Day 3 at Barrington

Oh boy did it rain last night! I thought the roof was going to cave in with the drumming of the rain on the corrugated veranda roof. The morning sunrise never happened as the clouds were so low that the hills in front could not be seen. The river was definitely noisier than last evening. With morning tea we have a habit of looking at the news on the net and checking email as this is not checked again maybe until evening or even the next day when on holiday. Paul said it seems the net is down and checking the Wi-Fi hub - the light was red. So he spent time troubleshooting and found that our Wi-Fi had been switched off. But since there was a lead connecting the hub with the line through the wall he just pulled out the hub and plugged it directly into the laptop. Hey presto net was back on.

As usual with breakfast we pour over the maps to see where we would like to go today. Yesterday I had seen a turning off the highway for The Lakes Way, a scenic drive which at one point is literally the road with Tasman Sea on one side and lakes on the other. There are a couple of towns – Tuncurry and Forster that are historical.

This time we made proper note of the way we left Barrington and got to Gloucester just to make sure we did not get lost returning – again! We followed the road all the way to Pacific Highway like yesterday and turned to towards Taree. The exit we had to take was Failford Road turning right across the lanes. This was a smaller road and we thought let us see what road signs we come up against today. The first one was Bullocky Way and the next one was Darawank. Both were hilarious but Darawank (means dark waters) in particular as we at once thought about putting this up in Mock The Week Facebook page for Dara O’Briain to see. Shame the page does not allow us to put up the pic but a message was left! Managed to get a picture of Bullocky Way but missed out on clicking Darawank. Maybe next time……

This road ends at a T-junction with The Lakes Way. By now the sun was out and pleasant breeze was blowing – a far cry from the gloomy wet sunrise we had. Drove into Tuncurry and this is where the Wallis Lake meets the Cape Hawke Harbour and there is a long bridge connecting Tuncurry to Forster. We stopped at Tuncurry to have a look around the marina area.

Hooligans are here as well (Cockatoos)

Tuncurry Marina

Big Boat

Meeting of the Wallis Lake and Cape Hawke Harbour

Forster-Tuncurry bridge

This bridge is different for all bridges I have seen The middle was flat and the ends were raised curves.

Forster-Tuncurry Bridge

And we enter Forster and drove right across it. It is very much of a tourist town with usual shops and eating places and walking about the marina and promenade. But instead of stopping we decided to go further down The Lakes Way to the point where for a while you can see water on both sides as per the map. This area appears to be old rainforests and varied vegetation, lots of different palms about and pristine beaches without a soul on them. This is the Booti Booti National Park and it is wonderful the slightly warm salty air and sun occasionally peeping out from grey clouds. We stopped at Seven mile Long Beach and stood watching the waves. Paul even managed to get a vid clip when I was pointing to the holes in the sand and wondering if they were made by razor clams.

Enter Booti Booti

Seven Mile Beach

Alone on this windy beach

We drove a little further but realised that there is forest on either side without actual sighting of water all the way. We also did a quick stop at Boomerang Beach and turned back as it was getting to lunch time by now.

Boomerang Beach

Boomerang Beach 

Crashing waves

Trying to take off at Boomerang beach

Back to Forster and made sure we did not go to the shopping mall with its usual 74 specialist shops! But went to the town centre and found parking for 3 hours. Had a wander around for the fish and chips shop again. We could have had some fancy veggie burger with quinoa or roll with spinach and feta but chips always are the first choice at seaside. While walking the length of the high street we saw a gelato place and decided that was going to be the dessert stop. Now everyone knows we love ice cream but this gelato place was wonderful with new flavours. Paul had blood orange and dark chocolate while I had rum and raisin and fig syrup and mascarpone ice cream. Oh my it was delish! In the middle of it all I decided to see if I had mobile network and as I switched it on I saw messages pouring in with a few missed calls. Seems people were looking for me.  Indeed I got a vid call at once from my friend worried as to why I was missing for the past 2 days! I did try to take pic of my ice creams as some people I know love to see them. But I tried with my phone and the light of the sun was so strong I could not see properly and guess the pic cut off half the ice cream and top of Paul’s head…. hahahaha

Man in Forster

After lunch we wandered up the promenade to see the local pod of pelicans. Both of us are fascinated by pelicans as they are so big but so graceful even when taking off from the water. Here you find them sitting on lampposts at most seaside places.

Pelican in Forster

Came in for a portrait

Pelican pod

As we were walking past the gelato shop I spotted a kitchen ware shop and decided to have a peep in it. You see I have been trying to find a tea leaf strainer so I can do away with buying tea bags after all these years. I try being green so decided high time I gave up tea bags but did not want to buy a pot to make tea. More over its good to wander through kitchenware place as you never know what you might find. And yes there were tea strainers of all variety. I got the mesh ball and spring mesh tea infusers. The eye caught a glimpse of some crockery that was colourful. I liked a couple of bowls with patterns made in dots so we got those too.

Then it was time to start the journey back and fingers crossed to not get lost like yesterday. We saw some big bird high up but could not make out what it was. Maybe we will see it again. The galahs and rosella were out along with the wrens darting across the road. This time we found the road correctly and reached to the cottage in time for a cup of tea. The evening was pleasant but the clouds had come down again. Seems we were going to be in for some more rain. Indeed after last night the river crossing was fast flowing. Dinner was some toast and brie with tomatoes and more potato salad from yesterday and plums. Nite nite!

Clouds descending 

Day 2 at Barrington

Sleeping in a strange place is a little hard but we were pretty tired and even with waking up a couple of times we had a long sleep. The morning calls were of kookaburras cackling instead of the lorikeets that we have these days at home. We have a routine on holidays were it is leisurely waking up and having a cup of tea before shower and another cup of tea. Then I checked the email and Facebook while having a bowl of porridge. Trying to use the microwave should be easy but the instruction manual has a few pages of fine print. So the first bowl of porridge overflowed and I had to clean up the inside getting my finger caught in hot porridge.

We decided to go towards Gloucester and maybe on to Taree. Getting out of the property we turned right instead of left. Paul was certain that was the way to go and get to the main road to get back to Barrington and from there to Gloucester. The road goes up and down hills with some places being broken tar and so pretty bumpy. The clouds were low but at least it was not raining. 

Today’s strange road signs – dog trap creek and actually the dog coats sign again - it is for sale dog coats….. now is this coats for dog or coats made out of dog hair. Another sign said No Bull... did it mean they only had shit? One more - Looking for free mulch - now were they looking for it or were people passing by were looking for it and could get it there? I have seen somewhere on the net that cat and dog hair can be used to make coats. By the time we reached Gloucester the sun was peeping out and the weather was cool and pleasant. We stopped at a parking place right next to the tourist information. We have found that it is the best thing to do when you enter a new area or town as you can get a fair amount of information and have a pleasant chat with the people working there.

Got some local maps and leaflets about waterfalls and local birds. Yesterday I had seen some beautiful birds. A quick glimpse had been of a red head and a green body with white speckles. Having looked this description up on the net I found it was the Eastern Rosella. So getting the bird leaflet was good I thought but I was wrong as there are only names and no pictures. For someone who is new like me it is not very helpful. I had to search for local birds images then click to see if I could find a name. NO that would be too simple! Some people put up photos without any names and so I end up copying the image and doing an image search. A nice little lesson on researching the Internet.

Eastern Rosella

This town was 200 years old in 2003 and the celebration of that double centenary included putting up of mosaics on the oldest building which used to be originally barber’s shop and then a newsagents. It still is a newsagent’s store. Then we walked up and down the high street and found that small squares of mosaics embedded in the pavement at regular intervals. While you can see the pictures of the big ones I did not want to put up about 30 small ones too. 

List of Mosiacs

Had a quick look at house prices – something I like doing. There seem to be much fairer price of properties around here.

Local Grocery Store

Bucketts Mountain and its replica

Onward to Taree from here. We had to make our way from Gloucester along Bucketts Way to Nabiac. There are 2 ways of going to Taree from there by this time we were in a convoy of a big milk tanker in front with 3 cars and then us and a lorry behind us. We thought of taking the smaller road which is shorter by 4kms. But as we turned into it and saw the surface was not too good we decided to turn around and get back behind the truck to go for the pacific Highway. The first exist on the highway was called Failford Road and said it lead to The Lake Ways – another tourist trail. We got to Taree about 11 30 am. This seemed a much bigger town. Gloucester had a population of 2500 but Taree is about 18000. The town has a couple shopping malls across from each other- Manning Mall and Taree Central. Both are not very big and with usual shops and supermarkets. There are places to eat as usual. After checking out the food court we decided to have a look around before deciding if this is where we wanted lunch. Then driving around to see if we could find a chip shop (there should be one as this is riverside) we got lost around the small streets. 

Uniting Church

Beautiful School

We got to Chatham which is a suburb and found a pie shop which certainly did not chips. We ended up driving around and coming back to the riverside. We could see the bridge across the Manning River – Martin Bridge. There was a restaurant just there and it looked good. There was a small play area for kids in front with many benches for people to sit and relax by the waterside and have lunch. I would love to be working in this small town just for the afternoon lunch time by the river. We sat outside in the restaurants and watched channel 7 doing a on the spot interview with one assumes a local businessman? There were the usual seagulls and a few pelicans lazily flying and paddling about. A pleasant afternoon lazy lunch. The smoothies were unusual – one was mixed berries, banana, vanilla, yogurt and fig syrup and the other was raspberry delight which had gingerbread syrup, raspberries and yogurt. A good experience which could have been better had this been a nice cold drink for by now the sun was beating down and it was 31C.

Manning River

Martin Bridge over Manning River

Across the Manning River

Post Lunch Sugar hit

Lone Pelican

Large Clam which failed as tourist attraction and now a car dealership

We started back and decided to return the other way back to Gloucester – Bucketts Way. We thought it could not be worse than other small roads that we had travelled. This was scenic way through the hills. And we came across the longest ever road works on which on one was working. I mean the road had been tarred but no lines were drawn yet and warning of loose gravel every few meters. It was about 10kms or so but no problem as there was just us and other couple of odd cars poodling along. Now when we got to Gloucester and thought right just a few more kilometres and we are home and thinking of that cup of tea we forgot that the nearest way from Gloucester to Barrington was not along the Bucketts Way (after all yesterday was not that far back in memory). So off we went further away from Barrington on the main road. We fairly whizzed pass the Gloucester Tops Road and did a quick stop and u-turn to get back on to the road to get to the right road. Now this looked familiar as we drove up it. Further along we got to a split in the road and saw that Barrington was one way and Gloucester was also along that way. Seeing that we turned down and as we went further it all looked unfamiliar. Opps now we were on the road that was getting narrower and going towards where? There was a creek to cross and indeed the next one was a ford with swift flowing water coming half way up the wheels. Eventually we got to the main road – ah yes Bucketts Way again and much nearer to Gloucester than we wanted to be. So back along the way to the turning of Gloucester Tops Road. We had done a big loop and not found Barrington and I had visions of us going round and round in circles being so near and yet so far from Barrington. This time we drove very slowly after the first split in the road and found the sharp turn left we had missed the first time as the sign was hidden among the leaves for the bushes. Suddenly now we found the familiar bits of the road and reached an hour later that expected.

Got back and sat down with a cup of tea in the veranda and the drizzle started. Then it continued to rain heavily all through the night. The gusts of winds making the rain hammer down on the roof till we could not hear the TV on full volume. It was pretty noisy trying to sleep.

Day 1 at Barrington

Ohhhh holidays…. After nearly 3 years. This is the week of Paul’s birthday celebrations. We have been to many places down south and only once up north till the Hunter Valley. So we thought maybe it was time to move a little further up.  Saw this place called Barrington Riverside Cottages situated at the edge of the Barrington Tops National Park, with the nearest small town called Barrington. It looked picturesque and so we booked it.

We were leaving on Sunday morning and as usual I was packing half hour before we were due to leave. By the time I had collected a few clothes, all my medicines and chargers for phone, camera and tooth brushes as well as a cool bag with water and some bread butter cheeses I felt as if I was carrying more than half my house with me.

Filled the car with petrol and then decided might as well take some cash as we have no idea if the pay wave would work in some of the smaller places. There is definitely an issue with phone and internet connections in the countryside. Right it was 10 30 am when we finally turned off the road from our burb and thought blimey this is Sunday and where are all these people going? However the traffic was moving and we reached the freeway to find a traffic jam as there was a car broken down just 2 exits away. The left hand lane was closed further up but do you think that people would right away move into the other lane? Oh no! we have to bomb up the closed lane right up to the point of closure and then barge into the middle lane getting one up on people who were obeying the traffic rules.

Once past the breakdown the road opened up and off we went. We drove up the M1 right the motorway ends and then becomes Pacific Highway. Amazing seeing names of places from around the world as Toronto exit was just before Swansea; Newcastle and Wallsend and Cardiff. Since we were taking it easy and also like to see as much of the countryside as we can we went off the highway to take the Tourist Trail 2 called the Bucketts Way. By now it was coming up to 12 30 pm and I said we need to stop and have a break; maybe find something to eat? So next rest stop we came to we stopped and of course it was only toilets and a few seats. So off we went again after stretching the legs. The road was single lane each way and just trees and grass around. I think it was all part of people’s farms as often there were cattle chewing the cud or sitting about. There were signs along the way that were amusing, like Pony Poo $2; Piglet for sale; dog coats and so on. We also skirted the edge of Karuah National Park, past Booral to the historic town of Stroud.

Stroud is a one main road town and we were hoping there was some place to eat as Booral had all placed closed. There was a sign at the start of town that there were tea rooms and we thought at least there will be some tea. I wondered if there was Devon Cream Tea like we had once before in Victoria on the way to Ballarat. It was all the way to the other end of town and as we parked I said this does not look very open. Indeed there was no one about and the door was shut but the board outside said it was open 7 days a week. Then round the side I saw some people sitting around tables.

This was a lovely place tea rooms / café with store selling locally produced knickknacks as well as jams, cakes and biscuits made by Crepe Myrtle themselves. The menu was fairly extensive with teas, cakes, sandwiches, soups, pizzas, quiches and so on. However this was 2 pm and quiches were over. We could have nice cheesy garlicky pizza and cream tea. The scones were good and warm, the clotted cream light and homemade raspberry jam. It felt good to fill up.

Of we went happily up the Bucketts Way and the rain started. It soon became heavy and the water started flooding the sides of the road and the slightly lower areas. Soon the dips in the roads were awash with water. The wipers were going at double speed and it was still hard to see. We stopped for a few minutes by the side but then thought it might be wiser to try and get away fast. Paul was looking to the left and over to where the clouds were low on the hills and said what he thought was a small whirlwind hitting the ground. But as I turned around to look it had started dissipating.  As we went further we came across large branches across the rood, further up a couple of trees across the road. I think some 4 x 4 had driven through the branches and cleared one side. Maybe this is where that small whirlwind hit the ground. The rain had now slowed and we were trying to find small turn offs. The signs are not very big and on poles right at the edge of the road where they tend to get covered by the trees and bushes. So we were delighted that we found the Barrington W road as we thought at the end wold be the cottages we were going to. As the house numbers started going down we thought yes! we are on the right road. But then we seemed to go past the number we wanted but there was nothing in between so where did the whole place go? Should we call the place and ask? Oh yes did we have coverage on our mobile? Just then we saw the first and only man walking down the road. He said we needed to go to the end of the road turn right towards Barrington and then again first right on to the Barrington East Road!

North Tableland

Finally found the place and it is really in the middle of nowhere. The cottage is on stilts like so many places. The veranda faces west and overlooks the Barrington River.  There is a barbie, a lawn chair, a wooden bench, and wooden table and 4 chairs on the veranda. The sitting room had one 3 seater and 2 one seater sofas another wooden dining table and 4 chairs. The kitchen runs across the wall with a small hotplate and kettle and toaster. The cabinet has the heavy duty microwave and strangely the upper shelves are holding the DVD player, the satellite box and the TV on the topmost shelf. There is a fridge freezer in the other cubby hole.

River Cottage

You turn left by the fridge and it has the sink and shelves for your bits and bobs. Move forward into the toilet and shower cabinet. The bedroom lies to the right – nice comfy bed and built in cupboard, the full length glass French windows. All in all fairly comfortable but I guess it had been kept shut for a while so the inside was pretty hot. Opened all the doors and windows, made a cuppa and sat listening to the murmur of the river and wind in the trees. And then the heavens opened here as well. Sat and had some sushi (sadly found that sushi kept overnight in the fridge and then in the cool box does not fare well as the rice had become hard and chewy and it all felt a bit dry) and chocolate for dessert. Oh yea Paul managed to get the internet going and the TV so we settled in for the night.

Happy 60th Paul

Celebrating Shashti Poorti, a significant milestone, memorable turning point

Apparently prayers and reaffirming of marriage vows mark this point

Everyone says happy birthday to you

But is it enough for me to just say happy birthday to you?

How can a few words even dent the many emotions

That are surely are expressed in everyday caring motions

I look forward to everyday spent with you

Hoping that it is the same with you

Wishing for you, health and happiness and peace

And I do all I can to help you live a life of ease

Cooking the foods you love

But baking a cake I cannot manage, love

I might be a tad obsessive about small issues

But you soon remind me they are but minor issues

I might annoy you a little by forgetting an odd thing

And giggles at bedtime and loud songs I occasionally sing

The best time with you has always been on holidays

The amazing places, sights and laughter we share on holidays

You used to wear everything blue when we first met

Now you wear clothes of every colour I can get

That hair went red in the sunshine

Now the hair is bleached with age and sunshine

The knees might creak but the walk is still tall

Ready to pick me up every time I fall

Strong believes and values you live up to

Makes you one that I look up to

Just as you stand between me and the world

I also always aim to protect you from this world

I could go on and on but enough for now

Let me leave some words for another poem about thou

Happy Birthday Paul

Need for Respect for the Dead

This last couple of weeks have been a sad time as I heard about deaths of people I know or of relatives of my friends. Most of the time when someone dies people say must not speak ill of the dead and everybody on social media got to blessing the departed soul with words like rest in peace. Social media can be a good place for your acquaintances and not so close family to comment and send condolences. But this week two actors passed away one was from the UK and very well known for her role as Alice in The Vicar of Dibely and the other a Bollywood icon with career spanning a few decades.

My thought process is about how the two were remembered by the media and the public. For the lady from UK there were many messages about what a wonderful actor she was and obituaries in different places by friends and fellow actors. While people are curious when someone young passes away the only comment made by family were ‘natural causes’ which seems to be pretty much respected and no further digging was done into the person’s history.

The furore over the Bollywood icon’s demise could not be any further different than this. The lady in question was at once mourned by many with messages of RIP and genuine sadness from the fans around the world. But this soon turned into a media circus with details of this lady’s personal, medical and mental health history being dragged across the media and speculated on with opinions of all and sundry. The initial cause of cardiac arrest got changed to heart attack and then to drowning in bath tub due to unconsciousness. Do we really need such detail? Does it make a death any less painful and sad? Then there was moralising about why so much cosmetic surgery and all the regimens of keeping slim and pretty from various news and entertainment websites. There is so much salacious gossip also about her life history not just about her acting career (which generally is acceptable to summarise) but also her personal relationships at all levels.

This is not only unnecessary but so very intrusive for the family as well as dare I say the dead. Can we not let a person die in peace? What is gained by dragging out every sordid or otherwise detail of a life that was mostly lived in the public glare? Privacy is at a premium for everyone in this day and age especially for people who have a celebrity status. People can sue if they are unhappy about breaches of their privacy. So does it mean that it is a free for all in breaching privacy as the person is dead? I have read the headlines and that had been enough to get me annoyed that why a person cannot be left alone after death? Does the public have a ‘right’ to tear apart someone’s life and scavenge on the details? Are human beings really so inconsiderate? Or is the media just creating a furore and putting out ‘news’ which they say the public wants? This feels so wrong and wonder if anyone actually gets taken to task for crossing the line? How does one stop this kind of dissection of a dead person’s life for just sensational gossip?

Can too much of a Good Thing be Bad for You?

Can too much of a good thing be bad? This expression can be used in relation to so many things like food or drink or money. But can it be used for attitude or say positivity or inspirational examples in life. We certainly seem to be focusing a lot on being positive, reading quotes that highlight good and positive and indeed inspire us to promote holistic wellbeing. Along with quotes and memes that tell you to be better, be stronger, be smarter, be more thoughtful, be more and more and more of everything. Do not give up, dream bigger and set goals and strive to move onwards and upwards. I, myself, like to see these quotes and put them up in my social media. I choose them very randomly – just what catches my eye and strikes a chord with my mood that day.

However, something always holds me back from putting up too many positive inspirational ones as I feel they are not realistic for some people like me. Let me clarify this point of view. I am chronically ill and have been so from 11 years now. I have connective tissue disease that is autoimmune disease. It is a multi-faceted disease where the body has turned on itself and so there is random inflammation of connective tissues with no pattern or predictability. The disease is insidious and slow to progress and therefore diagnose which took two and half years. While the doctors were doing wait and watch things went downhill. I reached rock bottom when I was unable to even lift my eyelids without excruciating pain.

The way up from that mire of pain, lack of sleep and depression only started when I actually started proper treatment. Oh I had tried all the natural therapies and supplements, acupuncture, gentle exercises, push through the pain and it will all be better therapy, do not lose hope and think positive thoughts to get back into the healthy frame of mind, mind over matter, prayers and so on. I wanted my old life back. I wanted to be able to work and earn as I had since the age of 18. I wanted to go for holidays and complete my PhD. All this also produces stress and has adverse effect on the autoimmune issues.

Once the treatment started I had to get to the stage of acceptance of the reality. Acceptance is a hard won battle and it leads to asking yourself what quality of life is acceptable to you? It is true that some people go into remission but you still have to focus on small goals to reach an acceptable quality of life. I thought this over carefully and even discussed it with my husband and we settled on issues that were important – to be self-caring, able to do the house work, be able to go out to the shops, occasional outings for fun were the goals. The cold weather did not help as for some unknown reason I found it hard to handle the cold I used to enjoy before so warm weather was something I needed. Family issues of illness and deaths added on more stress. A solution we came upon was to move to a warmer place and reduce relationships’ stress by the move. Moving itself is one of the major stressors but for the eventual good outcome I pushed through this upheaval. After the move the next thing was should I work but we decided that not working would be more stress reduction. At the same time my medication was upped and the whole journey to getting stable took another 4 years after diagnosis.

Going back to can too much of a good thing be bad – the acceptance and stability in health was along road and hard fought. I was poodling along nicely helping others and working with them to adapt as this I saw was the way to dealing with long term illness and having self-worth. All of us need to feel valued and wish to contribute to society and I had to find ways of doing so. 

On and off I see write ups about people who have overcome adversity, ill heath, disability and even death bed to achieve goals that would have been almost impossible. While I am happy for people who have done this and would give high praise to survivors of all kinds it suddenly makes you question all the decisions you have taken. Should I have not given up work? Should I have done something different and got into another profession? Am I not a strong person for I appear to have chickened out of the whole upbeat do the best and more to get back to being a ‘productive’ person? Do others perceive me as a quitter? All these ‘good’ ‘positive’ achievement stories have shaken my self-belief that I am doing the best I can. 

Being stable as it is, raises self-doubt about the extent of the illness. I only have to try reducing any of my medications and the symptoms come creeping back telling me remission is not my fate. And still these positive stories make me sad and uncomfortable with myself and yes almost a failure for not being able to be this ‘strong’ person. I guess my cycle to grieving was not over and will never be over as small things can take you back……..to the start… rebuild my self-worth and self-confidence. So YES too much of a good thing – as in positive stories, positive and inspirations quotes and well-meaning advice – is a bad thing for me.

40 Years

My father met his friend after 40 years

Oh the joy he felt when they recalled their college years

I teased them about their constant – Oh My God! After 40 years!

They said your generation might not remember anyone after 40 years

Now it’s ironic that I have found a number of old friends, you guessed it – after 40 years

The joy of finding them took me right back 40 years

So much change has happened in 40 years

But still a lot is same and easily recognised even after 40 years

Exchanging life stories covering 40 years

Rejoicing for the good times in the 40 years

Commiserating over the losses over the 40 years

Hope we keep in touch instead of waiting for another 40 years!