the ravages of time and insolvency nearly as well.

Nambour

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Directions

The Big Pineapple has apparently been rescued and will live to fight another day, perhaps in a mere shadow of its former glorious past.

I am not yet sure what to expect, beyond the mango ice and farmer's markets, if anything at all, but I shall return to investigate its transformation or resurrection, or where ever its new direction takes it.

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Fine Eye for Detail

The Metal Billboard is cleverly aged and rusted and looks as though ti's been hanging in place for a hundred years, or at least ten.

It features Australia's most notorious outlaw from times gone by, and while I shan't grumble about the historical improbability of finding such an artefact 3,000 kilometres from his stamping grounds, this is a them park after all, I do wonder how they made the bullets which punched the perfectly triangular holes.

One doesn't see them too often.

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For Lease

At Aussie World, there are one or two empty tenancies, awaiting bright-eyed new tenants.  They have not been left empty and abandoned though.

Actually they probably have, but the windows are painted over to give the impression that they are inhabited.  The curtains are a lovely touch!

Glenview

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